Tivoli 'under siege'

By Balford Henry, Staff Reporter

MILTON WALKER, head of CVM Television News, told the West Kingston Enquiry yesterday that while he was in Tivoli Gardens, based on what the residents were saying to him, he had the impression that the community was under siege.

He was being cross-examined by Mr. Earl Witter, counsel for the Office of the Public Defender.

Mr. Witter: This sense of a community under siege which you developed, had nothing at all to do with your observations, am I correct?

Mr. Walker: I got the impression from them, that they had more of a siege mentality; that they felt, perhaps they were going to be invaded in large numbers in terms of police and soldiers coming in.

Mr. Witter: More to the point, you got this from what they said or alleged?

Mr. Walker: A combination of both. My own sense and what they said.

He said there was an air of tension and apprehension. During this time, he got a report of a "little girl" whose legs had been shattered by shots. He went in search of the story, but refrained from going any further because he felt it wasn't safe at that particular moment when he attempted to go into the building where the child was.

He said that he was trapped in the corridor of the high rise and the building shook a couple of times. He said that he felt that the shaking was due to incoming fire from the Command Post at the Coronation Market.

Mr. Witter: Well, if not that, on what account?

Mr. Walker: I don't know, because the violent shake would have been from the hit on the building.

He said that inside the Command Post he saw security force personnel armed with various rifles, including AK47s and one he had been previous and was told not to film, "I think the last occasion I saw it was last year in Mountain View." He said he later learnt that the gun was a Barrett M82, which was positioned by a window at the post.

He said that SSP Adams was at times, either sitting away from the windows or by a window firing his rifle.

Explaining how SSP Adams fired his rifle, Mr. Walker said: There were times when he rest it on the window looked past the muzzle and fired. There were times when I saw him actually line up a target. There were times when he put it on the window and fired outside.

Mr. Witter: Did you on that day, see SSP Adams in discharging his weapon, appear to you to be firing aimlessly?

Mr. Walker: There were times when he fired without lining up a target.

Mr. Witter: Would you describe it as random firing?

Justice Julius Isaac, Chairman of the Commission, advised

Mr. Walker that he did not have to answer that question as he had already explained what he saw.

He said that sometime after, he had asked SSP Adams in the Command Post about his method of firing and he explained: If you are under fire and you want to repel that attack, one of the techniques used would be to, and especially if it is from a group and you would be in a difficult position to line up one specific target without being shot at, you would just aim in the general direction where that group is and release your trigger.

Mr. Witter: How did that explanation strike you?

Mr. Walker: How did it strike me?

Mr. Isaac: Does it matter?

Mr. Walker said that he spoke to other security personnel and they were largely supportive of SSP Adams's view.

Mr. Witter, however, pursued the point asking Mr. Walker: Regarding times when you saw Mr. Adams firing apparently not at an identifiable target, having regard to all that, would you today on oath describe the kind of firing you saw Mr. Adams direct when he was not lining up a target, as random firing?

Mr. Isaac: He has answered the question already so let's leave it that. I direct him not to answer it.

Mr. Witter said that he had put the question again, because Mr. Walker had now incorporated into his testimony the benefit of expert consultations. But, Mr. Isaac said he should move along because he had given Mr. Walker the right to not answer the question.

Mr. Isaac also reminded Mr. Witter that he intended to finish with Mr. Walker yesterday, as he regarded the journalist "as a busy man," and there were other attorneys who also wanted to cross examine him.

Mr. Witter: Mr. Chairman, I cross examine by your leave and grace, whenever my time is up and you rule that it is up, I will abide by your ruling.

Mr. Isaac: Well, don't put me to the test, please.

Mr. Walker told Mr. Witter that while at the Command Post, he heard the "thunderous" boom of the police's 50 calibre Barrett M82 several times.

Mr. Isaac: Make this your last question, Mr. Witter.

Mr. Witter: Are you ruling that it ought to be Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Isaac: Yes.

Mr. Witter: Then it makes no sense if I pose my last question, due to the one I have in mind. If that is your ruling Mr. Chairman, I will terminate my cross examination at this time.

Mr. Isaac: Thank you very much.

Mr. Walker said he has been asked to produce about ten items, including his July 7 news script and videos covering interviews with Mr. Seaga, Senator Robertson and Mark Wignall and the champagne flute for the Commission as exhibits. The Commission is to purchase the tapes from CVM TV.

