New data from a French satel­lite shows poten­tial debris from Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in the south­ern Indian Ocean, France’s for­eign min­istry says. Radar echoes had picked up sev­er­al objects about 2,300km (1,430 miles) from Perth, a state­ment added.

It is the third pos­si­ble sight­ing in the area off west­ern Australia that has become the focus of the search effort. Flight MH370 dis­ap­peared on 8 March while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with 239 peo­ple on board.

Malaysian offi­cials believe the plane was delib­er­ate­ly tak­en off course. Based on infor­ma­tion received from a satel­lite, the search has been in two dis­tinct cor­ri­dors — one stretch­ing to the north-west of the last known loca­tion in the Malacca Straits and one to the south-west. http://​www​.bbc​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​w​o​r​l​d​-​a​s​i​a​-​2​6​7​0​5​073

Nato’s top mil­i­tary com­man­der warns of the size and readi­ness of Russia’s forces on Ukraine’s bor­der, but Russia says it has no “expan­sion­ist views. http://​www​.bbc​.com/​n​e​ws/

Turkey shoots down a Syrian mil­i­tary jet it says vio­lat­ed its air­space, but Damascus calls this “bla­tant aggres­sion” and says the jet was over Syrian ter­ri­to­ry. http://​www​.bbc​.com/​n​e​ws/

There’s great excite­ment sur­round­ing the pos­si­ble decrim­i­nal­iza­tion and poten­tial legal­iza­tion of (Cannabis Sativa) Popularly know as Marijuana or Ganja. This sense of eupho­ria is not con­fined to my native Jamaica where feel­ings are run­ning high but in sev­er­al American states as well. In Jamaica, mar­i­jua­na users are in prover­bial sev­enth heav­en at the prospect of being able to smoke to their heart’s con­tent with­out hav­ing to wor­ry about (baby­lon) the police. For their part, some European coun­tries had long eased restric­tions on cannabis use, the Netherlands read­i­ly comes to mind. Colorado and Washington states in the pacif­ic north west of the United States, have moved to legal­ize the use of cannabis, although they have done so under the cov­er of (for med­i­c­i­nal pur­pos­es). Of course the American Federal Government has not done any­thing to sug­gest that it will be mov­ing to decrim­i­nal­ize the use and sale of Cannabis Sativa. In fact as I said in a pre­vi­ous blog ‚the Obama Administration con­tin­ue to deport peo­ple , includ­ing Jamaicans from the United States for the sale of marijuana.

As a child grow­ing up in Jamaica I had mar­i­jua­na tea, I nev­er smoked the weed. My fam­i­ly mem­bers were local farm­ers who plant­ed it among hills of yams for their per­son­al use. One cousin actu­al­ly went to prison for 18 months for plant­i­ng it. Later I joined the Police depart­ment and it was my sworn duty to enforce the laws, includ­ing that of cannabis use, sale and cul­ti­va­tion. I just nev­er went out of my way to make crim­i­nals of any­one who used it. In fact there were a few times that I turned a blind eye to amounts of the weed that would have sent the own­er to prison for long peri­ods of time. I am nei­ther proud of it nei­ther am I ashamed that I did. Yesterday I hint­ed in a dis­cus­sion forum that no one expect­ed brains under the fog of cannabis smoke to be objec­tive par­tic­i­pants in this nec­es­sary dis­cus­sion sur­round­ing legal­iza­tion. That leaves the rest of us who are dis­in­ter­est­ed par­ties, to think through the haze and the smoke from those blaz­ing away with euphor­ic aban­don. Despite the pas­sion­ate zeal of sup­port­ers, it bears look­ing at what poten­tial neg­a­tives may occur from legalization/​decriminalization in Jamaica ! American states tak­ing steps to ease restric­tions have sol­id infra­struc­tur­al sup­port in place to deal with poten­tial fall­out if any.

US Justice Department not­ed that juris­dic­tions that had enact­ed laws legal­iz­ing mar­i­jua­na in some form, imple­ment­ed strong reg­u­la­to­ry and enforce­ment sys­tems to con­trol cul­ti­va­tion, dis­tri­b­u­tion and pos­ses­sion, and which are in com­pli­ance with such laws, “are less like­ly to threat­en the fed­er­al pri­or­i­ties of enforc­ing the fed­er­al law”. Jamaica can­not say the same . How then can a small nation like ours, which is strug­gling might­i­ly with myr­i­ad issues of crime , child delinquency,unemployment, gang activ­i­ties, drug addic­tion and pover­ty to name a few, not be cautious?

Does any­one, mind uncloud­ed by mar­i­jua­na smoke, unclut­tered by unre­al­is­tic dreams of excess amounts of gan­ja dol­lars, real­ly believe Jamaica’s prob­lems will not be exac­er­bat­ed if this issue is not looked at care­ful­ly? Where is the evi­dence which shows legal­iza­tion will be a panacea to the coun­try’s finan­cial woes? Was Alumina, Coffee, Sugar-cane, Banana,Cocoa , or even Tourism that sil­ver bul­let? Experts have warned that despite poten­tial pos­i­tives of mar­i­jua­na, it is still an addic­tive gate-way drug which leads to addic­tion to more potent drugs. How do we square this with hun­dreds of thou­sands of our young school-age chil­dren legal­ly puff­ing away on their way to school, while in school or on their way from school? How do we deal with the health effects? And last­ly, have any­one both­ered to think of the effects this will have with free flow­ing weed and the guns com­ing in? Of course not ! Everyone is cur­rent­ly active­ly engaged in talk­ing about poten­tial tax rev­enue to be had. Some are even talk­ing about Jamaica becom­ing some kind of gan­ja smok­ing Utopian par­adise. I am just con­cerned that we do not wake up from our gan­ja induced slum­ber to find we have a reached a point of no return. Before sup­port­ers start count­ing the wind­fall, whats wrong with look­ing at the poten­tial downside?

Jamaican Judge Lennox Campbell has began sum­ma­tion in the mur­der case the state against Adijia Palmer o/​c Vybez Kartel. He’s told the jury to con­sid­er two main questions…those ques­tions are:Is Clive “Lizard” Williams dead and did the accused men kill him if he’s in fact dead? 
He’s also warned the jurors not to allow feel­ings of sym­pa­thy or prej­u­dice to influ­ence their judge­ment.http://​rjrnew​son​line​.com/​l​o​c​a​l​/​j​u​d​g​e​-​b​e​g​i​n​s​-​h​i​s​-​s​u​m​m​a​t​i​o​n​-​i​n​-​k​a​r​t​e​l​-​t​r​ial. Campbell also told the jury “If there is any doubt in their minds they must acquit. This tri­al has gone on for over 2 years. There has been charges and counter charges hurled both ways but most­ly by the defense which still has not sub­stan­tive­ly deflect­ed the charge of mur­der from their client. What Juror sit­ting on that jury who believes a pri­mi-face case has been made out against the accused will not feel pres­sured to vote to acquit?

