Ian Boyne, ContributorThe over-supply of talk shows in Jamaica and the consequent surfeit of hot air hardly make a major contribution to reasoned national debate. Dr. Peter Phillips did not make the task of the overworked, recycled talk show guests easy last week, as they stumbled around to find something to attack or to punch holes in after he had delivered his first major speech since being appointed Minister of National Security.
Cliff Hughes, one of the country's sharpest and most penetrating journalists, gushed that Dr. Phillips gave a "commanding performance", and that he "sounded Prime Ministerial". A lacklustre, low-toned Derrick Smith, Opposition Spokesman on national security, forced Hugh Crosskill to quip on Nationwide on Thursday evening: "Come on, man, don't sound so depressed. What? Phillips' 12-point plan beat your four?" Any honest evaluation of the Security Minister's speech would have to acknowledge the comprehensive nature of the anti-crime plan, and the fact that it did incorporate a number of elements which came from civil society. Some of the points exposed by the plan were put forward that very evening at a JLP-organised function at which the highly revered and perhaps best-loved Former Police Commissioner Colonel Trevor Macmillan spoke.
In Jamaica it is a rule of thumb that if you are asked to comment and you can't find something to attack, you have failed. The human rights advocates, of course, would see a number of red flags.
When you talk about putting more police and military personnel on the streets and especially of developing a rapid response capability to deal with terrorists - especially when you use that awful T word - human rights advocates are in an absolute state of anxiety. What they see is more police brutality, state terror, fighting violence with violence - the Military Solution.
The more I listen to discussions in Jamaica, the more I am convinced that people should do some mandatory reading in philosophy or logic before they are asked to comment in the media. For the lapses in logic, non sequitur reasoning and unwarranted conclusions drawn, betray an abysmal lack of analytical thinking. For example, many people will say that you have to get to the root causes of crime to solve it; that you "can't fight fire with fire" and that better policing without paying attention to the long-term problems which breed crime won't help.
Of course, it is true that unless certain socio-economic, cultural and perhaps spiritual issues are addressed, we will continue to generate the conditions which foster crime. Of course, there are certain long-term issues which we must begin to tackle today and work at systematically. But there are certain ruthless, determined and fierce terrorists with real and high-powered weapons ready and eager to use them NOW, and they must be stopped today and not tomorrow, or whenever we give people all the jobs, proper housing, economic security and all the values and attitudes they need.
DOG-HEART
There are certain 'dog-heart' people who must be dealt with decisively and right away. So we need to have more police personnel, as the anti-crime plan calls for. We need more equipment to fight crime; and we need the special police/military squad or whatever we call it, to deal with the terrorists now, not later.
But there is nothing that Peter Phillips will need more than courage. His greatest need is not money, adequate security officers, abundant equipment, the finest international advice and assistance, greater intelligence in the force etc. His greatest need is courage - the ability to consult, consider and then consolidate a position. And stick with that position - once he has been through a rigorous process - despite the hail of criticisms to the contrary. The human rights lobby will only want soft policing methods - community policing, policemen handing out footballs and netballs, giving children ice cream and showing the girls in the inner city that they can "log on".
They want the police just to have a little drink with Mass Joe. That's fine. But there is a group of shottas who threaten the vast majority and a particular set of strategies have to be developed for them. Dr. Phillips must have the guts to stick to his guns (no pun intended), despite the attacks he will come under from the talk-show hosts and their carefully- selected guests, as well as the newspaper columnists.
Leadership is what is being called. This is the real test of being Prime Ministerial, not being tossed to and fro by every wind of opinion. Let this be not taken to mean that we must be careless of the right to life.
The human rights advocates in the society are playing a valuable role in so far as they alert us to the clear and present danger to the lives of our decent, law-abiding fellow-citizens in the inner cities. The police have no right to abuse and humiliate them just because they are poor and defenceless. They must not live in fear and have their children and grandmothers cower at night because their board huts can be invaded at will and ransacked willy-nilly.
But we must find a way to protect the human rights of every single Jamaican while ensuring that the minority of terrorists and criminals are dealt with firmly and decisively.
KILLING YOUNG CHILDREN
The human rights people must continue to have their voices heard, but they must not try to shut out or intimidate other voices or adopt an either-or attitude. It is not either the protection of human rights or the existence of special squads. When terrorists are killing young children, old ladies and the innocent night and day we cry out for something to be done and when police and soldiers are seen all around we talk nonsense about a police state and frightening away tourists.
The Crime Management Unit must continue its work. Reneto Adams must continue to talk and act tough for that is the only language the terrorists understand. The Beatitudes will hardly make a difference to them.
Hold the CMU to the law, yes, but criminals must be told in no uncertain way the consequences which are likely to meet if they dare challenge the police. The police are entitled to defend themselves whenever challenged and we must support them in this.
Minister Phillips' decision to establish a broad-based Peace Management Initiative is a brilliant move. To have it headed by the Fundamentalist Pastor and former JLP, NDM supporter Bishop Herro Blair is a masterstroke. To have people like Horace Levy and Barry Chevannes, well-known human rights activists, shows the political sagacity of Phillips. A lot will be dependent on this group - not just hard policing.
But there is another critical point and that is the point being trumpeted by the JLP: The connection between crime and economic and social factors. These long-term issues have to be addressed but the issue is not simply, as the JLP believes, one of growth-versus-stagnation. It is one of asking whether the present international economic order and the globalisation model can engender sustainable economic development for the broad masses of the developing world.
This is where the debate needs to shift. Both the PNP and the JLP are putting a great deal of confidence in a system which is simply not delivering the goods all over the developing world.
The fall-out in Argentina signals the crisis in the entire Latin American region. The 2001 Economic and Social Progress in Latin America ("The Business of Growth") shows that 170 million Latin Americans - one out of three - subsist on less than US$2 a day despite having followed Omar Davies and Eddie Seaga's IMF-World Bank model. Latin America was a poster child of the liberalisation-privatisation model.
In an article on Argentina and Latin America in the January 14, issue of Newsweek, it is noted that, "The debacle in Argentina has reopened the debate in many corners in Latin America over the neo-liberal model of economic growth that Washington and the International Monetary Fund touted throughout the I990s -- Argentina embraced those policies with unparalleled gusto, privatising hundreds of state-owned companies and opening the domestic market to imported goods."
This is the same model essentially that the JLP is selling to the Jamaican people as the salvation out of their desperate economic condition today. But the country is so tribalised and many of our commentators so uninformed that the type and calibre of the debate we should be having - how to manoeuvre over way through the constraints of globalisation -eludes us.
Says the recently-released World Bank s book, Facets of Globalisation: International and Local Dimensions of Development : "Despite broad economic advances and general democratisation, many examples of civil unrest have taken place in Latin America.
"Out of the 146 austerity protests that occurred between I976 and I992, 62 per cent were recorded in Latin America and the Caribbean" - the poster region of the liberalisation-privatisation, IMF-World Bank model.
Peter Phillips will need more than policing - hard and soft - to seriously tackle the crime problem. But he has the requisite intellect, consultative spirit and maturity to make a serious go at it.