Earlier Mr. walker said he saw Mark Wignall, Jamaica Observer columnist, drinking from a champagne flute at the Tivoli Gardens community centre while there was gunfire about.

He was asked by Major Linton Gordon, counsel for the JDF, whether he had seen persons at the (Tivoli Gardens) community centre consuming champagne.

Mr. Walker: I saw a gentleman drinking something from a champagne flute, the contents of which I am not aware of.

Major Gordon: And at the time when the champagne flute was being drunk, the soldier was already shot and killed on your information?

Mr. Walker: The soldier and the policeman would have been killed earlier.

Major Gordon: In fact, it was around that time that Mr. Seaga confirmed to you that he was aware of this.

Mr. Walker: He confirmed later. The person I saw drinking from the champagne flute (that) was almost immediately on my arrival.

Mr. Isaac: The person or persons?

Mr. Walker: I know of one and my video material supported that.

Major Gordon: When you got to the centre where the person had the flute, you were hearing explosions like gunshots?

Mr. Walker: There was definite gunfire at that time.

Major Gordon: And when the person had the flute drinking from, you were hearing gunfire?

Mr. Walker: Yes sir.

Mr. Walker said he went to West Kingston after being told at the CVM HQ, Constant Spring Road, by about five persons on the morning of July 7, that while they were downtown they and other persons were shot at by JDF soldiers identified by their uniforms.

He said that when he went to the Tivoli Gardens, he was let in by a group of young men, about three of whom were armed, who were manning a barricade at the entrance to the scheme. However, he said he saw no guns after that.

At the Tivoli Gardens Community Centre, he saw persons including Abe Dabdoub and Mr. Wignall and several persons connected to the JLP in West Kingston.

He said that Senator Robertson told him that his F150 pick-up truck had been shot up by the police on Industrial Terrace near the corner of Spanish Town Road. He said he saw the hole where the bullet went through a side door and entered the dashboard.

He said that at the community centre he saw a table with about 100 rounds of ammunition, collected by Tivoli Gardens residents who claimed that they had been fired by the security forces.

He said that Mr. Seaga told him and the TVJ crew that Senior Supt. Reneto Adams and his team had unleashed terror on the community and that he felt there was no need to raid the community again, as it had been raided on the previous Thursday.

He said that Mr. Seaga complained that his constituency was being unfairly targeted and that excessive force was being used against his constituents. Mr. Seaga referred to the May, 1997, police operation in the area, said that nowhere else was being targeted as much as Tivoli Gardens and that any where SSP Adams went he unleashed terror, Mr. Walker said.

He said that Mr. Seaga told him that when SSP Adams said he was fired on in the Coronation Market area, the market was crowded and the security forces had fired indiscriminately into the crowd, endangering their lives.

Mr. Walker said he heard a sudden burst of gunfire as he interviewed Mr. Seaga. He was startled and fell off his chair. Mr. Seaga "chuckled" and asked him if he was afraid. Miss Grange and Senator Peralto seemed terrified, he said.

He said that when things had settled down, he heard the TVJ crew interviewing Mr. Wignall who said that a policeman had told him that he heard Mr. Seaga's life being threatened by the police on the radio.

According to Mr. Walker, Mr. Wignall said that the policeman said that he had heard a police radio transmission, which said that Mr. Seaga's bodyguards were to be disarmed and that he should be killed.

He said that when he spoke to Mr. Seaga about the alleged threat, the Opposition Leader seemed "concerned," but smiled and said something to the effect that he was aware of the dangers, but that he had resigned himself to it and knew that there were people "who wanted to get him."

He said that when his crew went to the southern end of the Coronation Market they saw people who had either fled the market or were packing up their stalls to leave. He assumed they were market vendors. They told him to go to the Command Post area and they would see injured persons and dead bodies.

When they got to the Command Post at the market, they had to shout and identify themselves to the security personnel before they were let in. There were two V150s armoured cars parked on the premises. Soldiers came out, opened the gate and let them in and told them not to film anything inside the post.

Mr. Walker said however that his crew had no intention of following that order and went on to film what they saw.

He said that inside the post, there were some shattered glass panes and dust on the floor; the police told him that the debris was from an incendiary device thrown at the post.

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