National Security Minister Peter Bunting told the Jamaican Parliament that he has not signed any agreement which would see the transfer of 300 Jamaicans serving time in Prisons in the United Kingdom to the Island.
Opposition Leader Andrew Holness vehemently disagrees , saying that from his understanding it is a done deal . Holness points to the website of the British Prime Minister’s Office which says a deal has been struck.
Bunting shoots back saying >
“There is no guarantee at this time that this administration will sign a prisoner-transfer agreement with the UK. The Government of Jamaica will only sign the prisoner-transfer agreement after adequate public education and debate and the enactment of new legislation in the Jamaican Parliament,” Bunting said. “In fact, we will start this process with the establishment of a Special Select Committee that will receive written and oral submissions on this issue by technical experts and all interested parties, including civil society and the diaspora,”
The back and forth prompted an Opposition walkout from the House of Representatives yesterday. So who are we to believe ?
Opposition spokesperson on National Security Derrick Smith said, had it not being for the Visit of the British Prime Minister and his subsequent statements the entire matter would have been kept in the dark.
Smith went on to say that former Prime Minister Bruce Golding refused an offer for the prisoner transfer, Smith said that the British Government has now found a “weak and desperate government that would be prepared to accept the proposal”.
When the rubber meets the road this entire proposal/scam by the British Government is a “Trojan Horse” surreptitiously wrapped up in a deceptive £300m package designed to appease the Caricom community which has gotten more and more vocal about reparations in recent times.
Handing out a measly £300m to the Caribbean community once and for all silences the calls for justifiable reparations for hundreds of years of slavery, while it allows Britain to dump its problems on the impoverished caribbean Island.
The question that Jamaica’s representatives must ask themselves is this, would Jamaica be allowed to return British nationals who committed crimes in Jamaica to Britain where they have broken no laws to serve out their sentences?
The problem is far more complicated than just a transfer of Jamaicans to serve out their sentence in the country of their birth.
These people will have to be fed and taken care of , this includes medical and dental care who will pay for that? Even if Britain were to somehow agree to feed and assume the cost of health care for them, this does not begin to scratch the surface of the problem for Jamaica were the country to go down that road.
The consequences of the subsequent release of these people onto the Jamaican streets is incalculable.
Might I remind the Jamaican authorities that British prime Minister David Cameron said and I quote “Of course criminals should pay for their crimes just not at the expense of British taxpayers”!
Such unmitigated gall by Cameron, who does he expect to take care of his trash?
It’s not the first time that European societies have decided to open the doors of their prisons and release onto other regions the dregs of their society. Spain provided the Criminal Christopher Columbus with three tiny ships and a crew of prisoners . This was win , win for Ferdinand and Isabella, if Columbus returned with the promised cargo of Gold and other precious stones as he promised it’s great , if he didn’t oh well, they no longer had to deal with the killers and rapists they sent with him on his voyage.
The British did not stop dumping it’s most despicable mass-murderers and rapist to the new nation of the United until after the American civil war.
When the brutality of slavery and Jim crow and the total ignominy of what happened to the Arawaks in Jamaica and Native-Americans and eventually Black Africans in the United States and other parts of the world are considered, one gets a better understanding of why things happened the way they did.
These new nations were not populated by decent people as their history books would have you believe, they were populated with Europe’s dregs .
With that in mind it is important that Jamaica recognize that this is simply history repeating itself .
Under no circumstances should Jamaica accept a single person that did not commit any crime in Jamaica.
I understand the lure of £25m . Some will reasonably argue that if Jamaica refuse to accept the money eventually when the prisoners conclude their sentences they will be deported to Jamaica in which case we will still get them back just not the money.
They will also make the argument that the prisons are old and overcrowded. All of these are legitimate arguments.
However as a Sovereign nation we must stand on our own feet . Jamaica must improve Governmental accountability, improve transparency , control crime thereby improving economic activity. Then and only then will our country be able to take care of the needs of the people.
Solutions to our country’s problems will not come from others.
In this case it certainly will not come from a £25m gift wrapped Trojan horse.