On the question of character

Daniel Thwaites

K.D. KNIGHT gave a scorching speech at the PNP's Region 3 Conference. At least one commentator has expressed concern that Mr. Knight's refusal to call the Leader of the Opposition 'Eddie', and thereby signalling a lack of friendship (as Knight said it did), gives the wrong signal to party supporters on the ground.

This is a truly exotic worry when one considers that Mr. Seaga has missed no opportunity to restate the foul opinion that the leadership of the Jamaica Constabulary Force conspired with political leaders (including Knight) to create mayhem in West Kingston. Surely that contention, stated and restated without any evidence, sends improper 'signals' to party supporters on the ground, and opens new realms of possibilities about what is permissible against policemen and the other side's supporters.

In another country they would call it a reckless accusation that in itself endangers peace and goodwill. One could hardly expect Knight to declare chummy friendship with someone levelling that kind of accusation at him. In any event, it is Mr. Seaga who has put the issue of character out for public discussion, not least of all with the attempted character assassination of the Prime Minister.

At one point Knight said ­ what is true ­ that Mr. Seaga in government had an abysmal human-rights record for which he was unapologetic and did nothing to redress. At another he remarked that if there were to be a hurricane in Jamaica, they should call it "Seaga". The corny joke aside, it led me to wonder if Knight had been nosing around the archives of The Gleaner and stumbled across Erica Virtue's feature piece of Oct 26, 1997 entitled 'Surviving the Seaga Storm'.

Even as Mr. Seaga's apparatchiks and henchmen are thrown into a complete panic by mention of "the Don" and "character" in the same sentence, there is a rich and detailed history waiting to be told about how certain practices entered into our politics. Ms. Virtue begins: "Don Mills, Joseph Bury, Anthony Bogues, Hopeton Dunn and Noel Lee all have something in common ­ bad memories of Edward Seaga". It continues that they and "countless others were publicly hounded out of office by Mr. Seaga during his tenure as Minister, Prime Minister and current Leader of the Opposition.

That round of dismissals

No solid charges were laid against any of them, they say, only accusations. But they also claim that those were enough to damage their reputations. Don Mills was publicly pressured to leave the Ministry of Development and Welfare because of a friendship, since schooldays, with Michael Manley. Note that this was in the 1960s. Joseph Bury, who had been at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was accused of being a spy for the Soviet Union, and so "his life was wrecked".

Bogues and Dunn were wrongfully dismissed from the JBC newsroom, accused of being communists. They were not alone either in that round of dismissals that followed the JLP victory of 1980, or in being called "communists". But in their case, the taxpayer, that rare creature, footed the bill for Mr. Seaga's indiscretion. Mr. Noel Lee, then Director of Elections in Jamaica, said that in the six months leading up to the March 1993 General Elections "he was verbally attacked at every turn by Mr. Seaga", and "threatened" by his supporters.

The pattern is always the same: the person is said to be a PNP member, supporter or sympathiser, and that, the assumption continues, is a crime punishable by a Rambo-style assault on the person's reputation and integrity, and maybe even more than that. Mr. Seaga gives the initial indication of displeasure and the goons follow in lock-step.

The "countless others" who have been publicly hounded by Mr. Seaga can no doubt be supplied by readers and rememberers better than I can, but there are some other victims who spring to mind immediately and I record here in no particular order.

The Governor-General Howard Cooke, Chief Justice Lensley Wolfe, Chief-of-Staff of the Army John Simmonds, Commissioner of Police Francis Forbes. Each of these men has come in for sustained and unapologetic abuse. John Simmonds is a "vampire", the current Commissioner a political puppet.

The Church has taken more than its fair share of abuse since the 1970s, when it was supposedly "the PNP at prayer", up until recently when Mr. Seaga said it "lacked credibility".

Thus one of the finest Jamaicans, Archbishop Samuel Carter, was once the object of Mr. Seaga's strenuous and prolific efforts. There are more: former Commissioner Col. Trevor MacMillan, and the Public Defender Howard Hamilton must be added to the list, the former for not sufficiently heeding a list of gunmen from West Kingston, the latter for who knows what. There would need to be a special category for Commissioners of Police who have had run-ins with Mr. Seaga because of West Kingston, and the evidence suggests that there is particular animosity to Governors of the Bank of Jamaica. Add to that list the lawyers Donna Parchment, William Chin-See, and former Political Ombudsman Justice James Kerr (author of the famous report).

Unspecified sin

We're not done yet. Danville Walker, John Maxwell, and Joseph Manley have all faced assaults. Members of the media, if they are not being marched upon, might just find that unflattering things are written up on walls nearby, like when now tamed Anthony Abrahams was daring to ask questions about Eli Tisona. And nobody could have forgotten the most recent addition to the list, Rev. Dr. Garnett Brown, head of the Church of God in Jamaica, whose sin is as yet unspecified.

Of course, if the list were to include members and former members of the Jamaica Labour Party, it would take a full issue of the newspaper to collect those names and stories.

Though many have lit candles, sung sankies, and found their ways back home, they while on the outside, have left revealing reflections on the character of their leader. Those are the fish that, as the saying goes, have come from the river bottom. Look, for instance, at Pearnel Charles' Cry from the grassroots where Mr. Seaga and Mr. Patterson are accused of all sorts of things, but only one of deliberate cruelty.

Daniel Thwaites is involved in teaching and writing.

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