A family member forwarded me an email with the subject 'Canada has someone, the US isn't telling us about - black female Haitian governor general'. The email sets out the fact that Canada's governor general, who is also head of state, was Machaelle Jean who was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Governor General Jean fled Haiti when she was 11 years old.

Could someone please enlighten me why it is possible for Canada to accept a foreign-born black woman as their governor general, but Jamaica still has in place a Defence Board policy decision made in the 1970s that barred non-Jamaican-born Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) officers from being appointed chief of staff?

What's the difference?

What made foreign-born JDF officers - Ken Barnes (deceased), Nestor Ogilvie, Glen Mignon, Torrance and Rudyard Lewis, and others - any less loyal than their Jamaican-born counterparts? And can we imagine the hurt such foreign-born JDF officers and their families endured when, after giving their youth to the service of Jamaica, they were barred from being appointed as the JDF's chief of staff because they were not born in Jamaica?

Why was such a policy conceived, and aren't we ashamed that it has been condoned by respective administrations? Should the present government not be apologising to those former officers and their offspring who were so shamelessly discriminated against because of an absurd policy? Is the present administration going to reverse that policy and make public the thinking behind it? If they do, they would have made a giant step in taking the lead in sincerity and decency.

I am, etc.,

COL ALLAN DOUGLAS (Pro patria)

alldouglas@aol.com

Miami, Florida