I’m not a bet­ting man , but these peo­ple clam­or­ing for the accused to be freed may soon have their wish grant­ed. What does it say about a coun­try how­ev­er when peo­ple want accused mur­der­ers to beat the rap?

Jamaican Government Minister Phillip Paulwell, the leader of Government Business in the House, told the nation that Ganga would be legal­ized before year’s end. Ever the cau­tious one, I won­dered how this bold pro­nounce­ment would be received in the International com­mu­ni­ty , despite what appears to be an atti­tude change toward the weed. https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​m​y​w​p​b​l​o​g​/​?​p​=​6​336

It now appears those con­cerns were not unfound­ed in light of America’s large foot-prints on the glob­al stage. As I said on February 24^th, despite Pulwell’s grand pro­nounce­ment, Jamaica was a very small nation which is sig­na­to­ry to International agree­ments and treaties as it regards the pro­duc­tion sale and traf­fick­ing of dan­ger­ous drugs. Whether we dis­agree with the idea that Cannabis is a dan­ger­ous drug is imma­te­r­i­al in this sense.The Jamaica Observer report­ed Thursday than in response to queries they received two sep­a­rate state­ments. Both the State Department and the Department of Justice side­stepped direct com­ment on how the US would react to decrim­i­nal­iza­tion of the weed.

“The US respects that dif­fer­ent nations have vary­ing approach­es on the mat­ter; it is the duty of each nation to decide drug poli­cies that meet its spe­cif­ic needs with­in the frame­work of International Laws,” the State Department said in its response.

But appear­ing to play it safe, the State Department cau­tioned: “Under US fed­er­al law, mar­i­jua­na remains a dan­ger­ous drug, and is sub­ject to high lev­els of con­trol with cor­re­spond­ing crim­i­nal restric­tions on dis­tri­b­u­tion and sale. The United States is com­mit­ted to uphold­ing its oblig­a­tions under the United Nations (UN) drug con­trol con­ven­tions and to work with inter­na­tion­al part­ners to pro­mote the goals of the con­ven­tion.“http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​U​S​-​s​o​f​t​e​n​s​-​_​1​6​1​8​0​412

Jamaican con­ven­tion­al wis­dom is, if Ganga is decrim­i­nal­ized, and or legal­ized, all of Jamaica’s eco­nom­ic prob­lems dis­ap­pears overnight. Ever the con­trar­i­an, I can­not help won­der­ing why our coun­try is still mired in pover­ty and despair, despite the legal­i­ty of Banana, sug­ar-cane, cof­fee, cas­sa­va, cocoa and a host of oth­er agri­cul­tur­al prod­ucts. Even if the nag­ging lit­tle prob­lems of International laws and treaties were to dis­ap­pear , does that trans­late into mass cul­ti­va­tion of cannabis by Jamaicans? Or does it mean much more crime based on exist­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics which fuel crime? Wouldn’t some peo­ple farm the weed , while oth­ers scheme how to kill them and sim­ply take it? Wouldn’t the mass pro­lif­er­a­tion of a poten­tial cash cow like cannabis cre­ate even more cor­rup­tion in an already crit­i­cal­ly lame police depart­ment still try­ing to extri­cate itself from cor­rup­tion? What about the claim by the med­ical com­mu­ni­ty that cannabis is a gate-way drug which leads to even more seri­ous addic­tion to oth­er drugs?

In fact the US Justice Department not­ed that juris­dic­tions that had enact­ed laws legal­iz­ing mar­i­jua­na in some form, imple­ment­ed strong reg­u­la­to­ry and enforce­ment sys­tems to con­trol cul­ti­va­tion, dis­tri­b­u­tion and pos­ses­sion, and which are in com­pli­ance with such laws, “are less like­ly to threat­en the fed­er­al pri­or­i­ties of enforc­ing the fed­er­al law”.Observer:

As we allud­ed to on February 24^th, US States legal­iz­ing and decrim­i­nal­iz­ing the weed already have infra­struc­tur­al frame­work in place to deal with poten­tial con­se­quences as a result of pol­i­cy and leg­isla­tive change. Jamaica sim­ply does not, I cau­tion that Jamaica tread rather care­ful despite mass sup­port for legal­iza­tion and decrim­i­nal­iza­tion . Many lives have been ruined over the decades in this so-called war on drugs which includ­ed cannabis. Countless peo­ple have been ensnared in the fight against mar­i­jua­na, even more have been deport­ed . Jamaica has suf­fered immense­ly as a result. Let us tread care­ful­ly as we stop send­ing peo­ple to prison for a weed.

The long sought after merg­er between the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) and it’s main aux­il­iary the Island Special Constabulary(ISCF) has been approved by the Parliament . National Security Minister Peter Bunting and Police Commissioner Owen Ellington high­light­ed per­ceived pos­i­tives to be derived from the merger.

Peter Bunting: “By com­bin­ing them you will release more per­son­nel to be on the streets patrolling com­mu­ni­ties, work­ing in crime con­trol and crime prevention,”.

Owen Ellington :“I think the pub­lic stands to ben­e­fit great­ly from it. “It should result in a net increase in the num­bers that are deployed on the streets as we give up a lot of admin­is­tra­tive and sup­port ser­vices that are dupli­cat­ed because we had to main­tain two com­mand struc­tures.” http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​F​i​n​a​lly – Gov-t-approves-JCF – ISCF-merger-_16189683

Let’s look at the facts, after all what mat­ters is whether the Jamaican peo­ple are get­ting val­ue for mon­ey. Commissioner Ellington start­ed off by say­ing quote> “It should result in a net increase in the num­bers that are deployed on the streets as we give up a lot of admin­is­tra­tive and sup­port ser­vices that are dupli­cat­ed because we had to main­tain two com­mand struc­tures. ” The Minister of nation­al secu­ri­ty agrees with that assess­ment. May I just digress for a minute? I nev­er quite under­stood why there were ever two com­mand struc­tures. The ISCF is an aux­il­iary of the JCF, if there is some­thing in the two Acts which pre­vent­ed the JCF from man­ag­ing and super­vis­ing the ISCF, it could have been fixed decades ago by an act of Parliament. Anyway back to the merg­er. It’s dif­fi­cult to argue that the merg­er will not free up a few more cops for the streets. However the ques­tion remains, “is Jamaica’s crime prob­lem nec­es­sar­i­ly a result of not enough cops”? The Minister of nation­al secu­ri­ty stressed that there should be no prob­lem, as salaries of ISCF mem­bers will be brought up to par with that of their con­tem­po­raries in the JCF .  “The truth of the mat­ter is that the salaries were almost iden­ti­cal before. There will be a mar­gin­al top up for the ISCF mem­bers; but in the scheme of things, it is not even one-tenth of the bud­get of the police force”.

