SCORE ONE FOR LAW ABIDING JAMAICANS:

Independent Member of Parliament (MP) Sharon Hay-Webster yes­ter­day vot­ed with Government mem­bers to secure the exten­sion of a piece of leg­is­la­tion which gives the police pow­er to arrest sus­pect­ed crim­i­nals with­out charge for up to 72 hours. Hay-Webster, who recent­ly resigned from the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP), said sid­ing with her for­mer par­ty would amount to gross dere­lic­tion of duty.“I speak in defence of the many cit­i­zens’ lives that have been pro­tect­ed because of these inter­im acts that we have done,” said Hay-Webster, who rep­re­sents the volatile south cen­tral St Catherine said. “I could not vote against this inter­im act exten­sion because I believe it is for the pro­tec­tion of life and prop­er­ty, and I vote for that for my peo­ple,” she added(Taken from the Jamaica Gleaner) Sharon Hay Webster, Jamaica thanks you .This is not the first time you have bucked con­ven­tion­al wis­dom, and stood with the Jamaican peo­ple . Ronald Thwaites is the MP of a Jamaican Garrison.[fact] D K Duncan ‚what can I say ? A sad reminder of a shame­ful past, (see Granges com­ments) [fact] This brings us to Peter Bunting,this is the shad­ow Minister of National Security , and a pos­si­ble future Minister of National secu­ri­ty ! Every Police Officer, Army Officer,every sol­dier, every law-abid­ing Jamaican ought to be aghast, that any­one with views like his could have any­thing to do with National secu­ri­ty , or their own secu­ri­ty. In any Country seri­ous about crime, this guy would­n’t even have a secu­ri­ty clear­ance, not so in Jamaica , here he con­tin­ues to play cheap polit­i­cal, games with the safe­ty and secu­ri­ty of the Jamaican people.

As I have main­tained , sup­port­ed by facts ‚when­ev­er the Jamaican peo­ple need­ed the PNP on the sen­si­tive issue of National Security, they are nev­er there, this is a his­tor­i­cal fact . On the 2^nd of March 1972 the People’s National Party came to pow­er in Jamaica on a wave of pop­u­lar support,after run­ning on a plat­form of “bet­ter must come” under their watch Jamaica expe­ri­enced its great­est peri­od of Political trib­al­ism and blood-let­ting, this result­ed in Hundreds of peo­ple loos­ing their lives to Political killings. The great­est peri­ods of upheaval was those lead­ing up to the 1976 and 1980 Elections which saw a blood strug­gle between the forces loy­al to Edward Seaga of the JLP and Michael Manley of the PNP.Many will argue that the vio­lence was not car­ried out by just PNP sup­port­ers , this is absolute­ly cor­rect , there are no attempts here at lay­ing blame for polit­i­cal vio­lence. The argu­ments being made here are about the lack of resolve shown by Manley and his Government to effec­tive­ly re-estab­lish the Authority of the rule of law, dur­ing this peri­od the secu­ri­ty forces were ren­dered impo­tent , lack of weapons , lack of per­son­nel, lack of vehi­cles, and lack of support,prisoners were removed from Police lock ups by PNP politi­cians and their goons , while Police Officers stood by unable to act, The Olympic Gardens Police Station was invad­ed and Police Officers slaugh­tered. Elections were held on 15 December 1976 , while the state of emer­gency was still in effect. The PNP was returned to office. The State of Emergency con­tin­ued into the next year. Extraordinary pow­ers grant­ed the police by the Suppression of Crime Act of 1974 con­tin­ued to the end of the 1980s.(source Manley Wikipedia page) more than 500 peo­ple were arrest­ed and locked up at the Army Barracks Up Park Camp with­out charge , with­out bail,most if not all were either JLP politi­cians or sup­port­ers of the JLP. They were sup­pos­ed­ly held because they were plot­ting to over­throw the Manley Government, to date not one per­son so held was ever charged , much less con­vict­ed for plot­ting to over­throw the Government. Interestingly, despite this his­to­ry , last year the People’s National par­ty under the lead­er­ship of Portia Simpson Miller refused en mass to sup­port the Security Forces by extend­ing the lim­it­ed State of Emergency , a move that would effec­tive­ly give them breath­ing room to secure and hold ter­ri­to­ries under the con­trol of well armed thugs who threat­ened the Jamaican State. The PNP used the pop­ulist argu­ment of not want­i­ng to see the rights of peo­ple vio­lat­ed by the secu­ri­ty forces,an argu­ment that res­onates with the ter­ror­ists in Tivoli Gardens and all oth­er Garrisons with­in our coun­try, and the crim­i­nal cod­dling sym­pa­thiz­ers in Jamaicans for jus­tice, but which had no cred­i­bil­i­ty with rea­son­able peo­ple in Jamaica or the rest of the world who watched with hor­ror as armed mili­tias attacked and destroyed police vehi­cles , killed mem­bers of our police force and mil­i­tary, as well as numer­ous mem­bers of the public.

