In Defense of INDECOM

Today we live in extraordinary times when unprecedented events keep happening that undermine the stability of our world. Scamming, youth apathy, bleaching, waves of crime and violence. This is a time and place where those in power and control seem unable to deal with the issues of the day, and no-one has any vision of a different or a better kind of future. It seems paradoxical and contrary to me that the government is unable to negotiate payment of the Police yet now, for the sake of political grandstanding, for public relations relief our Prime Minister has proposed to pay the legal expenses of Police who are under the scrutiny of INDECOM, undermining the same institution his party predecessors implemented. Simply for political expedience, human rights gains are reversed.

I can see no logic to this as 1. this position doesn't fix the economic/wage, social and psychological problems within the police system. 2.This position takes an adversarial stance to INDECOM. Positing that the agency goes "too far" with regard to police oversight. In practical terms, INDECOM is one of the few human rights steps we have taken to have a major effect in the country on the ground. 3. INDECOM is not an impediment to crime fighting. To truly fight crime we need one an accountable an effective police system. One which we know is free of corruption, one which is paid properly, trained properly. We need a system of comprehensive forensics and follow up of an investigation. The fight against crime requires a more efficient legal system and justice system, the removing of a corrupt judiciary, not more laws, but the execution and carrying out of the laws we do have with greater speed and efficiency. The work of fighting "crime" which is an intangible and nebulous thing or concept, takes substantive efforts in the spheres of education, culture and economics, not public relations fluff, not political grandstanding. Fixing the country is real work.

The police is a very old institution in this country, with a history of policing over a slave class and second class citizens. Let us not forget one of the early display of police brutality and state force in the Coral Gardens Incident of 1963. Let us not pretend that the history of the police was to use force against newly freed slaves to protect the interest of the former plantocracy and that legacy of force has morphed into a present day where the police have become apathetic with regard to doing the actual work of investigation and follow up, but would rather just shoot first and ask question later if ask any at all. I know many good police officers, some who employ community policing and social approaches, but believe me, they are far outnumbered by the epidemic of brutality and corruption that has infected the police. It is common knowledge that power corrupts, so we must now ask "who watches the watchman" another common expression. Oversight of the police is necessary and a must.

Those who decry INDECOM have forgotten the social circumstance that led to the birth of INDECOM, years of Braeton 7, Kraal Killings, Kentucky Kid, an age when there was less technology at our disposal and even less precision in law enforcement. A time when the police force was simply a BLUNT instrument when innocent lives could easily be swept up in the murder of flat-footed alleged criminals being executed on sight. A time when the good suffered at the hands of the police with the bad, when respect for the citizenry outside of "Risto-dom" was nil, when police were contemptuous of domiciles with zinc fences or board houses. When civil liberties were trampled with impunity and extrajudicial killings were protested on the news nightly. What is required today in Jamaica is a more clinical Jamaica Constabulary.

Are we to pretend all the international reports about our police and policing don't exist? Are we to pretend all the national enquiries and commissions pointing to inadequacies in our policing body and methodology don't exist? Are we to forget the brutal display of force in the May 2010 Tivoli incursion? There are not that many agencies the public can use to challenge the state administratively or constitutionally, shall we erode one of the few? Then what next, dismantle the office of The Public Defender? We cannot let fear of crime cause us, to cowardly erode our own social gains and civil liberties, we should instead rise to the challenge of doing the hard work of rooting out corruption, implementing better-policing tools and methods, fixing the judiciary, fixing the economy! Let us not follow the Prime Minister in taking this cowardly path out of fear and for political expediency. Please let us not!

Jamaica and the Trans Pacific Partnership

America's New Secret Nafta!

Jamaica needs to urgently start examining the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). I am imploring that both the Ministry of Finance and Planning and the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce, consider the future implications of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In November 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced Washington’s official pivot to Asia. Outlining a vision for an Asia-Pacific Century, Secretary Clinton described a desired symbiotic and unfettered relationship between the two regions that will provide “unprecedented opportunities for investment, trade, and access to cutting-edge technology.” At the center of this pivot has been the TPP, an enigmatic trade pact that has been hailed as a true “21st century agreement,” a purported free trade deal between 11 countries, including the U.S., Canada and Japan, which has been in negotiations for some years.

