C. Roy ReynoldsSO AMNESTY International has provided a rationale for gunmen to kill police. Not that they have said so explicitly, but it is clearly implied.
For if the police are engaged in murdering people in cold blood then it must be logical that people can kill police in self-defence. One never knows what a murderous cut-throat will do so the safest thing to do is to get him first.
The equation is distinctly in your favour for you could rest assured that while you have sent the policeman to meet whatever fate awaits him on the other side you can plead self-defence, and in any case if you are convicted none dare give you a dose of your own medicine lest the wrath of the world descend on you, courtesy of Amnesty International.
It seems trite to repeat this, but who seeks or supports amnesty for the people who are daily murdered? Does the organisation not have the common decency to enquire and advocate on their behalf? Why doesn't the organisation try to establish a dialogue with the bulk of the Jamaican people; hear their opinion and reason with them. Why does it come in like the reincarnation of some ancient tzar, and issue condemnation and threats to the legal authorities of this country.
It seems that this is a unique experience. For how could such a hostile group, descend on us, condemn and threaten us on national prime time television. From what I learned about the organisation over the years it is usually obliged to gather its evidence surreptitiously and issue its edicts from afar.
Countries which trample on human rights do not allow easy access to the evidence of their misdeeds. In such countries where human rights are trampled upon the first to go is freedom of speech. And the fact that foreign representatives can come here and threaten and condemn the constituted authority should make the vocal stranger and his cohorts pause and ponder.
Speech is so free in this country that even jackasses can talk and we do not even limit it to local jackasses. Foreign ones are free to indulge!
I wonder where those brave representatives were when the New York police pumped over 40 bullets recently into an unarmed man standing before his doorway. Did they threaten the whole New York administration and livelihood from a soap box in Central Park or over network television in New York?
America today executes more people than any other industrialised nation.
What does Amnesty Inter-national do about it? Does it dare threaten to initiate a world economic and social boycott? Does it dare to condemn and agitate against the now President who as Governor of Texas never saw a death warrant that he did not like? But it is not only its hypocrisy that is ludicrous. By its very action it encourages the thing it is ranting about.
One does not, for instance, have to support the death penalty to understand that you have to approach its abolition with logic and understanding. When you use threats as an instrument of your agitation for abolishment and when you come down exclusively on the side of murderers you, however unwittingly, ensure the growth of killings by police as well as for citizen retaliation. So lives are lost, not saved.
In a perfect world there would be no police or private killing. But the idea of a perfect world is a non-starter. In the real world a gunman kills a policeman or somebody's father or brother.
Amnesty International on the other hand insists that under no circumstances must the offender suffer a similar fate, as is provided for by law.
The policeman or the citizen knows that even if the culprit is apprehended it is not even possible to ensure that he will not escape from prison. And that even in prison he can easily order their execution. So what do you expect. You think he is likely to wait patiently on God?
I am willing to bet that this factor weighs heavily on our situation and that the aggressive intervention by groups such as Amnesty International adds to the problem rather than abates it. The only concession to finesse I can detect in the instant case is the selection of a black foreigner to issue the threats and promise of retribution. What I would be interested to know is what is the status of his native land and what he is doing about it?
In the end a country gets what it deserves and what it deserves is best established by consensus of the majority of the people. How dare a little group come from yonder to dictate to the majority of the Jamaican people, like some all-knowing colonialist overlords.
As a Jamaican I find the way they have chosen to go about their mission downright insulting and I might add: damn feisty!
C. Roy Reynolds is a freelance journalist.
