Tredegar treason and the Buckfield solution

Martin Henry, Contributor

There is no more important and fundamental responsibility of the state and its government than securing the lives of citizens. In this regard, the Jamaican state and its Government have been miserable failures. And there is hardly a more striking metaphor of that failure than the murders of Tredegar Park.

I am declaring the situation the 'Tredegar treason'. Treason, in its original meaning from the Latin root tradere, to give or deliver over or up, is the betrayal of trust or faith - treachery.

The eight murders which took place in Tredegar Park on Black Friday, August 13, were not the result of some inexplicable criminality. Over the last seven years, some 30 people have been slaughtered there and in the neighbouring community of Gravel Heights, two communities which, between them, have only several hundred residents. Many others have been forced to flee their homes in search of safety and under ultimatum issued by gunmen with impunity.

Criminal politics

The situation has its roots in the criminal politics of the country and is a stark manifestation of the treacherous betrayal of the rights of citizens by politicians, the state, and the Government of the state formed by those same political parties.

The murders of August 13, and many before that, were predictable and avoidable, had there not been a gross dereliction of duty. Political leaders have turned up with crocodile tears pledging "never again", and cursing the murderers. While they plead ignorance of cause, the residents are very certain about the cause of their tribulations under the gun.

Arthur Hall has captured the pain, pathos - and cause - for readers of The Gleaner. In the Hall story, one elderly resident was quoted recalling "the days when doors were left open all night and there was nothing separating the residents of the community from those in the neighbouring community of Gravel Heights".

"Is just about seven years now it change and, from then, the killings can't done," the elderly woman added.

Residents recalled the morning of September 4, 2008, when they woke to find the head of 21-year-old Lionel Williams, otherwise called 'Nanny Boy', on the Tredegar Park main road. They remembered 43-year-old Vivian Douglas, who was also killed in the community.

For some, the killing of Romel Skully, 60, businessman, otherwise called 'Oyster', and Marcus Tulloch, 35, otherwise called 'Simon', was fresh in their minds.

But every resident, once they were older than seven years old, had a story to tell about a murder victim, Hall reported.

While most of the residents, trapped in the culture of silence which criminal terrorism reinforces, refused to speak about the source of the conflict, one elderly woman voiced for The Gleaner what everyone in the community knew was true: "A politics cause all of this."

But for Tredegar Park and Gravel Heights in East Central St Catherine, this is more than the usual party politics, Hall pointed out.

Tredegar Park is a traditional Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) stronghold. The neighbouring Gravel Heights is a People's National Party (PNP) stronghold.

For years, residents of the two communities existed with only minor political skirmishes around election time. Then, the two major criminal gangs which operate out of St Catherine moved into the area.

One Order and Clansman

The JLP-aligned One Order gang established its presence in Tredegar Park, and the PNP-linked Clansman gang set up base in Gravel Heights.

With the gangsters came the guns, fire bombings and killings, each one more brutal and heartless than the other, Hall reported from the frontline.

But there is nothing new here. Tredegar Park and Gravel Heights are merely experiencing what numerous poor urban communities have already experienced over the last 40 years or so - coming under the heel of politically affiliated criminal gangs wreaking mayhem and havoc between communities and organising them into garrison communities to deliver guaranteed electoral results. The semi-autonomy of the gangs now must not be allowed to obscure their origins and original purpose and their continued ties to the political parties, ties which Member of Parliament Ronnie Thwaites has recently demanded to be severed.

The terrorised and terror-stricken people of Tredegar Park, mourning their most recent dead, have had to beg their Government to restore the security post which was established there after another spate of murders some time ago. The removal of the post was an act of abandoning Jamaican citizens to the control and murderous rule of criminal gangs, which have attached themselves to the political parties and were known to be biding their time to wreak havoc upon their perceived enemies.

Retired Superintendent of Police Reneto Adams visited Tredegar Park soon after the killing of the eight residents and said more than that criminal gun men should be hunted down and killed. "My policy is that where criminals are concerned, we are to identify them and treat them like the ferocious crocodiles and alligators, having them killed in the eggs before they are hatched," Adams said. "Anywhere you see the alligators and crocodiles, have them killed before they devour you."

But Adams also told the people they had a right to defend themselves and implored them to "to form a guard against these people to protect yourselves".

The right to life comes with the inalienable right to defend one's own life. Otherwise, the right to life makes no real sense. But government and the state were 'invented' primarily as a centralised communal means to secure the rights of people, chief among these rights the most basic right to life.

Fundamental rights

When the state and its government fail to do so or, in the case of Jamaica, the very political system itself has conspired with criminality to deny people their fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution, then people may be pushed to revert to defending their rights through vigilantism.

On the other side of the island from Tredegar Park, the infamous Buckfield video was taken, showing police officers, urged by citizens, beating and shooting Ian 'Cheng Sing' Lloyd, who appeared to be wallowing helplessly on the ground. The broadcast of the video divided the country into the morally outraged and sympathisers of the action. I suspect that sympathisers are in a strong majority. The main difference between the Buckfield incident and many other similar ones is the video made an appearing on national television.

The truth is, the people of Buckfield are no more barbarous than 'decent' Jamaicans. Their action, from all appearances, was not motivated by bloodthirstiness or any greater debauchery than the regular Jamaican. A great motivator for urging the killing of Ian Lloyd appears to be the feeling that the formal security and justice system of the state could not be relied upon to protect them from someone they saw as a serial criminal and a serious threat to them, and who had allegedly just killed someone.

The involvement of the police is cause for pause. Again, nothing really new, except the visibility. Citizens and the constabulary entered into an alliance to circumvent due process and to summarily eliminate a perceived criminal threat. Marking this down to sheer barbarity and disrespect for human life and human rights by indecent others is shallow analysis.

The citizens sought a certain level of lawful legitimacy through the involvement of the police (they didn't do it themselves) but were not prepared to trust and work with 'the system'.

Police mistrust

And we do know that the police themselves, officers of the law, do not trust the system of security and justice. It is a matter of irrefutable fact that many brave officers of the law have risked their lives to kill alleged criminals whom they do not intend to put before the courts for reasons ranging from the length of time taken to conclude trials to the difficulty of securing convictions, as evidence is eliminated by the murder of witnesses. These extra-judicial executions have earned the gratitude of citizens freed from their terrorisers.

To describe is not to justify. And I am writing this disclaimer specifically for Carolyn Gomes and Jamaicans for Justice. Indeed, we are faced with an extraordinarily dangerous situation for the rule of law and for human rights, but it is not without reason.

A reversal of the treason of government and of the political parties which form government against the lives of Jamaican citizens, a treason which is exemplified in the cyclic tragedy of Tredegar Park, must be undertaken with some urgency if we hope to have fewer, not more, Buckfield solutions.

Martin Henry is a communications consultant. Feedback may be sent to medhen@gmail.com or columns@gleanerjm.com.