The Minister is reach­ing here, to inte­grate all mem­bers of the ISCF into the JCF there will be cost. The min­is­ter argues it will be less than ¹⁄₁₀ of the annu­al police bud­get. Whichever way the Minister dices it, there is cost to the coun­try. Either in a larg­er police bud­get or a 10% cut in police ser­vice. Unfortunately for the peo­ple after this merg­er is imple­ment­ed they will be just as dis­ap­point­ed as before. The addi­tion of anoth­er 2’000 offi­cers will not change the coun­try’s crime tra­jec­to­ry, unless 1)There are seri­ous changes in the Agency’s inves­tiga­tive capa­bil­i­ties. 2) A com­plete de-annex­a­tion of the force from polit­i­cal inter­fer­ence and influence.3) A seri­ous push to mod­ern­ize the force through con­stant train­ing pro­grams aid­ed by clear and con­cise pol­i­cy direc­tives under­stood by all mem­bers. 4) Proper super­vi­sion of younger mem­bers. 5) Removing some gazetted offi­cers, mak­ing the agency lean­er and more effec­tive. 6) Rebuilding con­fi­dence with­in all com­mu­ni­ties, estrang­ing and alien­at­ing crim­i­nals in the process. 7) Educating the pub­lic on their respon­si­bil­i­ties as cit­i­zens. 8) Eliminating inef­fec­tive archa­ic laws. 9) Passing nec­es­sary laws com­men­su­rate with the coun­try’s needs on a con­tin­uüm . 10) Revamp and redo the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem , which now does lit­tle to inspire con­fi­dence in the process of justice.

The American sto­ry is long and com­pli­cat­ed. Relying on what you hear in the main stream Media will not give you an accu­rate pic­ture of the sor­did his­to­ry of this Democracy. The san­i­tized roman­tic ver­sion fed to our chil­dren in the schools belie the sor­did grue­some real­i­ties which was, and still to this day con­tin­ue to be the real facts of America. The geno­cide vis­it­ed on Native American tribes and the anni­hi­la­tion of tens of mil­lions of Africans through forced labor , muti­la­tion, rape and mur­der, are two of the indeli­ble stains no Public Relations Firm, denial, or white­wash can remove. No dredged up roman­tic sto­ry will replace the fac­tu­al events of how this nation came into being. African-Americans just con­clud­ed the obser­vance of black his­to­ry month. The ques­tion remains, have we come far enough ? Are we mind­ful of where we are? Are we con­ver­sant of the pre­cip­i­tous posi­tion of our peo­ple in this land our fore-fathers occu­pied long before Europeans knew the world was not flat. The strug­gle for equal rights and jus­tice is not a fight for black and brown any­more. The fight is a much larg­er one, one which includes aver­age ever-day Americans regard­less of col­or. As President Barack Obama allud­ed to the need for a more per­fect Union, American must face it’s shame­ful past if it wants to have a bet­ter future. African-Americans have an even greater bur­den if they wish nev­er to return to the pogrom vis­it­ed upon them in the past. Yet I am not con­fi­dent that our peo­ple have the desire, or the com­mit­ment of the war­riors who went on before us. Our Generation and the ones com­ing after us, seem to have a sin­gu­lar need, that of being enter­tained. When one exam­ines the real sto­ry of this land, we must do so against the back­ground of facts. The mur­der , rape, muti­la­tion and man­gling met­ed out to Native and Africans Americans can only be ful­ly appre­ci­at­ed for its vile bar­bar­i­ty, when we under­stand that it was only after the Civil war that European mur­der­ers and Rapists were not being shipped here any­more. The demon­ic slaugh­ter of count­less peo­ple of col­or , black and brown, did not occur at the hands of inno­cent Pilgrims flee­ing reli­gious per­se­cu­tion. It hap­pened at the hands of prin­ci­pal felons , their chil­dren and grand chil­dren. Lest we for­get, we must remind our­selves that the Moors had crossed over the moun­tains of Italy and went to the gates of Rome .Historians and archae­ol­o­gist have con­firmed that the first peo­ple in the Americas were black.http://​www​.theafrol​ounge​.com/​2​0​1​3​/​1​0​/​1​4​/​b​l​a​c​k​s​-​w​e​r​e​-​t​h​e​-​f​i​r​s​t​-​p​e​o​p​l​e​-​i​n​-​t​h​e​-​a​m​e​r​i​c​as/ The fact that evi­dence exists that Africans sailed to the Americas and set­tled there, almost 200 years before Columbus is wide­ly unheard. The recita­tion of the Americas dis­cov­ery often begins in the late 1400’s. Yet his­to­ri­ans are well aware of the knowl­edge,.http://​www​.exam​in​er​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​e​v​i​d​e​n​c​e​-​a​f​r​i​c​a​n​s​-​d​i​s​c​o​v​e​r​e​d​-​a​m​e​r​i​c​a​-​1​7​0​-​y​e​a​r​s​-​b​e​f​o​r​e​-​c​o​l​u​m​bus.

We must remem­ber that our peo­ple long trav­eled from Africa and pop­u­lat­ed Australia, North America, and as far away places as New Zealand, long before the British or any European knew they would not fall off a flat earth. All over the world peo­ple of African descent, Black peo­ple, were liv­ing long before the white man arrived. Our fore-fathers trav­eled the seas and set­tled new lands. They did not kill the peo­ple they found liv­ing in those lands. The set­tled the land and peace­ably coex­ist­ed with the inhab­i­tants. Yes, that also includ­ed this land we now know as the United States. When the white man came here he found black peo­ple liv­ing peace­ful­ly with their Native-American broth­ers. Neither our fore-fathers, nor the native Indians thought they owned the land, they looked to the land for sus­te­nance and they respect­ed it. What hap­pened to both peo­ples was every­thing but respect­ful, we should nev­er forget.

