THIS PAST week marked a record for the number of murders committed in Jamaica for a particular year and a new initiative to fight crime from the Minister of National Security.
Minister Phillips has once again warned that no one would be above the law in pursuing this initiative. He has vowed to arrest and prosecute anyone involved in drug-related crime, shooting, extortion, or any criminal act, whatever their social status or political persuasion. On an earlier occasion, the Minister had taken aim at the Members of Parliament themselves, on this same point.
Foreshadowing the announcement of Operation Kingfish, the police arrested the prominent Donald 'Zekes' Phipps, who had declared his own support for Minister Phillips in the latter's quest for leadership of the PNP.
'Zekes' allegiance has not spared him and it should not. It is hopefully a clear sign that Minister Phillips and the police will go after dons, even those claiming PNP allegiance.
The Minister had already declared that he would go after the top people in criminal enterprise and has backed up his words with action. Up to mid-year, at least eight major drug traffickers were arrested. As he said, "Nobody is beyond the law whether they are in the drug trade or the so-called big men of violence at the community level. There are no political or ministerial restrictions on the police to do their job under the law."
The result of this policy, the Minister said, was that Jamaica was winning the war against the drug trade.
INTERNATIONAL CREDIBILITY
No doubt the determination to go after political dons is a necessary signal to get the support of the top representatives of Britain and the United States in the island. This, in turn, is a critical ingredient in the crime-fighting strategy because as Minister Phillips has said, "organised crime is an inter-connected one in today's globalised world." The successes against the drug dons have been achieved with collaboration between Jamaica, Colombia, the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom. The Kingfish Initiative will similarly depend on international cooperation. The resemblance of 'Kingfish' to 'Kingpin', the latter being a term used by the U.S. operation against the big men in drugs, is not accidental.
Both Ambassador Sue Cobb and High Commissioner Peter Mathers must be congratulated for the faith they have shown in this and other crime-fighting initiatives. They understand the importance of this effort to their own countries and to the investment opportunities for Jamaica.
I believe Ambassador Cobb's own initiative for building bridges between Jamaica and Florida is probably the most important and concrete diplomatic initiative by any U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica.
High Commissioner Mathers has already declared his confidence in Jamaica's preparedness and potential for new investments and his belief that Jamaica is serious about beating the crime problem. His own contributions could also make him the most important High Commissioner to Jamaica ever, and if we get the success we need from this initiative, he will certainly have my vote. The region also welcomes the new security agreement between the UK and CARICOM.
NEW FRAMEWORK
Minister Phillips, Ambassador Cobb and High Commissioner Mathers have established a fundamentally new framework for crime-fighting. They have replaced the acrimony of unilateralism evidenced in the conflicts surrounding the Shiprider approach with one in the spirit of international cooperation and mutual respect. Hopefully, this new spirit will guide the Shiprider Agreement extended in February this year.
They have put the diplomatic presence of Britain and the U.S. in Jamaica into action rather than directly depending on distant State Department and Foreign Office officials who have tended to treat the problem in the larger security framework of Britain and the U.S. And, they have placed crime in all its dimensions drug-trafficking, extortion, guns at the centre of their initiative rather than to hive off drug-trafficking as the special problem to be isolated, as has been the case in the past.
This new approach is certainly a success for Minister Phillips and the collaboration of the diplomatic community. The Minister has not missed the opportunity for Jamaican people themselves overseas to lend assistance. At the conference on the diaspora earlier in the year, he suggested that Jamaicans overseas can lobby overseas governments about the problems of deporting criminals back to the island, and for more financial help for Jamaica's law enforcement agencies.
LOCAL CREDIBILITY
The international community must be assured that Jamaicans at home are also serious about crime-fighting. The new initiative must therefore be supported by the Public Order Initiative with which the Ministry of National Security is involved along with other ministries, and the Peace and Love in Schools (PALS) programme.
One of these is the campaign to reduce school violence and truancy and to transform the negative attitudes towards 'informers' into responsible civic behaviour.
Another local initiative is the anti-crime social intervention
project run by the Jamaica Constabulary with
cross-ministerial support,
introduced in 2003.
It aims to help people in high-risk communities as a part of community policing. The programme aims to curb social decay and improve the quality of life in communities across the island and has been directed particularly at those 25 and younger.
Yet another way of getting more citizens involved, of course, is through the Neighbourhood Watch Movement. There are about 600 of these across the island and the Ministry of National Security plans to revitalise this movement this year to transmit responsible values and attitudes of citizenship. In addition, there are 372 police youth clubs which will sharpen their focus on education, training, entrepreneurship and sports. The objective is to recruit an additional 5,000 members to these clubs.
THE STATE AND SOCIETY
It will take a societal effort to deal with the culture of violence. This has deep historical, social and cultural roots. It is made worse by the breakdown of socialising institutions such as family, school, church and community. Then there is social opportunism. People who defend criminals often depend on them for food, school fees, sports equipment and economic benefits.
The other problem is that, as the Minister said, compared to other Caribbean countries, Jamaica has too small a crime-fighting establishment. Jamaica, he said, has the lowest ratio of police to population in the Caribbean.
This is shocking. We have about the same number of police personnel as does Trinidad which has about half our population and less than half our murder rate.
This means that the Jamaican state and society must take the place of the dons who dole out benefits in exchange for loyalty.
We focus so much on state patronage and political tribalism that we have missed the phenomenon of don-community patronage and the community tribalism that results and which costs more lives than political patronage has ever done. State, private sector and social sector must reposition themselves not as distributors of patronage but of opportunities and purveyors of a culture of responsible citizenship.
It also means that the state must find the funds to build the capacity of the police establishment. Capacity, however, means fighting and intelligence capacity as well as the integrity of the establishment and sustainability of its efforts.
Jamaica cannot afford another year with more than a thousand murders.
I hope the Minister and the security forces are confident enough about this new initiative to put their jobs behind a commitment to reduce killings next year. If 'Zekes' is the beginning, let us see more arrests in the next few weeks.
Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona. Email: Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm or to infocus@gleanerjm.com
