The Editor, Sir:

'Leave out bad company, you hear me' is an advice most well-thinking and decent Jamaican parents give to their children, and if most children heeded that advice, many would not find themselves in difficulties.

Sir, I do not like dictators, as I have watched people like Saddam Hussein bring destruction down on Iraq from which I do not think the hapless people of that country will recover in our lifetime. We are now watching our friend and former freedom fighter Robert Mugabe mutating into one egotistical horror, transforming Zimbabwe into a foodless, nasty dictatorship.

Now, right at our back door, there is a new toy soldier, Hugo Chávez, creating a Satan out of himself, closing down media houses and wanting the world to believe that he is walking in the footsteps of a Fidel Castro, to be the leader of a socialist bloc. This is at best a socialist illusion, because 'socialism is dead', as declared by none other than Professor Trevor Munroe on a morning radio programme some years ago.

However, the Jamaican govern-ment seems intent on turning a blind eye on the atrocities of their dictator friends. They 'see and blind, hear and deaf, take and sell', while continuing to keep bad company and solidifying relationships with people like Chávez.

My advice to the Jamaican Government is to leave out bad company because, in the long run, the evidence is that it is the ordinary people, either in Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Iraq, Jamaica or South East St. Ann, who suffer along with the poor who they declare their love for at every photo or media opportunity.

I am, etc.,

MICHAEL SPENCE

Micspen2@hotmail.com

P.O Box 630

Liguanea, Kingston 6