Former (JCF) Detective Clive Peck Deserves Jamaica’s Respect And Recognition From The Highest Elected Office…

Former mem­ber of the JCF, Clive Peck, who was serv­ing on a United Nation’s mis­sion in Lybia, lost his life over the week­end in an alleged bomb blast.
Mister Peck was work­ing to bring some sem­blance of peace to a coun­try [Lybia], that the United States dis­rupt­ed and laid bare.
This pub­li­ca­tion hon­ors the ser­vice and sac­ri­fice of our dear­ly depart­ed for­mer col­league.
Having said that, I could not help notic­ing that at least one of the two major local news­pa­per (JamaicaGleaner​.com) car­ried the sto­ry of mis­ter Peck’s untime­ly pass­ing.
After all, it is not every day that a Jamaican gives his life in ser­vice to oth­ers in far­away coun­tries, for peo­ple they do not know.
Jamaican police offi­cers toil in obscu­ri­ty at home with­out recog­ni­tion and with­out receiv­ing their just due.
However, when they die in ser­vice over­seas, we expect to see them receive the god­damn respect and recog­ni­tion they deserve from the high­est exec­u­tive office.
And they deserve to be rec­og­nized as mem­bers of the Organization which mold­ed and honed them, the (JCF). And yes Prime Minister Andrew Holness this may come as news to you but the JCF has pro­duced noble men and women of dis­tinc­tion, even if your prej­u­dices and bias­es has cloud­ed your vision.
Of course, the kind of char­ac­ter which moti­vates Jamaicans like Detective Peck is lost on far too many Jamaicans who are inca­pable of grasp­ing the sac­ri­fice which goes into such ser­vice.
Most heroes who do, are moti­vat­ed by much more than finan­cial remu­ner­a­tions.
It was trou­bling to me that nowhere in the Gleaner Article was there a men­tion of the fact that Clive Peck was a for­mer mem­ber of the JCF.
Why was that not men­tioned by any­one? Do they so hate the JCF that they envy the very thought of giv­ing respect to the agency when they lose a mem­ber, present or former?

GLEANER STORY

[The Government and the par­lia­men­tary Opposition yes­ter­day laud­ed the work of Clive Peck, the Jamaican man who was one of two United Nations (UN) peace­keep­ers killed in a bomb blast in Libya on the week­end.
Jamaica Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson Smith said Peck served the UN with dis­tinc­tion and devot­ed his life to a mis­sion of aid­ing the Libyan peo­ple in the midst of one of the most severe con­flicts and human­i­tar­i­an crises in the world.
“It is indeed a sad moment, but we take pride in his courage and ser­vice”, Johnson Smith told The Gleaner.
She revealed, too, that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had attest­ed to “Mr. Peck’s courage, ser­vice, and ded­i­ca­tion to the goals of the United Nations”. “The trag­ic loss of Mr. Peck is acute­ly felt by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade and the Government of Jamaica in its entire­ty,” Johnson Smith said. She dis­closed that she had spo­ken per­son­al­ly to Peck’s wife, Lelieth, and con­veyed sym­pa­thies on behalf of her min­istry and the entire gov­ern­ment. Opposition Leader Dr. Peter Phillips described Peck as a Jamaican who was com­mit­ted to the glob­al mis­sion of peace and ser­vice to human­i­ty. “I pray God’s com­fort for his fam­i­ly, friends, and col­leagues,” Phillips said in a state­ment. Lisa Hanna, the oppo­si­tion spokesper­son on for­eign affairs, sug­gest­ed that Peck and the oth­er UN peace­keep­ers who were killed be always remembered.“They were there seek­ing peace in the world,” Hanna said. “It’s real­ly, real­ly trag­ic that one of our nation­als suf­fered this way, espe­cial­ly in keep­ing with what he was doing at that par­tic­u­lar time –try­ing to keep the peace,” she added. But the Opposition spokesper­son said she was proud that a Jamaican was seek­ing to achieve peace across the world “and I hope that gives the fam­i­ly some com­fort in this dev­as­tat­ing time that we all face”. ]

Last week the Prime Minister was on social media laud­ing mem­bers of the JDF who rushed a young lady hav­ing a pan­ic attack to the hos­pi­tal.
The Prime Minister chimed in, quote ( “I must com­mend the work of the Jamaica Defence Force in pro­duc­ing noble men and women of dis­tinc­tion”).
Ever par­tial to my beloved JCF, and know­ing the sac­ri­fices made over the decades by so many police offi­cers, for an ingrate nation no less, includ­ing pay­ingthe ulti­mate price, I lashed out at the prime Minister for what I thought was a clear case of selec­tive praise for one branch of the secu­ri­ty forces. Respect to the JDF, but as one com­menter opined, “Taxi man do dat ebery day Mike”
Sure, those mem­bers of the JDF deserved a pat on the back, but the police have been doing this and so much more, it is wrong.

So I did not mince words.
Me: This is such bull­shit pan­der­ing to one branch of the secu­ri­ty forces, for doing exact­ly what they are trained to do.
The police force has been doing this for decades, some pay­ing the ulti­mate price in the process, many have been shot and are now wheel­chair bound, oth­ers like myself have been shot defend­ing peo­ple like you hyp­ocrites I don’t even know.
You peo­ple are such a bunch of hyp­ocrites, frauds and fakes..
I can­not believe I ever sup­port­ed this guy who has been work­ing to dri­ve a wedge between the secu­ri­ty forces since he took office, all for polit­i­cal rea­sons.

My response may have been cringe-wor­thy even by social media stan­dards. Even so, I stand by every word of that retort.
This offi­cer and his fam­i­ly deserved recog­ni­tion, not from low­er rungs of the Government.
His pass­ing deserves nation­al recog­ni­tion from the high­est elect­ed office-hold­er. He was in Lybia, not on his own, but as a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Jamaican Government.
Holness can­not allow bias­es and per­son­al prej­u­dices to impact how he car­ries out the func­tions of the Prime Minister of Jamaica.

UPDATE

Since we called out the Government on this, both dai­ly news­pa­pers have car­ried sto­ries of the JCF pay­ing homage to the deceased mis­ter Peck and indeed nam­ing him as a dis­tin­guished mem­ber of that agency.
Jamaica house is still silent.
This writer and this medi­um will con­tin­ue to chas­tise mem­bers of the JCF when they err, but we will stand front and cen­ter with mem­bers of that agency in recog­ni­tion of the ser­vice they pro­vide to the peo­ple of Jamaica.
Even when their polit­i­cal boss­es are too low-class to do so.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Jamaican police Detective cor­po­ral, a busi­ness own­er, avid researcher, and blog­ger. 
He is a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog chatt​-​a​-box​.com. 
He’s also a con­trib­u­tor to sev­er­al web­sites.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs free of charge, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est pod­cast all free to you of course.