THE EDITOR, Sir:UNIVERSITY ACADEMIC Robert Buddan makes some curious statements in his June 25, praise-song to Senior Superintendent of Police Reneto Adams.
In my view, his assertions could have benefited from the rigorous research he presumably demands of his students.
Buddan's seemingly boundless admiration for Adams was bolstered by unsubstantiated denigration of others such as:
Human rights groups who are accused of joining with criminals in a common mission to convict Adams.
Those to whom Buddan refers as 'criminals' presumably include police persons and prosecutors whose work resulted in Adams being charged with murder. Further, Buddan seems unaware that the decision to convict is the business of the courts, and the decision to charge or not is the purview of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Critics, in general, who "managed to get the Crime Management Unit disbanded." Buddan needs to say whether those critics include the 12 CMU policemen who went on sick-out in November 2002, reportedly in protest against Adams' leadership style; the Police Federation that demanded Adams' removal "forthwith" in a November 2002 letter to then Commissioner of Police Francis Forbes; and Forbes who showed, in a June 2003 letter to a newspaper, that crime actually worsened during the time the Adams-led CMU was in operation.
Overseas governments who, together with the human rights groups "have amassed more resources to convict Mr. Adams than any other individual in Jamaica's history."
It seems to escape Buddan that only the Jamaican Government could have invited the British Scotland Yard, the American FBI, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to investigate the Kraal murders.
The private sector that "stood by and allowed the CMU to be undermined .... was paying [by Adams' estimate] $400 million a year in extortion money ... has turned a blind eye to the real estate, legal services, car dealerships, hardware and lumber, and banking and financial systems, through which criminals readily launder their blood money."
PROVIDE EVIDENCE
Buddan has the responsibility to provide the authorities with evidence to back up his allegations of private sector offences.
Without any supporting data, Buddan depicts Adams as "one of the early pioneers of both community policing and intelligence analysis."
If Buddan had referred to a newspaper article (Gleaner, November 4, 2001), he would have seen Adams' interpretation of community policing as "...'soft policing' that, within the social fabric and ecological logistics of Kingston's ghettos, would be nothing but an open invitation for gunmen to pick off policemen."
In the 2002 election period, Adams told HOT 102's Drive Time Live show that he had received intelligence "of a plot or plan by criminal elements to disrupt the election process on election day."
According to Adams, police intended to arrest those involved in the plot "before, as well as during and after the act." In a subsequent press conference, Francis Forbes denied there was any conspiracy to disrupt the elections.
I believe Buddan would better serve his subject and his readers if he were to inject into this piece the logical and critical thinking one normally associates with academic discipline.
I am, etc.,
YVONNE MCCALLA
SOBERS
sobersy@yahoo.com
Kingston 6
Via Go-Jamaica
