JFJ’s CASH CRUNCH.

It seem that Jamaicans for Justice was unable to secure a $35 mil­lion dol­lar International grant, as such JFJ has inti­mat­ed it may be forced to slash ser­vices it now offers. In a Jamaica Gleaner Editorial bemoan­ing this fact it was revealed the so called human rights agency will be forced to re eval­u­ate how it does busi­ness in light of its cash flow crunch. The Editorial bemoans the lack of sol­ven­cy of JFJ as it indi­cates that most Jamaicans do not under­stand what human rights real­ly mean.

Since an esti­mat­ed 38 per cent of Jamaicans have no sense of what human rights real­ly mean, the val­ue of the work being under­tak­en by JFJ and oth­er such rights groups may not be read­i­ly appreciated.However, the work of these vol­un­teers reflects a whole­heart­ed com­mit­ment to bet­ter the lives of their fel­low cit­i­zens, and it takes much time, ener­gy and spir­it to accom­plish this.(jamaica​glean​er​.com)

There are very few caus­es more noble than ser­vice to oth­ers. Human Rights vol­un­teers who ded­i­cate their lives to the ser­vice of oth­ers are indeed a spe­cial bunch. They deserve all the pro­tec­tion and sup­port we can give, the rights they fight for are also our rights, and god for­bid we may need them to fight direct­ly for us in the future, sep­a­rate from the gener­ic ben­e­fits we derive from their efforts. 

But before we talk more about the finan­cial and oth­er woes beset­ting JFJ I would like to dis­abuse the Editorial writer of the notion that quote: “Thirty eight per cent of Jamaicans, have no sense of what human rights real­ly mean”

Jamaicans are some of the smartest and intel­lec­tu­al­ly savvy peo­ple any­where, even when they are unable to read or write they are ful­ly capa­ble to artic­u­late how they feel if one is able to relate to their ver­nac­u­lar. Ordinary peo­ple unable to read or write who put their pen­nies into banks, have been known to chal­lenge bank offi­cials cor­rect­ly on incon­sis­ten­cies on their bal­ances. They are able to dis­cern and com­pre­hend the most minute details even with­out the ben­e­fit of for­mal training.

Jamaican trades­men, from masons to con­struc­tion work­ers, from plumbers to car­pen­ters have done incred­i­ble work in build­ing our coun­try, and yes many of them are unable to read, yet they are incred­i­bly intel­li­gent and astute.

It is an insult for an opin­ion writer to sug­gest that these peo­ple do not know what human rights real­ly mean. He/​she owes the Jamaican peo­ple an apol­o­gy. None will be forth­com­ing how­ev­er, that elit­ist atti­tude is derived from the University of the West indies, the place the late Wilmot (mutty)Perkins so apt­ly char­ac­ter­ized as the intel­lec­tu­al ghet­to. The ben­e­fi­cia­ries of that ghet­toiza­tion are the new slave mas­ters the “nev­er sis cum si” Their dis­dain and con­tempt for the com­mon man is the same as that which was prac­tised by the colo­nial­ists to black Jamaicans. they are now prac­tised on a caste basis.

THE REAL REASON JAMAICANS DO NOT FULLY SUPPORT JAMAICANS FOR JUSTICE.

Jamaicans like fair­ness, they want to be respect­ed, even as they strug­gle with deal­ing with Governments that are insen­si­tive to their needs. They under­stand balder­dash when they see it.

Jamaicans for Justice appoint­ed itself as guardians of the human rights of Jamaicans, let me be clear this was not some­thing the Jamaican peo­ple vot­ed for, Carolyn Gomes appoint­ed her­self the moth­er Theresa of that move­ment, yet that agency and oth­ers like it are pop­u­lat­ed with elit­ists like Gomes and Hilaire Sobers to name a few who have no con­nec­tion to the com­mon man ‚oth­er that to use them to secure over­seas fund­ing . Most Jamaicans do not asso­ciate with these peo­ple, some of whom do not share our val­ues. This may seem incon­se­quen­tial to the crit­ics but they deny it to their detriment.

Jamaicans for Justice like oth­ers before them have sought to demo­nize cer­tain sec­tors of the pub­lic sec­tor, rather than embark­ing on a nation­al edu­ca­tion cam­paign which would pre­vent most of what they com­plain about in the first place.

What would the result be if Jamaicans for Justice and oth­er agen­cies which source large sums of mon­ey abroad use these resources to edu­cate the 2.7 mil­lion peo­ple on how to obey the laws of the coun­try? What would be the result of a sus­tained cam­paign to build bridges between the Police and the pub­lic? Is it pos­si­ble that a strat­e­gy of that nature would reduce the num­ber of peo­ple look­ing to JFJ and oth­ers for help? Food for thought!!!!!!!!!

Jamaicans for jus­tice like oth­ers before them who took on the man­tle of rights in Jamaica have cal­cu­lat­ed that the way to get rec­og­nized is to demo­nize the police. Carolyn Gomes time and again has been exposed for using alle­ga­tions, innu­en­dos, and down­right fab­ri­cat­ed mate­r­i­al to argue that her mis­sion is just and her cause moral , even as she seek more funds to car­ry out that mission.

As I have writ­ten in pre­vi­ous blogs , dur­ing the last Administration Gomes did incal­cu­la­ble harm to Jamaica in Washington DC at the con­fer­ence of the Inter American com­mis­sion on human rights. In these forums Gomes and her min­ions pre­sent­ed to the com­mis­sion ques­tion­able and unsub­stan­ti­at­ed alle­ga­tions as facts. Even as those claims were truth­ful­ly debunked. Gomes was not going to allow facts to get in the way of sen­sa­tion­al­ism, she con­tin­ued to paint the gov­ern­ment of the day as neg­li­gent in stop­ping what she char­ac­ter­ized as mount­ing police excess­es and instances of extra judi­cial killings, using the name of indi­vid­ual police offi­cers, with­out sup­ply­ing one shred of evidence.

The Jamaican peo­ple are not fools, they know what they see, if it walks, talk, and quacks like a duck it is a duck. Jamaicans for jus­tice is not a cred­i­ble human rights agency it is a anti-police arm of the élite, pop­u­lat­ed and tasked with cre­at­ing enmi­ty rather than solv­ing prob­lems. What is need­ed is a com­plete audit of JFJ’s books , they have received a lot of over­seas fund­ing, that is where the spot­light should be.

Speaking as some­one who believe in human rights and jus­tice I will do what­ev­er I can to sup­port legit­i­mate indi­vid­u­als and agen­cies which are in the busi­ness of pre­vent­ing human rights abus­es, Jamaicans for Justice is not such a group. I am sor­ry to burst the bub­ble of the Editorial board of the Gleaner which has flow­ery praise for JFJ, maybe it’s time for you to get out of your air con­di­tioned offices and see what is actu­al­ly hap­pen­ing on the streets instead.

And while you are at it you might also get a glimpse of the gov­ern­ment you cam­paigned for and the ear­ly con­se­quences on the country.