Any good thing in the hands of the wrong per­son instant­ly becomes a dan­ger­ous thing. Money, Power, and unfor­tu­nate­ly a lit­tle Knowledge. Education ought to be the vehi­cle chan­nel­ing the oppressed,impoverished mass­es into the mid­dle-class. At least that’s what we were told. Unfortunately we have seen that in far too many instances, peo­ple gen­er­al­ly use the edu­ca­tion and pow­er they acquire for self­ish, destruc­tive pur­pos­es. Nowhere is this more evi­dent than in Jamaica. Those empow­ered to lead take bla­tant and obvi­ous advan­tage of the very peo­ple who empow­er them. Jamaica like many for­mer European Colonies have seen the rav­ages of what a caste sys­tem does to its peo­ple. You Know the lighter hued peo­ple gets all the breaks, the dark­er shades , well.… not so much. Today things have changed in Jamaica some­what, as long as you can afford to pay you can get an edu­ca­tion. We now have a Prime Minister who is a daugh­ter of the soil. Okay bad exam­ple, any­way you would think that edu­ca­tion would nec­es­sar­i­ly improve our coun­try since the major­i­ty of the new col­lege grad­u­ates are peo­ple of dark­er col­or. As a firm believ­er in edu­ca­tion I am dis­traught that new­ly edu­cat­ed Jamaicans seem to be more ungod­ly, more dys­func­tion­al, more decep­tive, more dis­hon­est, more anarchistic.

What hope do we have for our coun­try if the peo­ple who are to be the new lead­ers, are far worse than the peo­ple we so vehe­ment­ly crit­i­cize today? Jamaica once prid­ed itself in the idea it had more church­es per square mile than any oth­er nation. Many will argue that we had more Bars also. My point though is that what appears to be a sys­tem­at­ic attempt in some quar­ters to remove the very idea of a deity from our nation­al dis­course has cre­at­ed a chasm or vac­u­um now occu­pied by demons. By every met­ric life is more dif­fi­cult. More mur­ders, rapes, child-abuse, shoot­ings. Even the killings have tak­en on a more grue­some more barbaric,demonic com­plex­ion. Could it be when we were unintelligent[sic] you know believ­ing in God, believ­ing in con­se­quence for actions, we were bet­ter off? Is it fair to say enlight­en­ment has induced us into becom­ing a more soul-less bunch of demon­ic las­civ­i­ous , hedo­nis­tic crea­tures who only live for the moment, obliv­i­ous of consequence?

Or is there some­thing to the archa­ic unin­tel­li­gent notion that there is a God who gave us free will? Is there some­thing to the fairy-tale idea that God not only cre­at­ed every­thing, then cre­at­ed man. That he gave man domin­ion over all things? That he set clear prin­ci­ples for man to live by. Principles accom­pa­nied by clear unequiv­o­cal con­se­quences for depar­ture. Is it true to say God does not take that free will back sim­ply because he can but that he allows us to live our lives the way we see fit, with­out his inter­fer­ence. Is it true to imag­ine that there will be a day of reck­on­ing? Is it true to imag­ine that God does not med­dle unless we ask him to take charge of our lives and direct our paths? Is it true that the rea­son he does not med­dle is that it would run counter to his promise of free will. If God took our free will would that not make him a liar just like man? Isn’t that what the world want to do, prove God a liar?

Resident Magistrate Judith Pusey hear­ing the Kern Spencer crim­i­nal case, ruled that a cru­cial piece of evi­dence would not be admit­ted into evidence.A thumb dri­ve tak­en from an apart­ment the for­mer junior min­is­ter once occu­pied in 2008 would not be admit­ted into evi­dence. The Jamaica Daily Gleaner report­ed that the rul­ing came after defense attor­neys K.D. Knight and Deborah Martin object­ed as police cyber-crimes expert Sergeant Patrick Linton was about to give details about the con­tents of the thumb dri­ve. My under­stand­ing of crim­i­nal court cas­es tells me the very idea that the defense does­n’t want the thumb-dri­ve intro­duced into evi­dence is because of the poten­cy of what’s on it. I am not fault­ing the defense for wag­ing a spir­it­ed fight on their clien­t’s behalf. What I am against is the real­i­ty that the tri­al judges is seen as aligned with the defense. Even the per­cep­tion of such col­lu­sion is tox­ic and cor­ro­sive to the process.

It is dif­fi­cult enough to suc­cess­ful­ly pros­e­cute a crim­i­nal offend­er. He/​she has no bur­den to say any­thing, it is up to the pros­e­cu­tion to prove its case. It is a steep hill to climb get­ing over “beyond a rea­son­able doubt” in crim­i­nal cas­es. It is expo­nen­tial­ly more dif­fi­cult to bring a crim­i­nal case against any­one con­nect­ed in Jamaica, much less to get that case to stick. The last thing the process of jus­tice needs is a judge who have demon­stra­bly aligned her­self square­ly on the side of the accused through words and deeds. It is impor­tant to remem­ber that Justice must not only be done but it must seem to be done. I am not a Lawyer, yet I remind my legal­ly trained friends that per­cep­tion is important.

The defense in this case can­not catch a break from this Magistrate Judith Pusey. First she want­ed the Prosecutor to tes­ti­fy on the stand about what if any­thing she offered a wit­ness to get him to tes­ti­fy against the accused Kern Spencer. This would have been a ground break­ing and unprece­dent­ed move had the pros­e­cu­tor acqui­esced. The DPP filed motion in the high court Appealing to the Magistrate’s order. The Court of Appeals agreed with the DPP. That was not enough the Magistrate fought back appeal­ing the deci­sion against her rul­ing and was smacked down by the high­est court in a unan­i­mous decision.

Sounds like some­thing you would expect com­ing from defense coun­sel on behalf of his/​her client right? That was the pros­e­cu­tor bat­tling the tri­al judge, who should be impar­tial , while the defense sits around sali­vat­ing at the spec­ta­cle. Many peo­ple do not see any­thing wrong with this non­sense. Sometimes their views are influ­enced by pol­i­tics. In oth­er cas­es they are influ­enced by loy­al­ty to the legal pro­fes­sion. Clearly this case is yet anoth­er which puts the Jamaican jus­tice square­ly on trial.