As a centerpiece of President Obama’s pivot to Asia, which includes Latin America via the TPP, the trade pact sets a powerful, if not potentially dangerous, precedent for future trade agreements in the emerging region. But instead of encouraging sustainable economic trends and responsible transnational relations, the TPP could enact the same policies that have been proven detrimental in past smaller-scale agreements like NAFTA. The TPP rhetoric misrepresents the potential of free trade as it encourages, through greater international regulations, such as those seen in the intellectual property and investment chapters, the creation of domestic policies to manipulate the international market. Often, these actions strengthen the economically powerful, particularly by granting to the leadership the right to set its own nation’s course of action and implement its own visions, while those at the margins suffer. Thus, the TPP presents a troubling case of free trade being purchased at too great a price.

Let us remember that after the United States, Canada and Mexico agreed to become a single market as part of the North American Free Trade Agreement, their exports to each other boomed. But here in the Caribbean, the economies of America's much smaller neighbours reeled from the impact of that success and found it almost impossible to compete. From the apparel plants of Jamaica to the sugar-cane fields of Trinidad, Nafta  resulted in the loss of jobs, markets and income for the vulnerable island nations of the region.

Nafta's devastating effect on the Caribbean was widely fore-casted before the treaty's passage in 1993 and Washington had suggested it would cushion the blow by extending similar trade preferences to the island nations. However, the Clinton Administration's proposals to give the Caribbean ''Nafta parity'' was twice foundered in Congress in election years. It is then easy to see the troubles of the TPP which seems would come into effect vrey close to the U.S. election season.

When Nafta went into effect, the creation of new jobs in Jamaica stopped altogether and overall unemployment rose to 16 percent from 9.5 percent, according to the Statistical Institute of Jamaica. In Mexico it failed to provide equitable stipulations for labor conditions, environmental protection, or investment regulations. Laborers on both sides of the border saw their collective bargaining powers diminish after NAFTA.

Critics of Nafta then, contended that NAFTA should have been transformed from a “free” trade agreement to a “fair” trade agreement through revisions that create jobs instead of destroying them, protect workers, and create an environment that allowed citizens to stay in their home country and earn a fair living wage.

So it is no surprise then that critics of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement have noted that the deal has little to do with free trade. Rather, the TPP is about limiting regulation, helping corporate interests and imposes fiercer standards of intellectual property (to, again, largely benefit corporate interests).

Noam Chomsky has decried the TPP, he told HuffPost Live that the deal, which is not yet finalized, is “designed to carry forward the neoliberal project to maximize profit and domination, and to set the working people in the world in competition with one another so as to lower wages to increase insecurity.”

Chomsky said it was “a joke” that the deal is designated a “free trade” agreement. “It’s called free trade, but that’s just a joke,” Chomsky said. “These are extreme, highly protectionist measures designed to undermine freedom of trade. In fact, much of what’s leaked about the TPP indicates that it’s not about trade at all, it’s about investor rights.”

On reviewing the leaked draft TPP chapter, intellectual property law expert Dr. Matthew Rimmer called the deal, “a Christmas wish-list for major corporations.”

This so-called trade pact of the future covers far more than just trade, with chapters addressing modern topics such as an extension of investment past real property, intellectual property rights, and environmental standards among others. There is no question that the agreement would positively affect many signatory nations’ economies; however, many of the proposed regulations pushed by the U.S. would violate regional domestic laws while compromising national sovereignty.

As a Jamaican I am asking in particular the Honourable Anthony Hylton, Jamaica's Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce, to be cognizant of the impact of the TPP and its implications for International Law and our domestic laws. I also ask that in any international bargaining that we be put on a level playing field with other international players, and to secure strong lobby and collective bargaining power to secure our owning international commercial future! I ask that the Minister secure us  the opportunity not to be prevented from taking full advantage of the International markets now and not when we begin reeling from the impact of the TPP.

