Peter EspeutONE OF the interesting things for me about the prison atrocity scandal in Iraq is the speed with which the American authorities have moved to clean up aspects of the mess. The only question is how far up the chain of command heads will be made to roll. Courts martial of small fry have already taken place, and the Army general in charge of the prison has been relieved of her command while the investigation proceeds. Files on the deaths of all Iraqis while in US custody have been opened, and investigations are under way.
There have been calls for the Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, to resign, and there are reports that already the White House is searching to identify a replacement for him in the Cabinet of President Bush.
THE SITUATION IN JAMAICA
How differently we do things here in Jamaica. Dozens of persons in our prison system can be beaten so severely that limbs are broken, detainees in custody can be beaten to death, and the police and military can brutalise members of the public to the point of death, and no one is held accountable. Not even the small fry are called upon to face up to the consequences of their actions; in the Michael Gayle case, the ruling was that even though all the security personnel present when he was beaten to death are known, since no one will talk and finger those who actually threw the blows, all will get away; no one will be charged as an accessory; no one will be charged with dereliction of duty, the duty to protect the life of a member of the public, in this case a mentally-handicapped boy on a bicycle; the duty to tell the truth. Yes, we do things differently in Jamaica.
What is even more interesting is that the victims of cruel and inhuman punishment in Iraq are the enemy during a war in which American lives are being lost; in Jamaica the victims are Jamaicans with rights under Jamaican law in what is called peacetime. Saddam Hussein was considered vicious and brutal, and guilty of crimes against humanity because he waged war on his own people. Well, now! The chain of command means not just that persons higher up give orders to those below: it means that those higher up are responsible for the actions of those below. The chain of command implies that those above are responsible to maintain discipline in the junior ranks, and therefore if the junior ranks perform atrocities, at least their superior officer is responsible for their lack of discipline, even if not for the specific acts they committed.
But we don't know anything about that in Jamaica. Those higher up give orders, but if the junior ranks commit atrocities, well, "I'm sorry; It wuzn't me!" It will be interesting to see how far up the US chain of command the buck will go before it stops, and whether it will stop at a politician. What seems to be the issue is proving whether any particular politician "knew about it but did nothing to stop it". The US media, the church and elements in US civil society will not let their leaders get away with winking at torture and murder, even in wartime.
At least there is some decency left in the US system, at a time when the world was beginning to think that all was lost. Which politician or top-ranking military or police officer in Jamaica can claim they don't know about the excesses of the military and the police? With Amnesty International and Jamaicans for Justice and Families against State Terrorism telling all, there is no doubt about where the Jamaican buck stops and who it will pass through on the way. But we operate by different values and attitudes in Jamaica. Politicians don't resign or hold their subordinates accountable, and the citizenry doesn't demand it of them. They deserve each other.
Let me not appear to be wholly complimentary of the US system, which went into an unjust war in the first place, which denies prisoners from the Afghan war the human and legal rights due them under the Geneva Convention, and which refuses to recognise the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice over US soldiers for war crimes. Nor do I wish to appear wholly complimentary of the US media, which has operated like a department of the US military machine, uncritically supporting the war.
Despite all this, there is some spirit which leads the American body politic to reject flagrant injustice and the people who perpetrate it, which we lack in Jamaica. Maybe at root is our cartelised political system which sees both parties work together to support the continuance of the status quo. Now the Minister of National Security has openly admitted that he has evidence that presently-serving politicians have links with drugs, to add to what we already knew: that presently-serving politicians have links with gunmen.
VALUES AND ATTITUDES
What would happen in the USA or the UK if the equivalent had happened there? Certainly not the silence that it met here. The political cartel soon will get to work to neutralise the unusually frank admission. It is already happening: "He is just campaigning for the PM post"; "he is only referring to the JLP link with drugs". What we need is a campaign to bring values and attitudes to those in public life so that they will consider themselves accountable for what happens on their watch. How long will we have to wait? Who will cleanse the Augean stables?
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and is
executive director of an environment and development NGO.