Jamaica will this year join a vir­tu­al tidal wave of coun­tries across the globe in decrim­i­nal­iz­ing gan­ja, fore­run­ner to the estab­lish­ment of a med­i­c­i­nal mar­i­jua­na indus­try esti­mat­ed to be worth bil­lions of dollars.http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Ganja-green-light-this-year

Phillip Paulwell min­is­ter of sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, ener­gy and mining.

Paulwell, who is min­is­ter of sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, ener­gy and min­ing, told mem­bers of the task-force at a meet­ing last Thursday that “gan­ja will be decrim­i­nal­ized in Jamaica this year and stressed that Jamaica can­not be allowed to be left behind on the issue”. In my esti­ma­tion there is noth­ing wrong with what Paulwell had to say regard­ing not being left behind in the race to decrim­i­nal­ize. My con­cern has to do with what effect this will have on the elec­toral process? I believe if this issue was placed on the bal­lot it would pass with fly­ing col­ors. Most large coun­tries which are engaged in eas­ing Cannabis restric­tions, are doing so behind seri­ous research and prepa­ra­tion. This in con­junc­tion with much greater infra­struc­tur­al sup­port to deal with any neg­a­tive fall-outs to emanate from legalization.

This is a huge polit­i­cal free­bie for the rul­ing People’s National Party. This issue will invari­ably pass muster with Jamaicans liv­ing at home and abroad. If not han­dled cor­rect­ly this could cement the Country into a one par­ty state for a long time to come. It is impos­si­ble for me to sec­ond guess the motives of Paulwell and the PNP . Yet it is dif­fi­cult to imag­ine that they could not wait and have the motion placed on the bal­lot in the next General Elections Constitutionally due with­in 2 years. That would give the issue much legit­i­ma­cy when decid­ed by the peo­ple. Of course the PNP, not to pass up a polit­i­cal oppor­tu­ni­ty, will run with this issue all the way to the next polls. This will be the cov­er against a crum­bling econ­o­my, cor­rup­tion and graft, sky­rock­et­ing crime sta­tis­tics, and an ever increas­ing amount of Jamaicans slid­ing below the pover­ty line. In the end this will not mat­ter Jamaicans can all com­fort them­selves by get­ting high. Free up the weed.

I wish words could cause more than just emo­tion­al pain. Call me weird, but I wish words were capa­ble of inflict­ing real pain on some peo­ple. Yup !! you know your­selves, you are the ones whom I wish I could reach out and touch through my com­put­er screen when you spout your sanc­ti­mo­nious drib­ble in sup­port of criminals.

You know your­selves. ” Oh cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is evil. Oh it’s bar­bar­ic to kill the mur­ders when they are caught wan­ton­ly and sum­mar­i­ly killing oth­ers. Oh the Police are all evil. Oh the laws are uncon­scionable. Oh the per­son who got killed prob­a­bly did some­thing to deserve it. Oh the peo­ple only break the laws because they are poor. The list of excus­es is end­less. Jamaicans make so many excus­es for wrong-doing , it is now a job in our country.

Being a crim­i­nal cod­dling apol­o­gist is a career path in Jamaica, it’s also has strong sup­port from many hyp­ocrites in the dias­po­ra. The phar­isees in the dias­po­ra are par­tic­u­lar­ly rep­re­hen­si­ble, they live and thrive in coun­tries which are seri­ous about crime, yet they cheer-lead for crim­i­nals at home. Some of you fund crime back home. That makes you par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­gust­ing in my eyes.

Just ask Carolyn Gomes of (JFJ), ask Earl Witter of the Public Defenders office, Ask Horace Levy of the Peace Management Initiative, ask Yvonne McCalla Sobers of (FAST), Throw Terrence Williams of INDECOM into the mix. There’s more, they know them­selves. Oh by the way these phar­isees wit­ting­ly and unwit­ting­ly enhance crim­i­nal­i­ty in Jamaica. Where are the orga­ni­za­tions look­ing out for the help­less vic­tims of crime? The truth is the inno­cent does­n’t mat­ter, it’s a dog eat dog world. True until the killings reach­es indi­vid­ual door-steps. Criminality has always appealed to Jamaicans. The rule of law is most­ly seen as a shack­le and not a good toward their development.They give crim­i­nals the ben­e­fit of the doubt over those who risk life and limb in their defense. Here’s a nov­el idea, how about a nation­al coa­les­cence against crime? How about a nation­al con­sen­sus against crime? Oh I for­got that would put a lot of you out of busi­ness, not to men­tion a lot of you would have no more rel­e­vance. Criminals are like Cockroaches, shine a light and they scam­per for cov­er. Jamaicans can exter­mi­nate this mon­ster once and for all if they chose to. The fact is, they don’t want to, it’s good as long as it’s not their fam­i­ly mem­bers get­ting killed. Those able to read con­tin­ue to see the police through the prism of the Morant Bay Rebellion. The police force was cre­at­ed to pro­tect the plan­toc­ra­cy from the rab­ble. Last time I looked I did­n’t see any white plan­ta­tion own­ers, did­n’t see any rab­ble, so you need to get over that,and fast.What about those of you who know noth­ing about the Morant Bay rebel­lion, why do you hate the rule of law and the offi­cers tasked with uphold­ing the laws?

