The Editor, Sir:

I continue to be provoked by people from both political parties who remain persistent in proposing constitutional reform for Jamaica and I am quite suspicious of their motives. What provokes me is their insistence that constitutional reform is somehow the final dose of medicine which will miraculously cure all of Jamaica's ills. But a true cure requires a proper diagnosis and I am far from convinced that the monarchy is even remotely responsible for our current pains.

We have over 1,000 murders a year, a staggering figure which towers over the corresponding figures for the United kingdom (U.K.) and makes corresponding figures in the British isles appear puny. Jamaica ranks third in the murders per capita of all the world's countries! In fact, many of the still British dependencies use our crime figures as an argument in imposing visa regimes against Jamaicans wanting to visit their islands - they are scared. A comparison of numbers may help to understand why. The per capita murder rate per 100,000 for the UK is 1.4 persons, Jamaica's is 32.4 persons.

Economic comparisons are equally grim for Jamaica compared to the U.K. or even our nearest British neighbours. One U.S dollar can't even buy a full Cayman dollar, it may be exchanged for a mere 82 Cayman cents, while a U.S dollar may be exchanged for a whopping 68 Jamaican dollars.

Other figures only exacerbate the flaws in the persistence of reformers that doing away with the monarchy will cure our pains. I've not seen anything which would prove that less of the monarchy has benefited Jamaica or could be more beneficial. To be fair to them, the reformers argue that we could be subject to the Caribbean Court of Justice rather than the Privy Council without the monarchy. Thereformers should ask the many happy litigants who have had their judgements overturned on appeal to the Privy Council if that would be such a good idea.

Migration

The reformers have been pushing their ideas on us for quite some time now and it would appear to me that if a president rather than the monarch is such a powerful and good potent cure-all, that the exodus of Jamaicans to the U.K. would halt on just the possibility of the realisation of that proposal because the future would appear to instantly brighten. On the contrary, there are more and more Jamaicans seeking entry to the U.K. and British isles than at any other time in our history, which seems to say that Jamaicans want or at least prefer more of the monarchy than less of it and/or that our governments have failed miserably.

People who fail you and then point the finger at someone else is nothing new! People who consistently point the same finger around election time and preach the same sermon and about giving up your rights (in this case appeal to the Privy Council) should be viewed with suspicion.

I am, etc.,

JOHN MARTIN

easyinvestment@yahoo.com

St. Andrew

Via Go-Jamaica