Coral Gardens Rastas to have a Merry Christmas …Compensation to begin shortly for 1963 atrocity
Published:Sunday | September 29, 2019 | 12:00 AMErica Virtue/Senior Gleaner Writer
Jamaicans For Justice (JFJ) is confident that payment to the Rastafarians who were brutalized by the state in 1963 in Coral Gardens will begin before Christmas.
Compensation for the victims was contingent on a Social Enquiry Report done by the Office of Public Defender Arlene Harrison Henry, which was submitted in April to the Office of the Prime Minister.
JFJ, the legal entity representing the victims of the 1963 Good Friday atrocity, said the report was critical to the process, as it identified the beneficiaries and determined the members of the Trust Fund, which Prime Minister Andrew Holness, in 2017, said would be established.
Holness also apologized to the Rastafarian community for the brutalization committed 56 years ago.
The human rights group said prior to the publication of a Gleaner story (‘No Rasta Recompense’ – September 16, 2019), several requests for the report were denied by the Office of the Prime Minister. But now “information relevant to the process of compensation has been provided,” said JFJ executive director, Rodje Malcolm.
“Good things have started to happen since the publication of the story. So we have to thank The Gleaner,” Malcolm told Sunday Gleaner.
“As legal representatives of the Rastafari Coral Gardens Benevolent Society (RCGBS), Jamaicans for Justice have now received all outstanding information necessary to finalise the Trust through consensus deliberations with the Administrator General Department (AGD).”
He added, “We did not know the total number of beneficiaries. We now know that and we will be able to work with the government to establish the body of the Trust.”
TIERED APPROACH
According to him, the model of compensation – a tiered approach based on need – required that both the administrator and the community representatives arrive at consensus on the beneficiaries.
“We are happy to now be in a position to finalize this important process and anticipate that the Trust will be legally registered and beneficiaries formalized within one month. The RCGBS has already conducted the necessary fieldwork to ensure that victims, many of whom are elderly and living in abject poverty, will be in a position to receive and use the funds,” said Malcolm.
“This is an important and positive development. We are happy that this chapter is nearing a close. The victims deserve it.”
The Social Enquiry Report identified the number of beneficiaries, which has increased from the number previously known.
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…Millions to be paid out to Rastafarian community
In 2017, Prime Minister Andrew Holiness apologized on behalf of the government for the tragic events in Coral Gardens in 1963, and announced the establishment of a $10 million trust fund to compensate the victims.
In 2018, Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, Olivia Grange, said the initial sum announced by the prime minister was significantly increased, proclaiming during her Sectoral debate that the government was “committed to transferring $30 million annually over the next three years, to ensure the sustainability of the fund.”
She also said $12 million was already transferred to the administrator general.
In April, National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang reiterated that the culture ministry would increase the sum from to “$30 million per year” and it was expected to grow to more than $100 million by 2020.
But recently Jamaicans For Justice (JFJ) expressed concerns that the Coral Gardens victims were still waiting in vain for the promised compensation.
Last week, Grange wrote an op-ed in which she pushed back against criticisms for the delay in payment.
Between Thursday, April 11 and Friday, April 12, 1963, bloody violence flared up in Coral Gardens, then a farming community nearly 10 miles to the east of Montego Bay, St James on Jamaica’s north coast. It resulted in the death of eight persons and injuries to hundreds, and severe destruction of the complex by members of the security forces.
The Rastafarian community has accused the police of human and constitutional rights violations.
JFJ was retained by the Rastafari Coral Gardens Benevolent Society (RCGBS) to act on behalf of the victims and survivors.