Mark Wignall | The horror of Keith Clarke killing

To those who had chalked up overtime hours in peering deep inside the tainted part of the soul of Jamaica, May 2010 would have been a perfect match for the word apocalypse.

The heavy-booted members of the security forces had used their excess of power and built-up hate over many years in live-target practice in Tivoli Gardens on May 24. In chase of Dudus, so they said. Two days later, on the night of May 26, a noisy helicopter flew over a section of Red Hills, Sterling Castle and the quiet of Kirkland Heights.

Word among the highly political, and those close to ground zero in the heavily armed Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) community of Tivoli, was that selected armies of Tivoli desperadoes would be taking the war to uptown communities if those communities sat by and allowed the authorities to snatch Dudus and hand him over to the Americans.

I was living close by with binoculars at night not doing too well making out the source of the explosions, gunfire, helicopter, moving lights on the ground. I told my daughter to position herself behind a column. I thought it was the beginning of the Tivoli pushback. Instead, it seemed as if some important persons in the top ranks of the Jamaican forces had badly erred or were scared of their own shadows. Those possible causalities must also include things which cannot be stated in this column.

Minutes later, my friend Keith Clarke was shot dead. In his home. In front of his wife and daughter. Shots to his back. The connection between killing Keith Clarke and the need for speed in collaring Dudus has never been made. Keith’s widow just began to give her testimony in the long-delayed court case.

In the weeks after the strangeness of the killing of Keith Clarke, the street had not yet completed its need to have rumour match what best suited the street gossip. At the time, I spoke with various sources, including at least one family member. I am certain that Mrs Clarke’s testimony will match what I found out.

As far as I determined, Dudus was probably on the way to somewhere in St Ann when dozens of soldiers and police swooped down on the calm of the upper middle class community of Kirkland Heights.

Under the harsh reality of how justice is dispensed in Jamaica, more is secretive about Keith’s shooting death than what is known. And, it would seem that the long dragging out of the case has a connection with attempts to delay the delivery of justice for the Clarkes.

Think of it. In the country which produced Garvey, Marley, Bolt, humans which made us feel good and even better about ourselves, it has taken 14 years to give Mrs Clarke a useful mention in our courts. Fourteen years.

THE JLP GUY IN THE HEART OF THE PNP

It was February 1989 and Michael Manley was back. Surprise, surprise, the socio-political apocalypse did not happen. Well, Omar Davies still had time. 1993 was not far off.

I knew the JLP would lose in 1989 but I still voted for that party. Claude Clarke, a proud Jamaican and gentleman politician in the PNP, had taken the West Rural St Andrew seat from another gentleman in the JLP, Dr Ken Baugh.

A People’s National Party (PNP) event was kept in Red Hills square. I suspect that my younger brothers had voted JLP but I never asked them. It wasn’t important to me. At the party, a few people do not like how we were led to a VIP area on passing through a cordon of sorts. But we were Keith Clarke’s ‘bredrin’.

Many times people enter death and their absence is eventually stitched into the long arc of experience. Not all stops will be pleasant and fulfilling. Twenty-one years before Keith met his end at the hands of men trained by the state to legally use weapons of war, I would attempt to spell out to Keith the ‘success’ that Seaga was. Keith wasn’t buying it and, like 10 times out of 10, we agreed to disagree. By 1993, I would be voting for the PNP. Did it in 1997 and in 2002.

SHOT IN THE BACK!

I am no expert in chain-of-command matters in the army, so I cannot quite figure out how a mere two lance corporals and one private have been held as those responsible for Clarke’s death. That ought to occupy important parts of the trial. Second, where is the indication that Clarke had displayed any action that would trigger the soldiers’ violent pushback?

Really now, even with the most skilled of lawyers defending those man, there would be no need to draw down on any excess of brainpower when shots to the back enters the equation. Of importance, too, is the source of the explosions. I could not quite determine if the explosions were made inside or outside of the house.

Are we allowed to attach any undue importance to the numbers of security personnel on the street, the barrage of shots/explosions, and still limit the charges to only three low-level operatives?

LOPSIDED JUSTICE

Jamaica has grown so used to various matters crawling their way through the system of justice that a few misguided people on social media have suggested that Mrs Clarke should join the line and be just another long-suffering citizen subject to the ills of the system. I say differently.

No links of blood (family), friendship or business have been established between Clarke and Dudus to place Dudus at the house of Keith Clarke and his small family. Is there the probability that the security operation mistook Clarke’s house for another not far away?

One of the problems that I have seen over the years is cases where logic is so painfully obvious. I think the prosecution can bring some weight to bear on those items so open and bare. It is on that basis that the case should have moved through the courts with speed instead of a crawl.

Which, by itself, deserves a specific answer and not the fog of legalese.

Mark Wignall is a political and public affairs analyst. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and mawigsr@gmail.com