Jamaicans affin­i­ty for crim­i­nal sup­port may have been okay when there was no dis­tinc­tion between crim­i­nal sup­port and free­dom fight­ing. It is time to rec­og­nize the dif­fer­ence between the two. Paul Bogle , George William Gordon, Freedom Fighters. Three fin­ger Jack , Rigen, Sandokan , Natty Morgan, not.  We have been sub­ject­ed to a san­i­tized his­to­ry many of us are unsure where to posi­tion our­selves. We still hold the Maroons up as great war­riors, yet they active­ly engaged in return­ing run-away slaves to the British for cheap con­ces­sions. It seem clear then, that this mis­un­der­stand­ing between Jamaicans is deeply root­ed in our still unclear yet short his­to­ry. We seem con­fused about where our loy­al­ties should lie. This makes it easy for the fraud­sters and liars to cre­ate their own truths. You know like “informer fi dead”. You should­n’t snitch. Why do you believe they don’t want you to tell what you saw? Democracy is a covenant between the Governed and those who gov­ern. As a peo­ple we must decide whether we want to have safe streets safe com­mu­ni­ties for our chil­dren, or we are going to con­tin­ue to tear down the rule of law so we may eat a food[sic]. Those who look out for your safe­ty are already say­ing “why should I both­er”? Think about the sup­port you gave to the police when you open your mouths to crit­i­cize every­thing they do. This is not about the police, it is about uphold­ing the foun­da­tion struc­ture of our democ­ra­cy. The peo­ple who place stalls on the side­walks. Those who oper­ate auto-repairs on the side­walks. The sound sys­tem oper­a­tor who refus­es to turn down the music because peo­ple have to par­ty to relieve stress. The peo­ple who erect zinc shanties on lands which do not belong to them. The peo­ple who steal elec­tric­i­ty and water forc­ing oth­er poor peo­ple to pick up the tab. The bus dri­vers who claim they have to block off the streets to get cus­tomers , while the line of traf­fic is held up. Wonder how many man-hours are lost that way each year? Wonder what is the cost of that to the coun­try? Oh it does­n’t mat­ter “a jus suh Jamaica stay”. The author­i­ties are cru­el for smash­ing the stalls. You know all of Jamaica’s ills are a result of pover­ty ? Do explain to me why Jamaica has the high­est depor­ta­tion num­bers in the Caribbean, those deport­ed did get a chance did­n’t they?

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It seem we Jamaicans get high on being con­trar­i­an. Never mind that we have pre­cious lit­tle to show for defy­ing log­ic. How else can one explain Jamaica say­ing the econ­o­my was fine as the world’s econ­o­my took a nose-dive? Explain Jamaica’s econ­o­my doing bad­ly when most of the worlds’ nations are expe­ri­enc­ing eco­nom­ic recov­ery ? How do you explain­ing forc­ing a con­ser­v­a­tive par­ty with the eco­nom­ic know-how to cre­ate pros­per­i­ty and the track record to boot, replac­ing it with a pseu­do-social­ist par­ty whose time has long past? How do you explain forc­ing out an Economist,replacing him with a total fly-by-night ding­bat? How do you explain not under­stand­ing that crime destroys stan­dard of liv­ing and makes every­one except the crim­i­nals poor? How do you explain allow­ing real­ly com­mit­ted smart police offi­cers and detec­tives to leave the depart­ment because of nepo­tism, unfair prac­tices and incom­pe­tence ? How could you not see that the Police would then be pop­u­lat­ed with criminals?

How can a nation allow it’s tele­vi­sion and radio air-waves to be used to dis­re­spect the rule of law, and then won­der at the har­vest of anar­chy? How do you chase away the mid­dle-class and expect growth and devel­op­ment? How does gov­ern­ment expect to be the biggest employ­er, where will the mon­ey come from to pay the salaries? How do you keep work­ers up at night with blar­ing, gar­ish nois­es, dis­guised as music then expect them not to sleep on the job? How do you allow zinc and card-board shanties to encroach on every com­mu­ni­ty and then won­der why crime is out of con­trol? How can unions, gov­ern­ment and oth­er extor­tion­ist chase away com­pa­nies, then lament the lack of jobs? How can some schools be des­ig­nat­ed top schools , and some dump­ing-grounds, then won­der why the dump­ing-ground turns out shottas?

Don’t talk about the ath­letes some are an inspi­ra­tion, most Jamaicans includ­ing the gov­ern­ment had noth­ing to do with nei­ther their per­son­al nor col­lec­tive suc­cess. If you sow peas you do not reap corn. Jamaica chose to be a non-con­formist coun­try. Crime is allowed to grow, Good cops allowed to go. Leaders with vision vot­ed out and kept out, We are enam­ored with every­thing oth­ers shun, we allow elit­ists to tell us that good is bad and bad is good. Many of us ran away, but even more of us will have to stay. Oh and by the way if you believe the con­se­quences of giv­ing the PNP 18 ¹⁄₂ years in one unprece­dent­ed stretch, then put them back after just a 4 year break will be con­fined to just the destruc­tion you can see, wise up. The Chinese are com­ing , Portia and her friends are sell­ing out Goat Island to them with­out await­ing the out­come of the com­mis­sioned eco­log­i­cal study. Ask your­selves what’s the rush? The Chinese sup­pos­ed­ly want Goat Island for what is char­ac­ter­ized as a hub. Well just so you know, the Trinidadians you Jamaicans love to hate told the Chinese where to go when they want­ed to pay them off for their wharves. Simply put this hub will be noth­ing more than a rest-stop for cheap copied Chinese garbage to be dumped on the Caribbean and Latin America. If you believe it is bad now, just you wait. The Chinese will tell you all where to stand in your own coun­try. That’s what Portia is doing for you. Welcome to Jamaica every­thing irie man.

The process of Justice in Jamaica does not have many cheer-lead­ers. In fact it seem at times that the only dyed-in-the-wool believ­ers were the police, until many of them stopped believ­ing. That was when the you now what hit the prover­bial fan. The crim­i­nal Justice sys­tem and crim­i­nal lawyers have now giv­en new mean­ing to those two terms. Many peo­ple talk about police cor­rup­tion with­out under­stand­ing the rea­sons police depart­ments are over­come by cor­rup­tion. What nev­er ceas­es to amaze me in crim­i­nal tri­als is the absolute bias the press shows toward crim­i­nals. Defense lawyers are placed on pedestals some of them have no busi­ness being on. They do this while poor­ly paid pros­e­cu­tors and Police work­ing on behalf of the peo­ple, are cast as dis­hon­est, less than moral­ly-upright peo­ple of char­ac­ter. That is the imagery which greets young Jamaicans start­ing to form opin­ions about life dur­ing the for­ma­tive years. Is it any won­der then that Dons are revered and Cops are regaled?

As a young offi­cer I loved the Courts, I loved to tan­gle with the high and mighty Legal-Eagles, I rec­og­nized pret­ty ear­ly, that many were noth­ing more than school-yard bul­lies dressed in suits. There are decent Lawyers ‚a lawyer has a duty to defend his/​her client in the best way he/​she knows how. Yet a defense lawyer is an offi­cer of the Court. That means a he/​she has a pro­pi­tia­to­ry duty to the inter­est of jus­tice, not just an acquit­tal for his/​her client. How many lawyers can say they have been guardian of that trust? There are more than enough doc­u­ment­ed case of lawyers step­ping over the line in the inter­est of mon­ey, basi­cal­ly act­ing as crim­i­nal concierges , not just to tilt the scales in their clients favor but actu­al­ly dis­tort­ing and per­vert­ing the course of jus­tice. Many of those sup­posed legal lumi­nar­ies were more than eager to cut a deal when they real­ized cer­tain detec­tives were involved in their clien­t’s case. The Vybes Kartel mur­der tri­al is no dif­fer­ent than any oth­er mur­der tri­al in Jamaica, all the cheer-lead­ing is for the crim­i­nal accused, no one cares about the process. A Police wit­ness Corporal Sean Brown tes­ti­fy­ing for the pros­e­cu­tion told the court that he did not go through all of the text mes­sages of Vybes Kartel.

