Geof BrownAMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, via its General-Secretary Mr. Sane has set the cat amongst the pigeons - however unwittingly. So now, instead of warnings against criminals or against the criminal elements in the police force, we are also warning against one another. Some praise Amnesty International (AI) for holding a mirror, even if less than perfect, for the society to view its practice of justice with self-honest candour. Some condemn AI for interference in our nation's business (warts and all) and for positioning us as an erring member in the global family. I, personally, am sick to death of the draining of our energy, the erosion of our common purpose in our incessant infighting.
Having now produced this column for some 14 years, let me take the privilege of stating my own unequivocal positions on the matter of crime, punishment and justice. And I won't care a fig if I lose favour with some, anger a few, lose readership with many. I hope I will not be viewed as arrogant - but that is a very worthwhile risk in the service of self-honesty.
I stand against brutality in all it forms. I stand against violence in all its forms. I stand against injustice in all its manifestations. I stand against dehumanisation of friends, foe and most of all of one's ownself.
Against that clear philosophical framework which entirely marks my brief sojourn on this turbulent planet, here is my position on Amnesty International, the Braeton killings and the dispensing of justice.
First, the killings. It matters to me that even if all the seven young men were convicted criminals, they should be executed in the brutal manner that it is clear took place.
It would dehumanise me to mete out justice which a criminal might well deserve, in a manner as inhumane as he would do to me or mine. The eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth is not my philosophy. To illustrate, let's say a serial killer brutally killed a child of mine. And let's say I captured the bastard. To take him apart limb by limb, now an arm, now a foot, now his genitals, now an ear, an eye etc., till his agonising death, would dehumanise me out of proportion to revenge.
And thus I view it as ridiculous to say I am anti-police and anti-justice, if I say four bullets in the head or nine bullets to the body of a cornered and overpowered young man, is dehumanising brutality. During the Vietnam War, young American soldiers were often brutalised when captured. Yet after the infamous Mai Lai massacre where some of the same soldiers brutalised Vietnamese indiscriminately, American conscience was revolted. Americans condemned their own soldiers.
So I cannot see how in good conscience, some people can say that even if a couple of the Braeton Seven were non-criminal men, they deserved to die just as brutally as any criminal because they should not have been in criminal company.
Misleading
information
A la Shakespeare, is "judgement fled to brutish beasts" and have some "lost their reason"? Very simply, prisoners could have been taken and a massacre could have been avoided as far as I can see.
Now as to Amnesty International, its report and its threat to take Jamaica to the bar of world opinion.
In the first place, it is to our great embarrassment that AI should produce a 'factual' report for public consumption before our own organs of information could get going. But let's say AI has put out some wrong or misleading information. Why don't we simply refute, point-by-point what is erroneous?
Does Amnesty International have access to world opinion that we don't have? I see no reason for us to war amongst ourselves over AI's correctness. Or worse, to use AI as a cover for our own disguised positions. Amnesty as a watch-dog, does what such watch-dogs do: bark at what it senses as injustice. It barked at Apartheid and we cheered. Am I anti-government or anti-sovereignty to say let's reason with AI?
But let us concede where the AI mirror shows us warts or worse that we need to fix. It's not us against them and moreso, it should not be us against ourselves. And in this matter of justice, the essence, we must remind ourselves, is due process. I want to see all criminals brought to justice - but I can't see why it is our courts which should play the residual role. Is it anti-police to say capture as many criminals as you can for the court process and shoot-to-kill only when you must?
And of course, there needs to be justice for the police. In Jamaica, they must have one of the most dangerous policing jobs in the world. If we are only heard and seen condemning them for their misdeeds and felonies, we present justice as a one-sided affair. Am I anti-human rights activist for saying that? This warring amongst ourselves has thrown us out of focus on tackling crime and violence with a common will. We must stop it.
Geof Brown is an HRD consultant who lectures part-time at the University of the West Indies. E-mail: browngeof@hotmail.com
