THE EDITOR, Sir:
MR. KINGSLEY Thomas has now joined Professor Don Robotham in the call for a state of emergency to deal with the current crime level.
Neither of them is likely to be detained without charge for being "a threat to national security". Nor any of their children, for that matter. And if, by some misadventure, it were to happen, a simple phone call would take care of that.
The poor who live in our inner cities, most of whom are no less law-abiding than Mr. Thomas or Professor Robotham, have no such assurance and no such privilege. Every so often the police detain scores of people who are first locked up then "processed" and later released. Why?
Because the police have no evidence on which to charge them. Under the Thomas-Robotham plan, the police would simply detain and lock up. No need for any "processing"! No need for any evidence! No need for any trial!
The gates are flung wide open for corrupt policemen to "deal with" individuals with whom they have a dispute and for a corrupt government to "deal with" its political opponents with whom it always has a dispute.
The PNP has never acknowledged the abuses that it perpetrated against hundreds of persons, including JLP supporters, in the 1976 state of emergency. It has never even been able to justify (or even attempted to) the detention of Pearnel Charles, Babsy Grange, Pat Stephens, Ferdie Yap, Ray Miles, Karram Josephs, Edwin Singh, George Lazarus, Keith Steele or the hundreds of other persons who were simply rounded up and thrown into detention camp.
Prime Minister Patterson was a member of the Cabinet at that time! Several others in the present government were actively involved with the PNP at that time. The then Minister of National Security signed blank detention orders so that others could "fill in the names". Who, other than the likes of Kingsley Thomas and Don Robotham, can trust these same people to administer a state of emergency impartially even if it were deemed necessary?
The atrocities that were perpetrated by the government in the state of emergency of 1976 must never be allowed to happen again! They will never be allowed to happen again!
I am, etc.,
BRUCE GOLDING
Kingston
