Pawns in a bigger game?

WHEN JAMAICAN police personnel and members of the Royal Hampshire Regiment (RHR) went to raid a Rasta Camp at Red Hills in St Andrew on Tuesday, June 21, 1960, they did not go on a whim. The operation took place after a weekend of planning because the authorities had heard that subversive elements at the camp were being trained to destabilise the country.

The Rastas, who had been setting up camps all over the country since the late 1930s, were already in the Government’s bad books, and now it seemed that they were harbouring people of suspicious intentions, and arms were being smuggled into the island.

The joint police and military dispatchment found no one at the camp initially, but four members of the RHR, who were left to guard the camp, were ambushed and shot by five gunmen with high-powered weapons. Two died, and the others hospitalised with serious injuries.

Up to the Wednesday night the massive and widespread manhunt turned up nothing, but by then rumours were floating all over the country that the fugitives might have been black Americans who came into the country to train the Rastas in insurrection tactics, and to use high-calibre weapons.

Among the people rumoured to be in the island was Reynold Henry – the son of Reverend Claudius V. Henry, leader of the Coptic Church, who was arrested and jailed for treason, along with 15 of his followers, in the April prior. People claimed to have seen Reynold Henry, who would have entered the island illegally, and the authorities wondered whether these men were responsible for the shooting of the RHR privates.

Another name that was on the lips of many was Claudie ‘Thunder’ Beckford, the Rastaman wanted for similar charges to Reverend Henry’s. There was no evidence to say he was among the five fugitives, but there was some who say that he was at the camp at Red Hills.

ARREST

In another development on Wednesday was the arrest of a man who had an American accent and a Rasta man at a house at 20 Duff Street in Kingston in the afternoon. They were seen entering the house early Wednesday morning. The two were charged by the Hunt’s Bay Police for breaching the gunpowder and firearms laws. It turned out the man with the accent was one of the five fugitives, but it could not be determined when he was separated from the other four, who were reported to be in the Sligoville area of St Catherine.

On Friday, June 24, The Daily Gleaner reports that 10 people, mainly Americans, were being sought for questioning; among them was Reynold Henry. On the wanted list, too, were his associates: Eldred Morgan, Mitchell Swaby, Patrick Ainsworth Grant, David Ambrister, Donald Harper, Titus Damon, Joseph Lee Williams and William Jeter. Two of them were believed to be Jamaica-born American citizens, while the others were all US-born.

All kinds of theories were being posited for the inability of the authorities to catch the elusive fugitives. The number of people searching was emboldened, the dragnet spread wider, the police appealed for useful information, other Rasta camps were raided (some razed), many people were arrested in the dragnet for unrelated offences, but, the other four suspects seemed to be several steps ahead of their pursuers.

GUNFIRE IN THE BUSHES

And, after a big funeral procession led by Premier Norman Manley, privates Brian Mettherell and David Philpott were buried side by side with full military honours in Briggs Park Cemetery at Up Park Camp in St Andrew, on Thursday, June 23.

On Friday, the 24th, the frustration continued for the authorities, and, on the afternoon of Saturday, the 25th, the air in the Kensington area of Sligoville was suddenly punctuated by “heavy automatic rifle fire”, sending residents to seek cover. The fire was coming from the joint police and military detachment who were trying to flush the desperadoes out of bushes they were suspected of using for cover.

This latest salvo was inspired by a report from a farmer, Lorenzo Mendez, who said three men held him up while he was attending to his cows. They wanted food and cigarettes. He told them he had none. After they went back into the bushes, he reported the encounter. An hour later, troops from the Royal Hampshire and the West India regiments swooped down upon the area, and fired into the bushes for about 20 minutes, to no avail.

On the same day, about 1:10 p.m., the spotter-plane assisting in the search developed mechanical problems and was forced to land on a dirt road. Within 10 minutes the matter was resolved, and the pilot rose again to find the fugitives. Several men in different parts of the country were detained for questioning, but they were not the people the authorities wanted.

The American who was arrested at Hunt’s Bay Police Station was a Leroy from Brooklyn, and he was subsequently charged for the murder of the two Royal Hampshire privates. Then, there was a report that Reynold Henry and some of his friends were seen in the Sligoville area. His picture, and those of his cronies, David Ambrister and Mitchell Swaby, were published in a police advertisement in The Daily Gleaner.

At a press conference, also on Saturday, the 25th, William Sievright, the minister of home affairs, said certain elements of the Rastafarian movement were being used as “pawns in a bigger game”.

“Mr Seivright would not specify what this ‘bigger game’ might be; nor would he commit himself to answer the question as to whether in the Government’s view, the present internal troubles were ‘communist-inspired’,” The Sunday Gleaner of June 26, reports.

Read the shocking conclusion tomorrow.