Manatt let-off reaffirms doubts, hardens cynics

The Manatt-Coke enquiry report, produced by commissioners Emil George, Donald Scharschmidt and Anthony Irons, can, in my opinion, contribute to corrupting the conscience of the Jamaican people.

The message that it conveys - and we don't need a poll to confirm this - is that our modern-day governors can lie, deceive and obfuscate at will in their exercise of the monopoly of power, and there will be no discernible consequential effect on our system of governance that would motivate us to seek its transformation.

In contemporary political science literature on Latin and South American societies, this spectre of ugliness in political management is used as the basis to define polities that are classified as banana republics.

Had the commissioners acquitted themselves properly in the search for the truth by rigorous analysis of the evidence, detailed examination of the statements of witnesses, and a willingness to subject the testimony of those appearing before them to thorough cross-examination, they would have been hard-pressed not to find any of the actors in the extraordinary Christopher Coke extradition fiasco culpable of wrongdoing and deserving of serious sanctions.

Caution to civil society

Despite this unpalatable reality, however, I would caution civil society not to be in too much of a hurry to dismiss the process that led to such an unworthy report. As The Gleaner opined most agreeably in its editorial of June 16, despite the flaccid nature of the report, "the process for arriving at it was good for Jamaica".

I agree with this assertion completely, for the process opened our eyes to some glaring facts and discoveries about our fledgling democracy and provided a better understanding of what it takes to operate the kind of governmental system we have inherited.

We now know, for example, that secrecy is not necessarily compatible with the interests of the public; and that it entails adverse consequences in its execution that can render a country's prospects for the future doomed indefinitely. Most Jamaicans now have a reasonably good idea as to which of our current crop of political leaders featured in the Dudus-Manatt saga are good for the future development of our country and those who are not; those we can - and ought to - trust with power, and those we should not; those driven by egoism and, therefore, would not be the most suited custodians of power; and further still, those who genuinely have the interest of this country at heart, and those who do not.

It is now time for all of us - the diaspora included - to put our shoulders under this burden of circumstance and be prepared to do some heavy lifting in defining the role of government in our society once and for all, for it has never been adequately defined. Truth be told, herein lies our problem, which is why the role of government seems to be whatever the lust for power makes of it, thinking it can get away with it.

This is the legacy of the process leading to the Manatt-Coke commission of enquiry report - a legacy which, in time to come, will prove more useful and relevant than the report itself.

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