AT THE start of this 43rd year of Independence, we are grateful for the many good things that have gone well with the nation. We have largely been spared the natural catastrophes that have devastated other countries and although we battle with such public health problems as HIV/AIDS, we are confident that with planning and proper application, they will not overwhelm us.
But we are disheartened that after all these years, the solution to our problem of major crime has continued to elude us. We started out in 1962, the first year of Independence, with a total of 63 murders for that year, up from 51 in 1961 and 60 in 1960. In the first seven months of 2003, the murder toll was 547. By the end of July 2004, a mere one year later, the figure was pushing 800, almost a third more than the figure for the first seven months of 2003. These are chilling, sombre figures, out of proportion to our population growth, and seemingly defiant of any single, logical explanation.
So our celebration of Independence, instead of being tinged by the expected small adversities of life, is clouded by the seemingly intractable scourge of senseless murders.
Something is seriously wrong, however we may characterise these murders domestic, gang-related, reprisals, or in the pursuance of other crimes such as rape, robbery or burglary. They are far too many for such a small country which is not involved in civil war. Far too many guns and knives and machetes are being used to take too many lives.
But the murders have an effect far beyond the physical and psychological trauma of the individual tragedies. Slowly, with a venomous accumulative miasma, they threaten to stifle the nation's hope, suffocate its will and its drive and so damage its reputation that even its most loyal friends will find themselves repelled to the point where they withhold their interest, divert their investment, and refrain from visiting.
True, recent figures have shown a dip in the murder rate, but if our celebration of Independence Day is to be perennially joyous, the figure needs to become more tolerable even though one person murdered is one too many.
But what is worrying is the feeling that the spectre of this high murder rate may very well become so permanent a feature as to desensitise our hopes, aspirations, and plans for a truly liberating independence in which to strive for health, wealth, and prosperity for all our citizens.
So where do we go from here? Hard decisions will have to be made to defeat the gangsters, the kidnappers, the extortioners, the drug lords and the murderers they hire. We may very well need more assistance from overseas, but the focus must be on helping us in terms of equipment and training to formulate our own plans to tackle the types of crime that are peculiar to us and to bring the wrongdoers to heel. It is a reasonable and achievable target but one which we can realise only with the co-operation of all people who see their future in a peaceful and law-abiding Jamaican state.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
