National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang’s suggestion that the People’s National Party was behind recent bomb threats are too serious to leave unexplained. Given the potential impact on national security and democratic trust, it is important that he provide clarity and evidence to support his claim.

Terrorist bomb threats

Jamaica Gleaner/1 Sep 2025

IT IS deeply unfortunate that Horace Chang, the national security minister, without offering evidence, accused the People’s National Party (PNP) of responsibility for a series of bomb threats at government offices on Friday.

Dr Chang neither gets, nor deserves a pass that he acted in his political role as the general secretary of the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). He doesn’t have the luxury of alternating skins for, especially when addressing, critical matters of national security, including, in this case, one of the island’s major political parties, of behaviour akin to terrorism, or something close thereto.

If Dr Chang was briefed to this effect by the police, he should say so. In which case, we look forward to the constabulary quickly arresting and prosecuting not only the “PNP elements” who were responsible for Friday’s despicable act, but those who instructed them and on whose behalf they worked.

Friday was when members of the constabulary, the military and people who will manage Wednesday’s general election were required to cast their ballots, freeing them to their jobs on Election Day.

However, in the middle of that exercise, messages were received by several government ministries, departments and agencies claiming that bombs were planted at their premises.

Happily, no bombs were found and none exploded. Voting wasn’t affected.

HIGHLY DISRUPTIVE

However, the threat was highly disruptive. Offices were cleared out, some businesses closed early, and traffic gridlock worsened in some areas of Kingston and other towns. Many millions of man hours were lost, and several firms were faced with a financial hit.

In the face of the chaos, the JLP issued a statement in Dr Chang’s name saying: “It appears elements in the PNP have adopted mischievous disruptive actions in an attempt to disrupt the voting of the security forces. I urge elements in the PNP to desist from seeking to cause disorder.”

Dr Chang has not denied authorising that statement.

We take his allegations seriously, on several fronts. If it was indeed the PNP, or elements or officials of that party who orchestrated the bomb threats, it would be a dangerous assault on democracy, with the potential for taking Jamaica back to the bad old days of the 1970s and 1980s when the island’s elections were marked by violence.

Further, if the PNP was behind Friday’s event, as Dr Chang claimed, and got away with it, the party has an incentive to repeat the effort on Wednesday, when the rewards, presumably, would be greater.

FORM OF TERRORISM

Additionally, what happened on Friday wasn’t and can’t be dismissed as a simple act of mischief. It was, in this newspaper’s view, a form of terrorism, capable, we believe, of being prosecuted under Jamaica’s Terrorism Prevention Act. A bomb threat, even if it is a hoax, rises to the level of terrorism, if the intention is to instil fear, undermine public order and interfere with the democratic process – all of which were in play on Friday.

Indeed, the Jamaican law includes in its definition of terrorist activity acts or omissions that danger the life of a person or health and safety of any segment of the public, if those acts or omissions are “committed in whole are part for a political, religious or ideological purpose, objective or cause with the intention with the intention … of intimidating the public, or a segment of the public, with regard to its safety, including economic security”.

It would be useful to hear from the director of public prosecutions (DPP) if those criteria were met on Friday.

Having established the gravity of Friday’s bomb threats, it would be beyond mischief, and deeply irresponsible, even in the heat of political battle, for the national security minister, without offering clear evidence, or ensuring arrests, to accuse an opposing party of deliberately attempting to subvert the democratic process, and of threatening the safety and security of Jamaicans, including their physical and economic well-being.

Jamaica’s democracy is valued too much for it to be subverted by acts of terroristic intimidation, as it happened on Friday, or for claims, without specific evidence, accusing standing political institutions of being perpetrators.

We therefore look forward to ‘the more’ from Dr Chang and for the follow-up action by the police and the DPP. May the chips fall where they will!

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