Armed mili­tia mem­bers could be seen on the streets parad­ing with AK47 rifles burn­ing shoot­ing and mur­der­ing at will,some will log­i­cal­ly argue that this hap­pened under the JLP , and they would be absolute­ly cor­rect, the argu­ment being made here is the PNP’s lack of sup­port for the rule of law , not sup­port­ing what Golding was forced to do after his man­gling of the Christopher Coke débâ­cle. By refus­ing to sup­port the lim­it­ed state of emer­gency the PNP sided with the Forces of Anarchy. No amount of argu­ment to the con­trary will con­vince law-abid­ing peo­ple in Jamaica or around the world otherwise,and dam sure won’t con­vince me .Not sup­port­ing our Police and mil­i­tary was a repro­bate act ‚one steeped in Political expe­di­en­cy, one which left the Jamaican peo­ple out to dry at the mer­cy of AK47 tot­ing thugs. There are those who argue the Government could sim­ply have accept­ed a stop-gap mea­sure the oppo­si­tion offered , or sim­ply go back to the Governor General to gain an exten­sion, indis­putable facts , but facts that does noth­ing to negate the threach­ery they engaged in choos­ing not to sup­port those who risk their lives to make sure oth­ers may be safe, that was an act of betray­al, it is full-time the PNP stop play­ing polit­i­cal games with the lives of the Jamaican peo­ple , it is time the pos­tur­ing and pla­cat­ing stop,the long-term eco­nom­ic suc­cess and well-being of the Jamaican peo­ple hinges on a safe and secure Nation, there can be no growth with­out stability.

As we speak the PNP is on a grand tour around the Country, tech­ni­cal­ly noth­ing is wrong with what they are doing, since what they do very well is cam­paign, but women and chil­dren , young men and old men are being behead­ed, and as Portia and Knight and the oth­er bunch of old fail­ures parade on the cir­cus tour, they utter nary a word of con­dem­na­tion of what is going on in the coun​try​.As far as they are con­cerned it is just par for the course. Ask Portia Simpson Miller what are her plans if she wins the next elec­tion and the response will be the same tired old nar­ra­tive from I was a child„helping the poor. One would hope those offer­ing them­selves up for lead­er­ship , or in Jamaica’s case ruler­ship , would under­stand this , most of the peo­ple in the PNP are old recy­cled fail­ures whom have been around for decades tak­ing turn after turn at the pub­lic trough,Thwaites, Duncan.Portia Simpson Miller, Pickersgill,Davis, the list goes on and on , all of these guys have been in rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al pol­i­tics since I was kid , they have failed and are now lin­ing up for anoth­er go around at the pub­lic’s expense, how long are the peo­ple going to remain bliss­ful­ly igno­rant? how much longer are they going to squan­der their’s and their chil­dren’s future on the altar of polit­i­cal alle­giance to both polit­i­cal par­ties .Over the decades this par­ty has shown noth­ing but reck­less disregard,and absolute incom­pe­tence on the issue of crime and vio­lence, and the baby they pro­duce, Terrorism.