EDITORIAL - Good choice of commissioners

We have long supported and championed the call for a commission of enquiry into the events in Tivoli Gardens of May 2010 and, in particular, the circumstances under which at least 76 persons were killed.

Earl Witter, the public defender, in an interim report on the matter, said there was prima facie evidence that many of those who died in what he termed the "siege" of the west Kingston community were victims of extra-judicial killings, the implication being that police and/or soldiers were responsible.

It is important that this issue be resolved and those responsible for murder, if there was indeed murder, in so far as it is possible, be brought to justice, or the conduct of the security forces vindicated.

The resolution urged by this newspaper and others also rests on two important bases other than the protection of the rights of those who died, if, in fact, their lives were unlawfully taken.

The first, the truth, if it emerges at the enquiry, will help to bring closure to the families of the people who died during that the Tivoli operation. A genuine search for the truth, however unpleasant the process and the facts it unearths may be, could help in building trust in the Jamaica State and its institutions, about which too many citizens are cynical.

It is against the backdrop of the foregoing that we endorse the administration's choice of the commissioners - Justices David Simmons, Hazel Harris, and Velma Hylton - to lead the enquiry.

Sir David, the chairman, a former attorney general and chief justice of Barbados, is an intellectually robust and fearless man who was one of the key architects of the Caribbean Court of Justice. Moreover, he has, with skill and competence, steered other enquiries and investigations, including, most recently, Jack Warner's management of the regional football body, CONCACAF. Justice Harris was a distinguished member of the Jamaica Court of Appeal, and Velma Hylton served as director of public prosecutions in Grenada and The Bahamas and also sat on the Bench in the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, before returning to the private Bar in Jamaica.

NO EMIL GEORGE REPEAT

We do not expect from this group the flaccidity of the Emil George commission, which made a hash of the first go at an enquiry into the Tivoli/west Kingston affair - the part about the then government's engagement of American lobbyists to stave off Washington's extradition of confessed drug trafficker and gunrunner of Tivoli Gardens, Christopher Coke. Unintended it may have been, but they arrived at perverse conclusions.

The crux of Sir David's assignment rests on 1 (d) and 1 (g) of the terms of reference for the enquiry, the conduct of the security forces during the operation, and the arrangements made and precautions taken to protect citizens during the operation and the associated state of emergency.

But these matters cannot be reasonably and seriously examined without looking into the concomitant issues that the commission has been asked to peruse. We therefore hope that there will be no overpoliticisation of the basis upon which the commission has been asked to go about its work, or the commission itself. Especially from the governing party's and administration's perspective, this ought to be no pre-election gimmick. Sir David must ensure this.

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