Defence attor­ney Pierre Rodgers accused Brown, who is assigned to the Crime Forensic Unit of the Organised Crime Investigation Division, of being unfair and unjust. Rodgers charged that Brown’s incom­plete perusal of the phone data obtained from telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­ny Digicel was unprofessional.“Wouldn’t jus­tice and fair­ness dic­tate that you go through all the data?” Rodgers asked.http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Defence-lawyers-grill-cop-in-Vybz-Kartel-trial-_15809857

Brown admit­ted that he had used key words such as ‘mur­der’, ‘killing’, ‘Kartel’ and ‘Lizard’, to nar­row down the pool of text mes­sages and call records he pro­vid­ed to the court as evidence.“That formed the basis of the analy­sis,” Brown said. But Rodgers would have none of it. He cit­ed two cel­lu­lar calls that were made with­in a sec­ond of each oth­er on a phone alleged­ly used by Kartel but were made from cell cites at the Norman Manley International Airport and Acadia in upper St Andrew. This infor­ma­tion was not giv­en to the court as evi­dence, Rodgers claimed. “Wouldn’t fair­ness and jus­tice dic­tate that you go through all the data?” he asked. Rodgers had ear­li­er accused Brown of con­coct­ing a text mes­sage said to be sent by the alleged vic­tim, Clive ‘Lizard’ Williams, to his girl­friend Onieka Jackson, in an effort to fab­ri­cate a case against the accused men.

I am proud of this offi­cer and the evi­dence he gave, this Attorney has show just how unpre­pared he is to the point he resorts to what they always do, char­ac­ter assas­si­na­tion. This offi­cer had no oblig­a­tion to go through every text mes­sage for this pur­pose, this accused most like­ly has tens of thou­sands of mes­sages both sent and received , This offi­cer must have been trained to use key-words to nar­row his search. Had he gone fur­ther the alle­ga­tions would have been one of per­son­al rights violation.Whatever oth­er evi­dence may have been gleaned from access­ing the remain­der of his text mes­sages may have no pro­ba­tive val­ue as far as this court is con­cerned but may poten­tial­ly be a gold-mine going for­ward for inves­ti­ga­tors. It would be wise if some of the vil­lage lawyers with no idea what they are talk­ing about ‚would just calm down and await the out­come of this tri­al. There will be time enough for them to go off on their irra­tional rants, arsenic bile foam­ing from their mouths about police incom­pe­tence. A lit­tle knowl­edge can be a dan­ger­ous thing.

The saga of alleged mis­treat­ment of Jamaicans by Trinidadian Immigration offi­cials con­tin­ued when a group of UWI edu­ca­tors alleged they believe they were sin­gled out for spe­cial scruti­ny. This alleged­ly hap­pened when they entered Trinidad and Tobago. The lec­tur­ers said they went to the twin-Island Republic to attend a con­fer­ence at the University’s St Agustine Campus.Dr Peta-Anne Baker, says mem­bers of her group were tar­get­ed for more secu­ri­ty checks as they went through cus­toms. Baker says while they were not mis­treat­ed by the cus­toms offi­cials, it was obvi­ous that Jamaicans are being specif­i­cal­ly tar­get­ed when they seek to enter Trinidad and Tobago. http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​l​a​t​e​s​t​/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​.​p​h​p​?​i​d​=​5​0​527.

So at it’s worst, the bags belong­ing to Jamaicans were scanned and not that of oth­ers. At best Jamaicans trav­el­ling to anoth­er coun­try had their bags scanned. Are you kid­ding me right now, that’s harass­ment? Jamaican Custom and Police Officials are not trust­ed because of their propen­si­ty to accept bribes, why would the belong­ings of Jamaicans not be sub­ject to spe­cial scruti­ny? Or do these (tapa­naris) expect that because they are above Jamaican laws and above being spo­ken to by Jamaican law enforce­ment offi­cials, that it car­ries over to Caricom?

Get over your­selves , if you do not want your bags scanned ‚do not trav­el to oth­er peo­ple’s coun­try. People are draw­ing the line on crim­i­nal­i­ty, they are pro­tect­ing their bor­ders, if Jamaicans expect to trav­el with­out being sub­ject to scruti­ny, then they should stop export­ing their crimes to oth­er coun­tries and simul­ta­ne­ous­ly attack crime at home. As I said in a ear­li­er post, it does not mat­ter that Trinidad and Tobago has high crime num­bers. At least they have shown that they rec­og­nize it, and are tak­ing steps to pro­tect their peo­ple. Maybe those (tapanaris)[sic] will now use their pow­er and influ­ence to lob­by for an aggres­sive stance against crime back home. If the past is a barom­e­ter of what to expect, I cer­tain­ly will not hold my breath.

KINGSTON, Jamaica — Justice Lennox Campbell, pre­sid­ing judge in the mur­der tri­al of Vybz Kartel, a short while ago declared that the meet­ing between a juror and a defence lawyer will not affect the case.“It was an inno­cent meet­ing and it is most unlike­ly that it will in any way affect the pro­ceed­ings before the court,” Justice Campbell said after a meet­ing Tuesday morn­ing in cham­bers with the offend­ing juror.The juror is alleged to have vis­it­ed the offices of a defence attor­ney over the Christmas hol­i­days seek­ing audi­ence with the lawyer. The mat­ter was report­ed­ly brought to the atten­tion of Justice Campbell and pre­vi­ous­ly dis­cussed in a meet­ing that includ­ed attor­neys for the Crown and the defen­dants in the case. The tri­al con­tin­ues on Thursday.http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​U​P​D​ATE – Meeting-between-juror-and-defence-lawyer-will-not-affect-tri­al — judge

Whoa wait just a minute, how can Lennox Campbell , the tri­al judge make such defin­i­tive state­ments with­out being there dur­ing the vis­it. Why would a juror hear­ing the case, with a view to impar­tial­ly decide innocence/​guilt of the accused go to the Defense Counsel for sup­posed audi­ence? Why not seek audi­ence with the Judge? ( even though these Jamaican judges are no dif­fer­ent than defense coun­sel) What would be the posi­tion of the Defense team if a sit­ting juror had gone to seek audi­ence with the pros­e­cu­tor? What would be the posi­tion of the sit­ting Judge (Lennox Campbell) had the juror gone to seek audi­ence with the Prosecutor? And by the way where is the Prosecutor in this matter?