World Boss vs Bulb Boss: Rule of Law floundering in Jamaica!

"It is when your spirit goes wandering upon the wind,
That you, alone and unguarded, commit a wrong unto others and therefore unto yourself.
And for that wrong committed must you knock and wait a while unheeded at the gate of the blessed.
...And of the man in you would I now speak.
For it is he and not your god-self nor the pigmy in the mist, that knows crime and the punishment of crime."
By Kahlil Gibran

I am compelled point to the glaring hypocrisy at the core of much of the media commentaries surrounding the Whirl Boss and his conviction. Many have been quick to lambaste him, as maybe he deserves to be, but I ask... "What part did the gatekeepers of information have in building the Vybz Kartel they are no so quick to turn their back on?" Were not the media gatekeepers too neglecting their social responsibility by not better regulating the airwaves, and not filtering what was being syphoned to the nation?

I would like to point to the glaring hypocrisy at the core of the decision to free Kern "Bulb Boss" Spencer. The government has shown its will to decisively uphold the rule of law is weak. The impetus for impartiality and legal ethics in our government today is missing.

We live in a time and political climate in Jamaica where the state seems  committed to consistently targeting the marginalized, who are not  able to buy the best lawyers and with political connections. Rarely, if ever are corrupt politicians and white collar criminals brought to justice. Hence the nation has no faith in the justice system, nor does it believe in the institutions charged with maintaining law and order.

The government has the will to press through anti-gang legislation, public smoking legislation (even as they muddled it), scamming and fraud legislation. Yet to financially and medically empower Jamaicans by legalizing medical marijuana as well as decriminalizing it usage whilst making licensing easy and accessible to Jamaica's poor and dispossessed is something they are willing to pussyfoot around. All while madam PM goes globe hopping I suppose!

Here is a point of note on the rule of law to our ministries of security and justice… Rule of law deals with the range of processes and relationships amongst individual and state.  The crucial idea that has grown out of the rule of law as it has developed in the UK and is adopted here in Jamaica, posits in Albert Venn Dicey’s understanding  that “the law should not be arbitrarily or capriciously administered by those in power”

The Constitution of Jamaica implicitly states that the power or duties of each arm of government should not overlap... Yet Resident Magistrates don’t have security of tenure as part of the public service and fall within the executive arm of the state. Hence the Court System we have before us may very well contravene the constitution and the notion of the separation of powers as well as undermining the doctrine of rule of law. The Jamaican RM Court is a one of a kind in the world. No other such structure exists. An arbitrary structure, with arbitrary administration and hence the arbitrary administration of justice.

Let us not forget the mess made in the creation of the gun court, it was an embarrassment in Jamaican scholarship and jurisprudence. The unusual features of the Gun Court have faced legal handicaps, some of which have forced amendment of the Gun Court Act. The Gun Court has faced criticism on several fronts, most notably for its departure from traditional practices, its large backlog of cases, and for the continuing escalation in gun violence since its institution. If these things are not proof that we need better jurisprudence and more honest and fair delivery of justice.

A 1993 County Report on Human Rights Practices in Jamaica from the United States Department of State noted the denial of a "fair public trial" and alleged that Gun Court trials observe "less rigorous rules of evidence than in regular court proceedings." 

The Canadian Bar Association's Jamaican Justice System Reform Task Force noted that the Gun Court is overloaded, that defendants are not well represented, and Crown attorneys are often inexperienced. Hence even internationally it is evident and plain to see that we are a unique court system and a particularly arbitrary one!

If we are to move forward as a nation we must cut these wretched political hypocrisies in our system!

I close with a quote from - John Adams, “Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.”

The Sly Hypocrisy of the Homosexual Agenda: Making Dwayne Jones into a Martyr

Now when the international press comes feasting for a story in Montego Bay and on Montegonians, I and I as The Montegonian have to chant. The story is that of the Gully Queen, whose real name is Dwayne Jones. He was a trans-gendered individual who died because of deception, yet his murder is being portrayed as a hate crime and is a stereotyping of Jamaica's attitude towards homosexuality. He is the new poster boy of all anti-Jamaica and gay lobby groups. However once again, the homosexual bias has "reared" its ugly head. With the recent KGN Squatter issue, they made it a gay issue.

