The injustice of misplaced priorities

Claude Clarke, Contributor

The George commission enquiring into the handling of the extradition request for former west Kingston strongman Christopher 'Dudus' Coke, and the subsequent engagement of United States law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips will soon be coming to an end and a report published. But does anyone expect anything to emerge that differs from what those who have applied objective thinking to the matter already knew?

A full year ago, in the March 28 publication of The Sunday Gleaner, in an article titled 'Deceptions, dons and underdevelopment', I wrote:

In two and a half years as chief executive of our country, Mr Golding, despite his earlier strong human-rights advocacy, has missed every opportunity to take a public stand in defence of the rights of our citizens ... until he was confronted by the case of Christopher Coke. His stout defence of Mr Coke's rights ... at the risk of Jamaica's international relationships and economic well-being speaks powerfully to the value he places on this individual.

But what is it about Mr Coke that makes him so valuable? ... He is Jamaica's 'chief don'. What is the message conveyed ... when a prime minister invests him with such high national value? So much so that the Government now has to be defending allegations that it directly or indirectly engaged a firm of US lawyers to lobby the United States government with a view to preventing his extradition.

party interest

It was always clear that Mr Golding had subordinated his prime ministerial responsibilities in favour of his personal and party political interest.

There is clearly no credibility to the case he has tried to make to the commission that the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), in an act of benevolent zeal, committed US$100,000 per quarter to hire lobbyists to protect the constitutional rights of just another Jamaican accused of high crimes. That the effort was intended to protect the interest of the Jamaica Labour Party is painfully palpable. And it is even more obvious that Dudus' value to the JLP was calculated to be far greater than the US$100,000 quarterly fee required to secure the services of Manatt.

Were it true that the purpose of engaging Manatt was to protect Coke's constitutional rights, the Government would have shouted its intentions from the rooftops, because not only would their actions have been right, they would have been popular.

The protection of Coke's constitutional rights was clearly not the reason, but a convenient ruse to prevent the extradition of a critical figure in the JLP's political organisation. And the clumsy and deceptive manoeuvres to engage members of the civil service and the executive of Government with Manatt officials was designed to satisfy the lobby firm that it was, indeed, working for the Government of Jamaica, even if surreptitiously. Poor Ronald Robinson has the tracks of the bus wheels on his back to prove it.

The disgraceful facts are already known to all thinking, non-partisan Jamaicans: Dudus was too valuable a political asset to the JLP for his extradition to be allowed. The prime minister, whose principal mission, like all other politicians, is political power, commissioned a plan to prevent it. That it was so ineptly executed that it visited a wave of death and destruction on the country is testament to the prime minister's desperation and lack of political sophistication.

His political objective of keeping the party's principal street enforcer in place to ensure that maximum muscle would be available for any political contest to come left a trail of blood and destruction across the capital city. Police stations were burned and the people of the Corporate Area were frightened into welcoming a state of emergency. In this environment of terror, at least 73 civilians were killed in one community within a couple of days. My brother Keith Clarke's bedroom was invaded by the military in the dead of night, and the magazines of high-powered rifles emptied in his back, in front of his terrified wife and teenage daughter.

So far, these state atrocities, blatant abuse of power and callous contravention of the rights of our citizens have gone unaddressed. Instead, the prime minister, feeling the need to shore up his shattered credibility and with a desire to project an image of courage and transparency, feigned submission to public pressure and set up a commission of enquiry; but only to enquire into the narrow procedural and administrative handling of Coke's extradition request.

expensive soap opera

A straightforward public admission by the prime minister of what we already know would have been sufficient. But instead, the country will end up spending almost $100 million on an exercise that has turned out to be a soap opera of little more than comedic value, and which has severely diminished the office of prime minister.

The commission will, in the end, reveal no more than the simple but horrible truth which is already known to everyone who is prepared to think objectively: the JLP hired Manatt and tried to avoid the extradition of Christopher Coke in a desperate effort to protect its own political interest.

The people's money will have been expended, and the commission will have provided raucous entertainment across the country. But it will have done nothing to dry the tears or heal wounds of the families whose lives have been shattered in the wave of violence which was unleashed when the prime minister morphed from dogged defender of Dudus-the-don into a take-no-prisoners crime fighter, anxious to erase the memory of the nine months of deception during which he protected his party's political enforcer from the American dragnet.

The nightmare of the Dudus deception and its tragic aftermath will continue for the grieving families, even though the charade at the Jamaica Conference Centre has ended. Yet, investigations into the slaughter by agents of the state of over 73 human beings, two in 1,000 persons, in Tivoli Gardens are still to be completed. And it has still not been determined who carried out the burning of the police stations, an event that was used to justify the calling of a state of emergency.

Ten months after Keith Clarke met his horrible death in his bedroom in an inexplicable massive military air and ground assault on his home, the officer who led the operation has not found it convenient to be questioned by the Independent Commission of Investigations to explain why, how and on what grounds he carried out this deadly mission. This although, only a couple of hours after the deadly assault, while their husband and father lay dead on the floor of his bedroom, Keith's traumatised wife and daughter were subjected to the most unseemly and intense pressure to give statements to the police. Not even the gruesome emotionally racked moment in which they attended the morgue to identify his frozen body on a cold slab was spared, as the relentless pressure for their statements persisted.

no ballistics test done

Almost one year after 22 bullets were pumped into Keith's back, the ballistics tests on the death weapons have not been done.

The late Ian Ramsey, in an excellent 1987 interview with Ian Boyne, expressed the view that burglary is the most repugnant of all crimes because it violates the most sacred of all human environments, a man's home, and invites confrontation and death. I wonder how much more revolting the celebrated Queen's Counsel would have found the violation of Keith Clarke in his home by the agents of the State who are paid to protect his privacy, his property, and his life.

The obstinate and audacious failure by state institutions and taxpayer-paid individuals in the military to perform the duty of their office and report on their deeds that have inflicted such human pain, suffering and destruction is a most glaring expression of the contempt in which they hold the people of Jamaica. The minister responsible for the military, the prime minister, is ultimately answerable for this flagrant and disgraceful affront and must be held accountable.

In my Sunday Gleaner article, 'The politics of subterfuge', which was published just before my brother's death, I called for Bruce Golding to be replaced as prime minister because of his breach of the public trust in the web of deception he wove in handling the Dudus extradition matter. Today, as the minister responsible for the failure of the military to account for the actions that led to the deaths of so many Jamaican citizens, his suitability for the office of prime minister, in which so much of the people's trust is invested, is even more questionable.

Claude Clarke is a businessman and former minister of trade. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.