PNP vice president slams gov't over calls for negotiations with criminals

WESTERN BUREAU:

People's National Party (PNP) vice president Ian Hayles has lashed the Government for recent utterances by Justice Minister Delroy Chuck and Junior Minister Homer Davis, that meetings with gangsters could be useful in addressing the country's crime problem.

Speaking on Sunday night at a party divisional conference in Brompton, St Elizabeth, Hayles condemned the suggestion as a sign of poor national leadership.

"When it comes to crime, I heard Delroy Chuck and Homer Davis say that Government needs to go and negotiate with gunmen. Jamaica is not a failed state, but it is getting there," Hayles declared.

Just over a week ago, Davis, a former Mayor of Montego Bay and the current Member of Parliament for St James Southern, said he would support security forces having talks with gang leaders. 

That idea was supported by the Justice Minister, the MP for St Andrew North Eastern, citing the measure as one of the approaches used to bring peace to the historically troubled Grants Pen community in St Andrew. 

Councillor Michael Troupe, the PNP's minority leader in the St James Municipal Corporation supported a similar idea during last Thursday's monthly meeting of the corporation. 

However, the suggestion has been shot down by National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang. 

“I don't negotiate with criminals. I cannot negotiate with killers,” Chang declared last week, with backing from the senior ranks of the Jamaica Constabulary Force. 

READ MORE: Chang rebuffs call for police to negotiate with criminals

Davis' comment came against the backdrop of a 33 per cent increase in homicides in St James. 

Meanwhile, the PNP's Region 5 Chairman Kern Spencer criticised the Government's for what he calls the lack of a concrete plan to tackle Jamaica's problem of crime and violence.

The meeting was held to endorse O'Neil Buchanan as councillor-caretaker for the Brompton Division that falls in the St Elizabeth South Western constituency represented by the Jamaica Labour Party's Floyd Green. 

The division is currently held by the JLP's Withney Smith. 

- Christopher Thomas

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