EDITORIAL - No reason to crucify Bunting

There are many easy and credible reasons to criticise Peter Bunting, the national security minister, over his handling of his portfolio.

That is why we are surprised at what, in recent days, has become the Bunting cause célèbre - his remarks in an American television documentary about Christopher Coke and the Golding administration's stalling of the US in its bid to have the gangster extradited.

What seems to have incensed many people, particularly the Opposition, was Mr Bunting's characterisation of the behaviour of the Attorney General's Department in the Coke affair and a perception that, as the saying goes, he washed Jamaica's dirty linen in public.

This newspaper makes two points.

The first is to note how quickly memories appear to fade. It can't be difficult to recall how embarrassed and flabbergasted we all were at our Government's apparently extraordinary efforts to have the United States back away from the extradition request.

The commingling of the Jamaica Labour Party's (JLP) efforts and the actions of the Government, via the foreign ministry and the office of the solicitor general, were ventilated at the commission of enquiry into the hiring of the lobbyists, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, to help the JLP/Government manage the extradition request. Indeed, the inappropriateness of that action was one of the few sensible and coherent findings of the George commission into the affair.

Further, it is hardly a matter of dispute that it is public opprobrium over the administration's conduct in the Coke affair, as well as an attempt to salvage the JLP's fortunes at the imminent elections, that caused Mr Golding to resign the premiership.

The second point is about our penchant for rolling out the ramparts of nationalism rather than face unpleasant realities when they confront us from outside Jamaica.

Our criticism of Mr Bunting in this respect is not that he appeared on the programme and spoke about one aspect of the nasty underbelly of Jamaican politics outside the country. Our concern is that he was not sufficiently honest about the breadth and depth of this sore.

The commingling of politics and criminality is not limited to the JLP. The People's National Party, of which Mr Bunting is general secretary, has had its own embarrassments, as 'Dudus' thrived under much of its reign in the 1990s and 2000s.

So while we appreciate Mr Bunting's assurance that the administration of which he is a member would not operate from the playbook that made the Manatt scenario possible, he would have done better in acknowledging the broader sweep of the relationship between crime and politics in Jamaica.

That having been said, crucifying Peter Bunting over his remarks won't change the reality of the Government's misbehaviour in the Coke extradition affair. Nor will keeping quiet about it.

Rather, talking truthfully about such sordid episodes in national life and about the damage they have done to our country is one antidote to their recurrence.

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