Chang & Paulwell Begs Diaspora Criminals Not To Send Guns, When Has Begging Criminals Ever Worked?

Two days ago, I wrote about com­ments the Jamaican Prime Minister made in Montego Bay about the lethal­i­ty of the crim­i­nal gangs oper­at­ing in Jamaica in an arti­cle titled Jamaican Prime Minister shook over Haitian lead­er’s demise.
In a tongue-in-cheek kind of way, I mocked the PM for only con­clud­ing that the gangs he for­mer­ly under­es­ti­mat­ed in words and pol­i­cy now all of a sud­den threat­en Jamaica’s sov­er­eign­ty because his con­tem­po­rary in Haiti was murdered.
Tongue-in-cheek or not, the mes­sage was seri­ous; those of us who have spent time in the trench­es have not been silent about the threat these crim­i­nal gangs pose, not just to indi­vid­ual Jamaicans but to the nation’s sov­er­eign­ty itself.
This medi­um was cre­at­ed over a decade ago to high­light exact­ly these events that have been allowed to fes­ter in our country.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​j​a​m​a​i​c​a​n​-​p​m​-​s​h​o​o​k​-​o​v​e​r​-​h​a​i​t​i​a​n​-​l​e​a​d​e​r​s​-​d​e​m​i​se/
In my Wednesday arti­cle, I name-checked Horace Chang, he hap­pens to be the Member of Parliament for one of the Island’s most intractable gar­risons; Chang is also the Island’s National Security Minister; oxy­moron, I know!
I name-checked Chang because Prime Minister Holness made his com­ments in the Parish of Saint James and ref­er­enced areas in Chang’s con­stituen­cy with­in Saint James.

Needless to say, now two mem­bers of par­lia­ment, one from either polit­i­cal par­ty, have called for peo­ple in the dias­po­ra to [stop] send­ing guns and ammu­ni­tion to gang­sters in Jamaica.
As you may guess, the two have gar­ri­son con­stituen­cies; Horace Chang of the JLP has a St James con­stituen­cy, and Phillip Paulwell of the PNP has the infa­mous East Kingston and Port Royal constituency.
The two made the com­ments dur­ing a sit­ting of the joint select com­mit­tee that is con­sid­er­ing the four-year-old Law Reform (Zones of Special Operations) (Special Security and Community Development Measures) Act, that the admin­is­tra­tion has been using as its pri­ma­ry crime-fight­ing tool.
It is good to see that final­ly, these two polit­i­cal dinosaurs after decades in pol­i­tics, have come to their sens­es and are speak­ing with one voice against this can­cer of transna­tion­al crim­i­nal gangs.
Nothing brings home to politi­cians the seri­ous­ness of kiss­ing the ass of crim­i­nals than see­ing one of their own get­ting delet­ed, albeit in anoth­er country.
All of a sud­den it’s all eyes wide open, “I guess we aren’t as safe and untouch­able as we once thought”.

Both Chang and Paulwell spoke out about what they sur­mise to be a pipeline of guns and ammu­ni­tion flow­ing into Jamaica, even as they blame inter­na­tion­al part­ners for not doing enough to help stop it.
Hahaha, I’m going to do some sur­mis­ing myself. Do these guys even read or under­stand any­thing that is hap­pen­ing in the world?
Let me guess; at the very min­i­mum, one of the unnamed inter­na­tion­al part­ners is the United States, right?
Quick ques­tion though, are you guys up to speed with what is hap­pen­ing in the United States? I mean seri­ous­ly, the United States will not take action to ban the weapons that are slaugh­ter­ing thou­sands of its own cit­i­zens each year; what makes you think this so-called inter­na­tion­al part­ner care about your situation?
There is no ‘they’ to fix our sit­u­a­tion, ‘they’ are inca­pable of fix­ing their own. Therefore, ‘they’ is ‘us’, it is up to ‘us’, ‘we’ as a col­lec­tive of Jamaicans to step up to the plate and take care of our own shit.
I am tired of the worn-out excus­es that there is no mon­ey, you find mon­ey to do oth­er things, train and equip the secu­ri­ty forces, they have the strength and for­ti­tude to do what you politi­cians and oth­ers are too chick­en-shit to even under­stand much less attempt.
How about both of you Members of Parliament, (just refer­ring to you as such makes me nau­seous, how about you tell the police about the crim­i­nals oper­at­ing in your gar­risons for a start? Talk is cheap it begins with the man in the mirror.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.