You probably won't see this Blog or article being mentioned on the Huffingtonpost or Global Voices... owing to the fact that to be cool and savvy in today's Web 2.0, 3.0 world of social networks and personal brand identities, one has to stay politically correct to gain popularity, climb through the mystery of S.E.O. ranking schema, matrices and algorithms, one has to be espousing "progressive" neo-liberal, globalist, capitalist, "forward thinking views" and anything that may not be PRO-homosexuality is usually maligned as backward and antiquated. I have spoken to this homosexual hypocrisy already. If one is not saying yeah for gay... you will be shut up and shut off as homophobic.

Certain realities fail to be addressed by foreign media and local when examining the Dwayne Jones case... it can very well be contended, that the man's crime was not truly cross dressing. The most articles only look at a part of the issue. The young man was not murdered because he was gay or homosexual, his offense was not being a cross-dresser. He was killed because he violated the space and right of another man and other men by dancing (simulating a sex act, erotic dance: one drop) while pretending to be a woman. He made physical contact with heterosexual males, danced with them, it is alleged as one witness put it "even the selector tek a dagger offa him." I agree wholeheartedly that executing him was harsh and wrong. I never advocate for extra-judicial killings.

I will never agree to the murder of any human being for biases of sexuality, I have to wonder, has anyone given thought to the fact that persons have committed suicide after being tricked like this? That on some level that act like this are tantamount to sexual harassment? It causes arousal and stimulation by deception and physical violation.

But this small bit of truth will no doubt be shoveled and buried by the media, the spin doctors, liars and lobbyist. Huffingtonpost and Global Voices for all their citizen journalism, all the moral high ground, all the insightful commentary, they never examined once the tyranny of terror that was Bebe and Jasper and how they were the origins of scamming in Montego Bay... a pair of maniacal cross dressing gun wielding homosexual scammers, parading with "straps" and thongs from Fairview's Texaco to KFC downtown to Baywest to Pier 1. How they rooted themselves in Granville is fairly common knowledge in the city. But the darker sides of scamming money and murders, poverty and gay pedophilia in Jamaica are swept under the rug for this untruthful campaign against Jamaica and what is perceived as its attitude to homosexuality. NO ONE investigated the serious link with homosexuality and scamming.

You won't hear this from Minority Insight or Active Voice but I live in Montego Bay and I know gay women living in communities now, flouting their life and lifestyle on the corners and on Facebook now in Montego Bay from Norwood, Flankers, Salem, Canterbury, to Ironshore, Westgate Hills, Spring Farm and Bogue, chilling on corners without harm. Yet I see no interview with them, no expose asking them how they navigate their existence so peacefully. Or what are the rigors of the Homosexual condition in Jamaica, outside of the iconic misrepresentation from the likes of Stacy Chinn.

Forward to the issue of what Dwayne Jones really did again. Let us make it clear... He aroused males by dancing with them and not letting them know he was a male. A woman spotted him out. Now I have even heard media calls for her to be spotted out, what vile hypocrisy now to try and punish a woman for revealing the truth. Not even blinking to content that Dwayne may have been naive to even think cross dressing was cool in Jamaica, but it think it fun to violate peoples belief on the notion and practise of homosexuality by letting them unknowingly participate in a homosexual ritual.

To some males and individuals, being "played" like and played with like in such a manner is equivalent to death- socially and physical. It is my sincere belief that this young 17-year-old would still be in the land of the living had he not taken away, by deception, the right of other males to decide if he wanted to be involved in a homosexual activity and by this I mean: dancing with another man.

Gay people go about their business in Jamaica every day without being provoked. Dwayne should have kept his antics to just YouTube. This is what happens when one provokes and deceives a crowd... the metamorphosis into maddened mob.