The Phillips model of crime fighting

Robert Buddan, Gleaner Writer

In September 2005, then Prime Minister P.J. Patterson and Opposition Leader Bruce Golding signed a Declaration on Political Conduct in Parliament in the presence of the political ombudsman, Bishop Herro Blair. The declaration pledged that political leaders would dissociate themselves from criminal elements and criminal activity. Politicians would not knowingly associate themselves with persons in the pursuit of illegal activities or with any kind of violence, but would cooperate with the security forces to bring such persons before the law.

Golding, who is now prime minister, said that the declaration would be meaningless if politicians were not willing to "take action against their own". They must "enforce the rules".

Three weeks after becoming security minister, Dwight Nelson addressed the nation. The criminals of the land, he said, were a threat to Jamaica's sovereignty and the authority of the State. At least 120 of the most dangerous criminal gangs were responsible for 80 per cent of all major crimes. Their activities stretched across 10 parishes and had to be crushed, he said. Their leaders must be removed from the communities in which they operated. A direct assault on them must be launched.

The Pledge

It seems now that neither Golding nor Nelson meant a word they said. They have done the exact opposite to what they pledged. If you were to listen to Nelson's testimony at the 'Dudus' enquiry, you would think he did not know that the Shower Posse was a threat to Jamaica's sovereignty and the authority of the State. You would think he did not know the Shower Posse was a most dangerous criminal network, partly responsible for 80 per cent of all major crimes. You would think that he did not know of its leader, and he incredulously said he didn't. He did not know Coke then or since, or know that Coke was a don.

How could Nelson have made that address to the nation and not even know of the 'don of dons' from the 'mother of all garrisons'. Either Golding was incompetent to have made Nelson minister of national security or Nelson should no longer be. He should be recalled. In fact, having been pledged to the parliamentary declaration, he should be censured. What action will the political ombudsman take? After all, many do not believe Nelson. Has he broken a pledge to Parliament? Will Parliament stand idly by? Will the political ombudsman watch the political declaration become meaningless? Will the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ), which championed that declaration, also watch it made into a meaningless scrap of paper? Does it only apply under one Government?

Nelson and Phillips

Mark Wignall wrote that the difference between Nelson as minister of national security and Peter Phillips, the former minister, was "stark". Indeed, the seminal declaration on governmental crime-fighting in 21st-century Jamaica was the 2004/5 sectoral presentation of Phillips in Parliament, not Nelson's or Golding's meaningless talk. Phillips' strategy was to mobilise the country to rebuild the social order and to recommit to the values of a peaceful and orderly society.

The Phillips model sought to secure the stability the country needed to go about its lawful business peacefully and orderly. He assessed that we were a country unable to settle our conflicts peacefully. We needed to build a culture of respect for the law and to settle domestic disputes without resorting to the gun and the knife. This is in contrast to his successor, Dwight Nelson. Nelson reportedly pleaded to Hardley Lewin that extraditing Christopher Coke would bring down the Government. The Government's survival should come ahead of the very forces threatening society's stability. The Government's stability was to come, apparently, through lawlessness and disorder in the society. Nelson's muddle just didn't make sense.

Moral leadership

Phillips' sectoral presentation contained a declaration of his own, one that preceded the efforts of the PSOJ. The Phillips model was to appeal to politicians to take responsibility for moral leadership. The Government could not mobilise society if society did not have the will to follow. Society would not have the will to follow the Government's lead if politicians did not have the will and moral certitude to dissociate from criminals. Phillips appealed to politicians saying, "As national political leaders and members of this Honourable House, we all have a duty to set the right example at all times. We need to demonstrate to our constituents that we do not need the support of so-called dons, involved in violence, drugs, or worse."

When the minister of national security tells the commissioner of police, whom I believe, that to extradite Christopher Coke would possibly cause the Government to fall, it would be reasonable to imply that the Government and society need dons like Coke. This cannot be a crime-fighting strategy. Phillips said that as a society, we cannot legitimise criminal activity on economic grounds - that dons help people who are poor. Similarly, we cannot legitimise criminal activity on political grounds - that the Government would fall if it extradited Coke.

Too big to fall

Critical to the Phillips model was to demonstrate that no one was too big to fall. He said, "In the fight against organised crime, there are no untouchables. Nobody is beyond the law, whether they are in the drug trade or the so-called big men of violence at the community level. The arrests will help to dispel a public perception that some so-called big men are beyond the law, either because of corruption in the police or connections to politics."

The Nelson-Golding muddle reverses any confidence people could have in politicians. The whole Manatt saga of enlisting an American law firm with big political connections, paying the firm and delaying Coke's extradition and then spinning a "web of deception", words used by the solicitor general, around the whole involvement of the Jamaica Labour Party and the government completely reverses Phillips' intentions.

Milton Samuda, president of the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce, joked to an audience that Jamaicans were calling the televised Dudus enquiry 'The Days of Our Lies', a play on the soap opera, Days of Our Lives.

It is true that the political declaration did not have the legal force where those bound to it were under penalty of perjury if they were caught lying. But it was not intended to be meaningless. It was a declaration of faith on which one's word was to be taken as a pledge of trust. Probably now that K.D. Knight is finished with Dwight Nelson at the enquiry, he will introduce a motion of censure in the Senate where the two men sit on opposite sides. The People's National Party, too, should call upon the political ombudsman to investigate a breach of the Code of Political Conduct.

Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona campus. Email: Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm.