Edward Seaga
ON JUNE 22, 1976, Prime Minister Michael Manley addressed the House of Representatives on the State of Emergency declared three days earlier on June 19. This was the first opportunity the people of Jamaica would have had to hear specifics on the reasons for and consequences of the declaration of the State of Emergency.
Manley was very specific in his presentation but some vital facts were omitted or distorted which were critical for public understanding of the true purpose of the declaration.
There were some principal reasons for the declaration and some lesser ones undoubtedly. The principal reason was, as the Prime Minister stated, "A new and unique type of violence" which had emerged.
Trench Town was the first instance. Gunmen went on a rampage firing a barrage of shots and barricading the roads, preventing police and firemen from entering the area for the first time.
What was omitted from this brief notation was the politics behind the rampage. Gunmen aligned with the People's National Party (PNP) launched a campaign of terror to politically cleanse the predominantly Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) sections of Trench Town and Jones Town by firing high-powered weapons into homes and setting them ablaze with Molotov cocktails. The towering billows of fire could be seen across the city. The attacks were repeated on several occasions over the next six weeks.
By then the political damage had been done. An estimated 3,000 residents of Trench Town fled to various areas of St. Catherine. The land on which they resided was now free to expand the new community of Arnett Gardens. But a large part of this once densely populated land remained empty for the next 30 years.
ORANGE LANE FIRE
Manley identified another instance of "a new and unique type of violence" occurring on May 19, 1976, at Orange Lane. Tenements were destroyed by arson leaving 500 residents homeless and 11 persons burned to death in the holocaust. Gunmen fired a barrage of shots to prevent firemen in the station next door from entering the area. Gunmen even committed the ultimate act of brutality, pulling babies from the arms of some fleeing mothers, tossing them back into the flaming houses. This act of savagery, which stands out as one of the most barbarous in Jamaican history, was condemned by Manley in his presentation as another "new and unique type of violence" which precipitated the need for a State of Emergency.
What Manley did not say was that the instigators, once again, were gunmen aligned with the PNP. Although the political identity of the terrorists was generally known by persons who lived in the inner city, it was never officially determined until Mr. Justice Small, who presided over a commission of enquiry on the Orange Lane Fire, decided to hear certain witnesses who, out of fear, wished to be heard in secret. Justice Small, in a secret report, identified the terrorists as supporters of the PNP originating from Arnett Gardens. The secret report was never published.
UNIQUE TERRORISM
Had Manley given full disclosure on these two pivotal events as unique instances of terrorism to be decisively stamped out without wrongly implicating the JLP, he would have had full political support. But he claimed that these acts "served a double purpose of embarrassing the economy and undermining the democratically elected government." This clearly labelled the two atrocities as acts of terror instigated by the JLP against the Government, deliberately paving the way for Government to declare the State of Emergency to target the JLP.
If there was any further doubt that the Government was launching a devious plot to entrap its political opponents, all doubts were demolished by Manley's further allegations in his presentation in which he blamed the JLP for discrediting the electoral system, undermining the democratically-elected Government and, of spreading hysteria by accusing the Government of being communists. This caused the entrepreneurial classes to export their money, slow down business activity and cease any expansion.
MESSIANIC COMPLEX
This is a clear picture of a leader with a messianic complex who could not accept that these positions taken by the Opposition were part of its legitimate role in an open Westminster system of government. Manley obviously regarded criticism as attacks on Government, as is the case in socialist types of governments where harsh criticism of the state is not tolerated. This only reinforced the allegation of Manley's deep socialist commitment. It is the role of government to refute or dispute such criticism by advancing convincing arguments to the contrary, not by locking up the Opposition in a State of Emergency to incapacitate and immobilise opposition support.
But worse was to come. Manley's trump card was his claim that the security forces warned that a new wave of violence would be launched at the end of June to coincide with the staging of Carifesta, the regional cultural expo. He compared this to the holding of another international conference on January 5, between the IMF and World Bank with the Group of 24 Developing Nations at the Pegasus Hotel where a large turnout of the international press and diplomatic corps was present.
An anti-apartheid protest was held outside the hotel, organised by PNP supporters led by Government ministers to denounce the presence of a South African delegate. But the media also got a spectacular view of the distant skyline of fire as Trench Town burned. The international media reported on the political mayhem to the detriment of Jamaica. Manley rightfully did not wish a repeat performance but deliberately failed to say that the damage was done by gunmen on a rampage of arson and killings in Trench Town.
These were some of the negatives plaguing the Government which Manley chose to ignore while focusing on ways and means of implicating the Opposition in the sliding fortunes of his government.
CROWNING BLOW
The crowning blow to the web of fabrications which Manley weaved in his presentation in the House of Representatives would not be revealed until a commission of enquiry in 1978 on matters concerning the State of Emergency, presided over by Chief Justice Kenneth Smith, uncovered that the head of both intelligence agencies of government, the Special Branch of the Police Force and the Military Intelligence Unit (MIU) of the Jamaica Defence Force, never advised Manley of any potential threat to national security during Carifesta and, indeed, Deputy Commissioner Curtis Griffiths, head of the Special Branch, testified to the commission that he knew nothing about the intention to declare a State of Emergency; he read of it in the press although he was the chief intelligence officer of government. Captain Carl Marsh, in charge of the MIU also gave devastating testimony. He advised that there was no need for a State of Emergency.
The statements by the intelligence chiefs and the secret testimony on the brutal roles of PNP supporters in the Orange Lane Fire were not publicly known before the declaration of the State of Emergency. If full disclosure had been made, the declaration could not have been used as a political instrument to stifle the Opposition.
The path would still have been open, however, to proclaim a state of emergency to genuinely deal with "new and unique types of violence" if the approach had been stripped of politics. This would have created a platform of joint commitment by both parties to effectively stamp out violent crime. Instead, the political campaign of state terror generated such ill-will, aroused such passions and developed such a lust for vengeance that, in the end, the State of Emergency spawned tribal conflicts on a scale that reached the level of a near civil war. The forces activated by that war, once the electoral outcome was settled, virtually detached themselves and progressed on their own as gang members absorbed by other areas of gangsterism: narcotics, extortion and robbery.
To be continued.
Sources: Struggle in the Periphery by Michael Manley; Politics of Power by Pearnel Charles; various ministry papers, archives of The Daily Gleaner.
Edward Seaga was a former Prime Minister. He is now a Distinguished Fellow at the University of the West Indies. Email: odf@uwimona.edu.jm.
