Letter of the Day - A terrible price to pay

THE EDITOR, Sir:

I TOTALLY sympathise with and support an overworked and underpaid police force relentlessly battling a hardened criminal element.

My heart goes out to the families of each member of the security forces who has been killed in the line of duty, giving his life for a society who treats his sacrifice with scant regard and very little appreciation.

However, I am still in shock that in a 'civilised democracy' an acceptable response to police being shot at, or even pinned down, is to encircle and lay siege to an area of a few acres for three days with thousands of Jamaican citizens unable to come out, and those who do, risk being shot indiscriminately.

Thousands of rounds were discharged for days, on homes, in a residential area long after police were no longer apparently pinned down or threatened. Twenty plus citizens were killed.

The above facts are indisputable, and the act is totally indefensible. The police force is an arm of the state. No persons under any circumstances has a right to engage the police in carrying out their duties. These last truisms should not be used to justify the transformation of the necessary act of self-defence into the open terrorism and ultimately murder of ordinary citizens in their community possibly at first frightened and undertrained, and later perhaps, vindictive and vengeful.

In any civilised democracy these police and/or those in high authority who gave instructions would have to answer for this incident.

When the FBI was engaged by Koresh and his cult in Waco, Texas, in attempting to storm the building, some of their members were shot and killed. Their operating procedures dictated that they had to wait 40-plus days as the eyes of the world watched the standoff. Had they attempted to shoot indiscriminately at Koresh's compound, agents and superiors would have been up before a commission. This is what a civilised society demands of its law enforcement in a modern age. In one case in the USA an FBI offer Lon Horiuchi was tried in a criminal court for manslaughter which case remains ongoing. In these cases only one or two people had been killed.

Men who are employed by the state to keep the peace do not fire or return fire indiscriminately or endanger citizens lives as was done so wantonly and for such a prolonged period. Where are our rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannons? This was not just irresponsible. It was outrageous and possibly criminal. It was not two or three people who were killed which itself would have been deplorable, but 20-odd!

Any self-respecting Minister of Security, Commissioner of Police or Senior Officer responsible should be contrite and consider resigning. Not because they are evil or did not mean to keep the peace, but because their decisions however well intentioned and difficult, resulted in this massacre. The Commissioner's response to the events is to present a shopping list of firepower. To do what? To kill more efficiently next time?

Have we, and I include myself, lost all sense of right and wrong? Is human life so inconsequential in this country that the numbers no longer mean anything? Is it because it was poor black people killed, why we are so casual in our response, so non-plussed? Do any of the leaders of the last 30 years, given our history of incidents like these, have any moral authority to govern? Are we by genetics or history, bound to have a less intellectual and balanced approach to governance and issues of justice, rights and freedom.

It drains me to write this as the whole affair has left me depressed. The events of the past few days have sunk deep into our collective consciousness.

I have mixed emotions about publishing this, since we live in a vindictive society ruled by people who are, moral pygmies and see everything through partisan glasses.

I have no political agenda and have voted for both parties in successive general elections.

However, the past few days are not to be accepted as merely 'unfortunate', as Jamaicans have accepted each outrage on both sides of the political divide for 30 years.

This incident must be investigated and yes, if and where necessary, blame ascribed and the full extent of the law brought to bear. No stone must be left unturned.

In a more general analysis, our generation must ensure that the utter and abject failure, moral and economic of the generation(s) that have mismanaged this country's promise for 30 years is not accepted or imitated by our generation, lest the moral, political and economic legacy we inherit, be the one we bequeath. If we let this incident be, history shall repeat itself again and again and again.

If 20-odd lives have to be sacrificed to retrieve six guns or kill one or two criminals, it is too high a price.

This is a terrible example to the world, and ourselves, of the society we have created, and the people we have become.

I am, etc.,

DAVID B.G. MINOTT

9 Retirement Road

Kingston 5

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