The Editor, Sir:

Many years ago the Cockpit Country provided refuge for persons trying to escape slavery imposed on them by foreigners. Fast-forward to present day 2006, and it is now the Cockpit Country which needs refuge from invading foreigners.

Foreign bauxite companies have launched an attack on the last wilderness area on the island. They have sought permission to rape and pillage an area that is priceless in value to our ecosystem; an area that holds the headwaters of a number of the island's major rivers and indigenous plants and animals.

Their affront to our island's heritage and fragile environment is appalling and horrific, but what has brought out in me intense feelings of shame, anger and even rage is the fact that the Minister of Agriculture, Roger Clarke, a born and raised Jamaican, conceded to this environmental genocide.

But then again, I should not be shocked that the decision to renew the bauxite companies prospecting licence was made by this government, one with a notorious history of embezzlement, cronyism, and fraud; a government rife with corruption, a complete embarrassment to Jamaicans everywhere.

Never be the same

When the bauxite companies mine for bauxite, the areas mined can never be the same. The natural water system is polluted and top soil taken away, never to be replaced. Local residents have to be relocated and the air is thick with toxic dust. For the government to sanction this action in the cockpit country is unacceptable! And to add insult to injury the Government and the bauxite companies maintain that they are only using the licence to look! Well, maybe they are planning to use millions of dollars to locate the bauxite and then just look at it. Perhaps a game of alumina hide-and-seek in the hills of western Jamaica would be fitting for this unholy alliance.

I don't know who they are trying to fool, but it is very obvious that the Government of Jamaica has no good on their agenda. But even if this government can't get anything right, well except their salary increases, that does not mean that we as Jamaican citizens have to sit down and take it.

This is our country, and it is our land and our future they are trying to rip from under us. Jamaicans everywhere need to heed the cry of our homeland and voice our discontent with the current situation in the Cockpit Country. It is up to us to act, sign the petitions, write letters, call the radio shows, protest, let this government know that we are proud Jamaicans and they cannot sell us out and get away with it!

I am, etc.,

JOHNELLE CAUSWELL

JMCauswell@yahoo.com

Miami, Florida

Via Go-Jamaica