I'll be vindicated
Published:Tuesday | July 6, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter
Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin vowed last night that history would vindicate him for controversial declarations last week surrounding the extradition saga of reputed drug baron Christopher 'Dudus' Coke, as well as claims by a government minister that Lewin was lying.
While steering clear of naming National Security Minister Dwight Nelson, the former police commissioner and army chief argued that he was au fait with the strictures of the Official Secrets Act, which Nelson has cited in a possible bid to muzzle him on sensitive security matters.
Speaking at a Rotary Club of East Kingston and Port Royal dinner at Morgan's Harbour Hotel and Marina, Lewin referred to his diagnosis of Tivoli Gardens as a gang haven, which he believes was borne out in the unprecedented military assault launched in May against militiamen loyal to Coke.
"Timing is everything. When I said in October 2005 ... that Tivoli Gardens is the mother of all garrisons, I was vilified, torn up, chopped up, everything. It stayed five years before it came to pass. I am a patient man.
"I am not into the issue of storytelling, but we shall see," he told the audience.
"When you are in public life, you are always under some form of criticism, some justified, some may not be justified. I compartmentalise them. I take them in stride," the ex-top cop remarked, adding that he would not be embroiled in a war of words.
Mixed messages
Meanwhile, the Independent Jamaican Council for Human Rights (IJCHR) has urged the Government to honour its commitment to repeal The Official Secrets Act of 1911.
The Government has been deemed by the rights lobby to be sending mixed messages despite its tabling of whistle-blower legislation, because of utterances by Nelson that he would use the Official Secrets Act to shut up Lewin.
"You can't have the Official Secrets Act and the Whistle-blower Act at the same time. They don't mix," Nancy Anderson, legal officer at the IJCHR, told The Gleaner yesterday.
Nelson, who is a member of the joint select committee of Parliament considering the Whistle-blower Act, has charged that public statements made by Lewin appear to be in breach of the Official Secrets Act. He has questioned whether Lewin, who left the job of top cop six months ago, could speak openly of any briefings related to national security.
Lewin last week alleged that deposed Tivoli Gardens don Christopher 'Dudus' Coke, who the United States has charged with drug smuggling and gunrunning, was "tipped off" about the extradition request within 15 minutes after Lewin, in his capacity as police commissioner, had advised Nelson.
According to Lewin, he had hardly briefed Nelson and arrived at Vale Royal to inform Prime Minister Golding on the pending request from the United States when Coke beat a hasty retreat to his enclave of Tivoli Gardens.
Nelson has distanced himself from the leaking of any information to the criminal underworld.
Hypocritical
Meanwhile, Nelson's threat to use the Official Secrets Act has been described as hypocritical by the Opposition People's National Party.
The Opposition pointed to Nelson's call in 2006 for the Official Secrets Act to be scrapped and questioned his desire to rely on legislation he once said "has no place in a modern, democratic society committed to openness, transparency and accountability".
Said Peter Bunting, the opposition spokesman on national security: "His statement, as published in The Sunday Gleaner, when juxtaposed with his 2006 comment, is at best an inconsistency, or, at worst, a demonstration that there is no real principle guiding his utterances."
Politicians have not been short of pronouncements and promises about the Official Secrets Act. The Jamaica Labour Party, when it was in opposition, chided the People's National Party administration for keeping "colonial-era" laws on the books.