Paula Llewellyn (DPP)

Who looks out for the peo­ple’s inter­est? Under this Director of Public pros­e­cu­tion the lines seem vis­i­bly blurred. There nev­er seem to be any evi­dence of wrong doing on the part of any­one real­ly except if you are a poor cop. What was said in that meet­ing between the defense lawyer and juror? Is there an audio/​video tran­script of the meet­ing, oth­er­wise how could the Judge con­clude as he did? Why is the rea­son for the meet­ing not made pub­lic, at least to remove the impres­sion of impro­pri­ety by the defense? Did defense coun­sel inform the court about the vis­it, If not why? If defense coun­sel did not inform the court , who did? If defense coun­sel did not inform the court about the vis­it, what was defense think­ing why it did not believe it appro­pri­ate or pru­dent to do so? Why is this judge in such hur­ry to brush this aside and move on? This is a mur­der case for God’s sake, where is the judi­cial fideli­ty to the law?

Lennox Campbell in red:

Justice must not only be done , it must also appear to be done. who speaks for the fam­i­lies of the deceased? It is shock­ing, the decid­ed nature of the Judges com­ments in this, what appears to be a seri­ous breach of pro­ce­dure, which may have far reach­ing impli­ca­tions for inno­cence or guilt? Here is why nei­ther Lennox Campbell nor any oth­er Jamaican judge should be tak­en at face val­ue, the pub­lic need to know more.

♦https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​m​y​w​p​b​l​o​g​/​?​p​=​1​538

♦https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​m​y​w​p​b​l​o​g​/​?​p​=​1​548

♦https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​m​y​w​p​b​l​o​g​/​?​p​=​1​484

We can­not accept, should not accept the word of a Jamaican Judge any­more, they long gave up that con­fi­dence the pub­lic placed in them. Not all are ques­tion­able, yet enough are, we should all be wary.

“The major­i­ty of our pop­u­la­tion is poor; whole heap a dem over deh so have mon­ey. Dem inna bet­ter job, bet­ter sit­u­a­tion. They can engage, but part of the prob­lem is half of them are scared. Dem don’t want to come down here for a cause because they are ter­ri­fied… it’s as sim­ple as that. “Much like how we have lead­ers in Jamaica who take a stand on cer­tain issues and push things, you don’t have com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­ers in the Jamaican dias­po­ra that are active… who are just at it. You just kin­da find a man who will say ‘mi a yaadie’, wear the colours and a it dat and big up them­self when Bolt a run. For us to have a strong Jamaican or Caribbean voice we need organ­i­sa­tion, we need peo­ple to be active­ly sup­port­ing caus­es in Jamaica,” These are the word of dance-hall artiste Shaggy as he addressed a press con­fer­ence at the Jamaica Observer where he announced plans for his con­cert to aid the Bustamante chil­dren’s Hospital.

Observer Photo:

Read more: http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​S​h​a​g​g​y​-​a​p​p​e​a​l​s​-​t​o​-​d​i​a​s​p​o​r​a​-​t​o​-​h​e​l​p​-​J​a​m​a​i​c​a​#​i​x​z​z​2​p​C​C​L​a​tLf.

Shaggy has done a great job on behalf of chil­dren, through his Make a Difference Foundation, his work on behalf of chil­dren and the needy is wor­thy of praise. I believe his heart is in the right place and I sense some frus­tra­tion in his com­ments, prob­a­bly because he feels those of us who live over­seas can do more to help. With that said how­ev­er, I believe his com­ments were at best in-art­ful and worse case, smacks of igno­rance. There is an old say­ing that you can attract much more ants with hon­ey than you can with vine­gar. Shaggy cer­tain­ly has enough acclaim and influ­ence to make suc­cess­ful appeals to the dias­po­ra which can trans­late into cash.

That is why his com­ments are so unfor­tu­nate. I hope I am not over-ana­lyz­ing Shaggy’s com­ments but they do smack of some­thing dark and sin­is­ter which many Jamaicans can attest to. It is a kind of deep envy which comes out of even those at home who are well-off and have the option of leav­ing. “whole heap a dem over deh so have mon­ey. Dem inna bet­ter job, bet­ter sit­u­a­tion. They can engage”. Many returned res­i­dents and oth­ers return­ing to vis­it have been killed because of what that state­ment signifies.

Jamaicans liv­ing abroad send sig­nif­i­cant sums of mon­ey home every year. That is for­eign cur­ren­cy which keeps the Jamaican econ­o­my afloat. I under­stand that what he is con­tend­ing is that there is not enough sup­port for char­i­ties, yet the remit­tance sent home is not the only for­eign exchange being put into the Jamaican econ­o­my by the dias­po­ra. The Customs Department rake in tremen­dous amounts of rev­enue each year from goods sent home by the dias­po­ra. As a small busi­ness own­er I see the lev­el of com­mit­ment of our peo­ple in the remit­tances , goods and even the Digicel and Lime cred­its they send home. Many includ­ing myself, make impor­tant con­tri­bu­tions to var­i­ous Charities, Schools and NGO’s with­out the fan­fare of press conferences.

What Shaggy does on behalf of the poor is com­mend­able, more of us real­ly need to engage in help­ing if we are in a posi­tion to do so. However it is impor­tant to note that what each per­son or group does is as impor­tant as what Shaggy and oth­er celebri­ties do, even if of dif­fer­ent mag­ni­tudes. As we aspire to do more to help we must also simul­ta­ne­ous­ly work to change the mind­set of many at home that those who live over­seas are an unend­ing mon­ey-pit to be raid­ed and exploit­ed or even killed. We must dis­pel and dis­cred­it the notion that depen­den­cy is a virtue. Lets hope we will all find a way in 2014 to lend a hand-up to those less for­tu­nate, while avoid­ing the acri­mo­nious and regres­sive demo­niz­ing of others.