Farmer slain in W/Kgn unrest laid to rest

By Andrew Clunis, Freelance Writer

THE ENDANGERED ringtail pigeon nestles in the interlocking hills. Towering peaks afford the peasantry use of their hill slopes for farming, the only economic activity that sustains life in the quaint village of Penlyne Castle, just above Hagley's Gap in St. Thomas.

Under an enthralling sunset on Wednesday afternoon, July 18, the community laid one of their beloved to rest, Lloyd 'Harry' Ruddock. He was one of 25 persons cut down when the security forces invaded West Kingston on the weekend of July 7.

The police had gone there in search of gunmen and guns. The community will testify that Harry did not fit the profile. There was a tremendous outpouring at the small church where just about everyone wanted to pay a tribute. He was an all-rounder. In fact, he dabbled in carpentry, helping to roof the very church in whose yard his body now lies. He was the cook at the Penlyne Castle All-Age School, he was a farmer who would head for Kingston on Thursdays and when he got to the Coronation Market, he would double as a handcart man and messenger.

This was how he sent his one son to high school and took care of his wife of five months who was due to give birth to his second child the day after he was buried.

But that was the last weekend Harry was to visit Kingston. He was shot at his gate on Sunday July 8, as he tried to leave his wife's home on Bond Street trying to return to the hills to attend his son's graduation at the Mavis Bank High School. After he was shot and killed, his wife had to live with the trauma of looking at her husband's body for three days as it became distended and decayed with an overpowering odour.

Harry's wife fought valiantly to hold her resolve. "I am a strong person you know," she commented to her sister. It took self-assuring remarks like that all evening to keep her from relapsing into shock as she had done on two previous occasions.

Doctors had warned her that if there was a third occurrence, the child might suffer brain damage. The pastor reminded the audience that it was only five months earlier that he had performed the matrimonial ceremony for the couple. "I can't remember ever counselling a more loving couple," he remarked. Mrs. Ruddock's wedding band still gleams of newness.

Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) caretaker for Western St. Thomas, Senator James Robertson paid tribute to Harry. He described him as a jovial person who gave selflessly to his community. He decried the manner in which Harry was killed and called out for justice for his family. No representative of the government was present.

Market vendors travelled miles from other areas of the country to pay their last respects to Harry. "If is even donkey I woulda haffi take, I mek up me mind to come up yah so," declared Gloria Willis.

"The Saturday morning is Harry take me load off the truck fi me. Anything we want we can send him go buy it and him help everybody. Coronation Market weep fi Harry. The police them too trigger happy because when them kill a man like Harry nobody can't say a nuh innocent man dem kill." Ironically, Harry has a brother who is a policeman stationed in St. Thomas.

The quiet community is still in shock. Their social problems have been compounded by Harry's death and they continue to cry for help. If a vehicle slips off the undulating dirt track it is certain to fall into ravines hundreds of feet deep. The people use dirt to patch the dirt road and most adults cannot remember a time when their community had a road. In this part of the country many 1950s land rovers, trail bikes and donkeys abound, as the terrain and road surface prohibit any other type of vehicle from entering the community.

Despite the rejection, the people feel from their political representatives, their pride towers as the Blue Mountain peaks about them. They have vowed to fight to the end to get some kind of reparation from the government for Harry's wife and children so their loved one may live in peace.

Two other victims were buried on Wednesday; they are, David Clarke, a handcart man of Spanish Town who was buried at Manchioneal in Portland and Earnest Nicholson of 19 Regent Street, Denham Town who was buried at Meadowrest in St. Catherine.

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