Martin HenryIN THE wake of the Braeton killings and the controversies which have been raging across the nation since March 14, I have held my counsel on the matter until I could say something hopefully useful at an opportune moment. The law should, of course, take its course in the resolution of the matter. The problem is, however, we have come to live in a time and place of great lawlessness, disregard for due process, and great fear on all sides in pursuing justice by legitimate means. Justice is indeed turned back and righteousness stands afar off, for truth is fallen in the streets, and equity cannot enter [Isaiah 59:14].
Unfortunately, the Braeton killings are not a rare nor unusual event. Nor are the killings of police officer Dwight Gibson at the Above Rocks police station and of school principal Keith Morris running for his life on the streets of Portmore, incidents to which the 'Braeton Seven' are allegedly linked. The stench of brutal, violent death is suffusing and suffocating the nation. In one of those unpredictable twists in the flow of events, the Braeton incident has assumed the role of symbol of the tragedy which is engulfing us and a rallying point for contending forces. It has opened dramatically a window of opportunity for bringing to resolution fundamental issues of human rights and the rule of law, of security and justice in an increasingly lawless society. But so far we have been engaged in a loud and rancorous dialogue of the deaf, a dangerous stand-off of sides regarding the other as the Devil.
In a moment rich with very painful historic symbolisms, nowhere is the stand-off better demonstrated than in the simultaneous protest of Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) against the Braeton killings and the Police Support Action Committee (POLSAC) on opposite sides of the Hope Road/Oxford Road intersection. The whole nation needs to find the will and the courage to step away from the two sides of Hope/Oxford into the middle of the road in support of the police and against police excesses and against criminal terror. We will not find viable answers on one side or the other. Any view of the police as villains is wrong and should be strenuously rejected. We need the police. And they too are victims of the progressive escalation of violence which has been taking place, nurtured by political tribal roots, since the 1960s.
The Jamaica Constabulary Force is facing the loss of 10 officers per year, on average, from criminal attacks. This does not count the numbers wounded and those traumatised under fire and by watching colleagues die. Policing was never intended to be war. But for reasons neither created nor desired by the police crime-fighting in this violent and cruel society has assumed the characteristics of military operations. To put police deaths in proper perspective, if 10 deaths per year in a force of 6,000 officers were to be proportionally replicated in a population of 2.6 million, there would be some 4,333 murders per year! This is some five times the unbearable average annual murder rate! The stark fact of great danger and risk must, and has, deeply affected policing in Jamaica. Then there is the carefully engineered incapacity of the courts to convict 'known' criminals which is seriously undermining the rule of law.
There must be very few Jamaicans who have never quietly breathed a sigh of relief that the police have taken out 'known' terrorists by extra-judicial killings. On the other hand, there must be few Jamaicans who have not tasted police abuse even in minor matters like road traffic checks. While relatives and friends are mourning the tragic, and possibly avoidable, loss of life of their young men, and human rights activists are using their deaths at the hands of the police as a rallying point of anti-police protest, there are many enjoying mute relief. They have learnt well the terrible lesson of silence.
Their silence is as telling as the outpourings of those protesting the killings. The complicity of significant segments of the population with extra-judicial killings, which Amnesty International needs to clearly understand as a fact, is extremely dangerous for personal security and the rule of law, but is very understandable. The danger lies in the abrogation of the hallowed principle of innocent until proven guilty by due process which underpins the rule of law.
First the label then the bullet is a risk which every citizen faces, some to greater extremes than others. The understanding lies in the fact that citizens also face the risk of criminal bullets without labels and know that due process for firmly establishing guilt as much as innocence is facing serious erosion.
Extra-judicial killings
In addition to conducting retaliatory strikes, the police have assumed some of the functions of militias in lawless states, delivering protection and 'justice' through the barrel of a gun and at the risk of their own lives to those to whom they feel aligned and committed. The dons and gunmen are doing the same on the other side.
There is a far deeper meaning to the prevalence of extra-judicial killings than the blood lust or lack of control of the police. Extra-judicial killings are a powerful signal of the breakdown of law and judicial procedure as the source of justice and a turning to alternative means. Fast in the wake of the Braeton killings a civic organisation, Families Against State Terrorism (FAST) has been launched. The police, the most visible face of the state do in fact regularly terrorise citizens.
Unfortunately, families and citizens are also facing criminal terrorism, perhaps in greater measure. A great deal of criminal violence is directed towards enforcing silence and compliance - the hallmarks of Mafia-like terrorism. The capacity of the courts to convict has been seriously compromised by the code of silence enforced by the 'reign of terror'. Human rights have been severely compromised by criminal action on the one hand and the incapacity of the state to maintain law and order and to deliver justice, on the other hand. We face a synergistic escalation of state terrorism and gunman terrorism if we cannot find the means to safely dismount the tiger.
We are not where we are by any inexplicable accident of history. Our recent criminal history and our recent political history are tied together. The art and armaments of terrorism were acquired in the tribal conflicts as the Report of the Committee on Political Tribalism has so clearly documented again. The double dilemma now is how to better control the police without weakening their hands in the fight against criminals who are killing mercilessly and holding us captives by terror, and how to control the criminals without trampling upon the human rights of citizens.
It is the character and condition of the society in which policing must take place and human rights defended that should occupy our deepest, keenest interest and concern at this hour. We cannot resolve the problem by intransigently shouting at each other from opposite sides of the road.
Martin Henry is a communications consultant.
