By Erica James-King, Senior Staff Reporter
Interdicted warder, Barrington Johnson (right) fixes a bicycle near to the home of his 84-year-old grandmother, Ivy Samuels, standing behind him. - Patrick Campbell/Freelance Photographer
WESTERN BUREAU:
SURE, NO prisons are in western Jamaica. In fact, no member of staff from juvenile correctional facilities in western Jamaica was slapped with interdiction. However, the population in this end of the island did not escape the clutches of hardship brought on by the interdiction en masse of 800 warders in the penal institutions in February 2000. With the resolution of the warders' saga under way, the veil has lifted for scores of warders, their spouses, children and relatives who live in and have their roots in the parishes of the west - Hanover, St. Elizabeth, St. James, Westmoreland, Trelawny.
Thirty-three-year-old Barrington Johnson of Domoto community in St. Elizabeth, is quite familiar with the dark side of the interdiction coin.
Three years ago, if you told Johnson that life could move from one round of frustration and despair, to another bout of frustration and despair, and another and another... without reprieve, he would have laughed in your face with disbelief.
However, life has dealt him such a heavy hand since February 2000, that disbelief, pain and indignation have no difficulty escaping from his mouth, when he reflects on life as an interdicted warder: "Me is a big, big man and imagine I only getting $296 per month since I was interdicted, what can that do? How I must live? How somebody must look at me and give me only that?"
FAMILY STRUGGLING
Quivering with anger, Mr. Johnson belted out: "My kids dem is in Kingston, one is going to high school and the other is going primary school, and if it wasn't (for) their mother they couldn't go to school or even eat food. Dem mother can barely support them on her salary; she suffering big time." He blames an unjust system for having got him and scores of his colleagues in this rut in the first place. Shaking his head from side to side in disbelief, Mr. Johnson stated, "I did take sick-out. I had worked two double shifts and did not even eat the night when I got off late. When you work two double shifts, you are entitled to a day off. I earned the day off and yet they interdicted me on the grounds that I had staged a sick-out."
The weight of his economic and social burdens brought on by the interdiction, has driven this warder to the brink of tears. "I come from St. Elizabeth, but I used to live in Nannyville Gardens when I was working as a warder. After I got interdicted I couldn't pay my rent. I had to move out and come to live in the country."
"If it wasn't for my mother who is in the United States, I wouldn't survive. If it wasn't for the mother of my twins, I don't know what would happen to them," said Johnson. "Even though she is a domestic helper, she is the person why my youth them can eat and drink right now."
While breaking at intervals to look up from the bicycle he was repairing for a friend, Johnson claimed that not even his Member of Parliament, Agriculture Minister, Roger Clarke, responded to his letters of distress and plea for help during his interdiction. Mr. Johnson, who was a warder for two years before he was interdicted, has barely been able to eke out a living since his job was put on hold, doing odd jobs with a mason. However, there are times when he has no odd jobs and just sits at home hoping and praying for better days to befall him.
When The Gleaner caught up with Mr. Johnson, he was living in Domoto with Ivy Samuels, his 84-year-old grandmother. She said that many times over the last two years, she has had to encourage her grandson when he felt distressed over the hardships that were brought on by the interdiction.
"Mi grandson tek the interdiction thing real hard. Him feel down sometimes."
Mr. Johnson feels one of the rare good things that came his way since he was interdicted, is that he became a Christian in the Seventh-Day Adventist church.
"I use to be a womanising person but the hardships brought on by the interdiction has brought me closer to God." He credits his new-found Christian faith with keeping him from running afoul of the law, as he struggles to cope with the "dutty tough life".
"If Christianity didn't change me, where would I be now? I would be doing all kind of evil things. When ah see how me kids a suffer, if I wasn't a Christian, a would do something bad to get money for them or a would revenge someone in authority who let me lose me job."
Now, brighter days are ahead for Barrington Johnson. He is one of the warders on the 'A' list who will be going back to work soon. Another warder, who hails from St. James, who does not want his identity to be known, had this to say: "The last 27 months were the worst 'years' of my life. I had to depend on my people to support me. It was rough going."
Cabinet on Monday gave the thumbs up to a framework agreement arrived at between the National Security Ministry and the unions which represent warders, two weeks ago. Come tomorrow, an agreement is to be signed between the Government and the two unions representing the prison warders. This move will bring an end to the two years and six-month cloud of uncertainty, which hung over the interdicted warders.
The consensus reached guarantees that most of the 800 warders will be taken back into service. However, several of them to whom the Correctional Services Department is still opposed to, will have to look at other options including being paid off.
Meanwhile, the warders are to meet with their unions at a mass meeting on Saturday at Prison Oval in Spanish Town, where they will learn of the back-to-work schedule, a payment plan on retroactive wages owed to them, and other issues affecting them.
