EDITORIAL - Cautioning Mr Golding

LIKE MOST Jamaicans, this newspaper need not have been reminded, as we all were by Prime Minister Bruce Golding, that the constitutional rights of our citizens neither begin nor end at the Kingston suburb of Liguanea.

Of course, Mr Golding has now clarified in testimony at the commission enquiring into the Christopher Coke affair that his reference was not to the location of the United States embassy, but to his perceived new geographic demarcation of Jamaica's social divide.

We are not among those who will claim Mr Golding to have been disingenuous on the point. We would, however, warn against Jamaica resorting to a jingoism that undermines the country's security and other interests.

The commission before which Mr Golding is giving evidence is tasked, broadly, with determining whether the Government and/or the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) corruptly attempted to delay or prevent the extradition of Coke to answer charges in the United States (US) of gun and narcotics smuggling.

National influence

Coke, by Golding's acknowledgement, was a supporter of the JLP, who operated from the party's key urban stronghold of Tivoli Gardens in the heart of the PM's west Kingston parliamentary constituency. Coke's reputed underworld influence was, however, national.

It took nine months, and public outrage against claims by the Government of breaches of Coke's constitutional rights, before the administration agreed to his extradition. Coke's partisans then fought battles against the legitimate security forces that threatened the Jamaican.

Yet, for a long period, this enquiry, with ineffectual direction from its chairman, meandered around the existence of secret memoranda between Jamaica, the US and Britain that provided the operational basis for joint communication intercept facility in Jamaica, and whether the former security minister, Dr Peter Phillips, had a right to sign these memoranda without prior Cabinet approval.

Dr Phillips and the memoranda, which the current security minister, Mr Dwight Nelson, has hinted might be amended, seemed to be on trial.

Mr Golding has now pledged to pursue a "rebalancing of the extradition arrangements" between Jamaica and the US. He argues that extradited Jamaicans are not treated the same way as American citizens in the US. How this manifests itself, however, remains unclear; which brings us back to our warning against jingoism and post-Coke assertions of citizens' rights.

Weak security

Among those rights must be the right to life and security and to live in an absence of fear. Those are rights which most Jamaicans cannot claim, given the weak national security and justice environment, whose condition we must work hard to improve.

Indeed, the existence of garrison communities, the rise of 'dons' like Coke and the impunity with which they operate exemplify the problem.

Progress on this front has been helped by the removal of these 'dons', mostly via extradition to the US. The post-Coke liberation of Tivoli Gardens and its contribution to a reduction of crime is an example. Jamaica's situation is not dissimilar to countries such as Colombia and Panama.

In that regard, arrangements such as the memoranda of understanding and the extradition treaty have been beneficial to this country. The administration must be careful, at least for now, that these are not compromised in favour of a chest-thumping frolic.

At the same time, we remind the commissioners of their terms of reference and the conclusions they ought to arrive at.

The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.