The Editor, Sir:

As I listen to politicians and various interest groups defend the right of the Jamaican people with sophisticated language, I wonder sometimes if they are listening to themselves, or if they understand what is happening in Jamaica.

The truth is while we engage in a battle of words to protect the rights of the Jamaican people, murderers are busy depriving the Jamaican people of their right to life - the most basic human right.

Murderers must be full of glee when they hear the empty talk from day to day while they parade with loaded guns emptying them on the defenceless Jamaican people knowing fully well that their right to be marauding murderers is intricately bound to the rights of the Jamaican people.

They are Jamaicans with rights that must be protected, so they will remain free to continue their spree, spraying bullets, sparing no one in their path, while the war of words is waged on the airwaves and behind burglar bars and on premises protected by security companies.

Separating murderers from innocents

The dilemma we face is separating the murderers from innocent people and punishing them for their wanton waste of human life while protecting the rights of innocent people to get on with their daily lives undisturbed by unwarranted infringement of their rights.

Let us be clear about the choices that we are making. Are we saying that we would prefer to allow the murderers to continue to parade the streets without fear, if in the process of trying to apprehend them, innocent people will have to suffer any inconvenience? I can hear a resounding NO, NOT AT ALL and more rhetoric.

My response, with due respect to my colleagues with university degrees, any solution that takes a university degree to understand is NOT the solution to the problem unless we are dealing with things hypothetical.

In real life, the so-called man in the street understands runnings, and some of them that I talk with say that it is the so-called intellectuals mashing up this country.

When I asked the reason for the comment, the answer that I was given is "dem a run up an dung a go a different country an a try falla ada people. Dem naa listen to wi who live wid di problem. So tings naa go betta."

I am, etc.,

WINNIE ANDERSON-BROWN

winab@cwjamaica.com