25 Years of Espeut | The Braeton funeral

Surround them, cut off the water, and starve them out. There was no need for the 60 brave policemen to kill the young boys. It seems so hard for our justice system to convict agents of the state for use of excessive force. It is part of the culture of the State.

First published on April 4, 2001.

I mourn the passing of Keith Morris. Students in his school live within the Portland Bight Protected Area where I work, and my staff were scheduled to meet with him on the Wednesday after he was killed. Such a waste! The media have reported that there were tears at his funeral. Rightly so!

There were also tears at the funeral of Reagon O'Brian Beckford, Andre St. Christopher Virgo and Christopher Glenant Grant, although this fact seems to have escaped the attention of the media. They also were mourned by relatives and friends. And rightly so! Such a waste! Nice-looking boys (according to their photographs in the programme), cut down in the flower of their youth. There were tributes, both spoken and in song, by brothers, sisters and friends. A very sad occasion!

As I looked in the coffins at their battered and bruised faces unsuccessfully covered up by the funeral parlour, and at the tam and dark glasses which partially covered the damaged head of Chris, I asked myself why it had to come to this. I don't know if they were criminals and murderers; only a court should decide that; but they were my brothers - washed in the same waters of baptism as I am, citizens of the same country as I am, and members of the same human race as I am. Did they not deserve a chance to speak for themselves, to plead guilt or innocence, to work out their salvation in fear and trembling?

MORBID REJOICING

I am finding it difficult to understand how so-called followers of Jesus in this so-called Christian country, the same Jesus who refused to support the execution by stoning of the woman caught in the act of adultery (coincidentally the gospel lesson read last Sunday in Catholic churches all over the world) could rejoice at the manner of the death of these boys. But then, many of these same people will stone goat thieves to death, or rejoice at the result, so I suppose I should not be surprised. We need to work for the conversion of the hearts of many of those inside our churches, never mind those outside!

The young people that read poems and sang and cried for their brethren looked no different to the photos of Reagon, Andre and Christopher. Such pride in their appearance; such talent! Human beings like any of us. What have they learnt from all of this? There was no official presence at the funeral which might be taken as a hint of sympathy or regret - no policeman, no PNP or JLP politician, no wider church; only human rights activists. The police have an organisation dedicated to support them even when they do wrong. Who is there to support our youth?

I was pleased to see the article by Danville Walker in The Gleaner last Sunday, where he pointed out the Apartheid in Jamaica's education system. I have been writing about this for almost a decade now. With taxpayers' money, the Jamaican government supports high-quality education for a minority, such as I received at Campion College in the 1960s, and lower-quality education for the majority, such as those lying in the coffins before me last Sunday received. Do you see any connection?

Both my wife and I are former teachers who took our jobs seriously, and on our way home after the funeral, we lamented how these boys and so many others have fallen through the cracks of our education system. The school is not a substitute for the home, but at present, the number of failures and dropouts is a portent of unrealised potential and missed opportunity. On reason Jamaica is underproducing and underachieving is because we are wasting our human capital at an alarming rate. This failure must not be laid only at the feet of the teachers and the Ministry of Education, but also squarely at the feet of families and of the private sector and of the Church.

A mistake was made at Braeton; we know that now; the boys did not have to die. A cover-up is under way greater than the attempt by the undertakers, with the same result. And this summer, thousands of young men and women will graduate from schools across this land without realising a small fraction of their potential as human beings, as producers, as citizens.

What a tragedy it all is!

- Rev. Peter Espeut is a deacon of the Roman Catholic Church assigned to the Church of the Good Shepherd, Braeton, St Catherine.