THE PNP DOES NOT HAVE THE SOLUTION TO JAMAICA’S CRIME PROBLEM: It Is The Problem.

There are some facts which are irrefutable , one such fact is that crime spi­rals out of con­trol when the People’s National Party is in pow­er. As to cau­sa­tion , I am aware there are var­i­ous expla­na­tions depend­ing on who you ask . For PNP sup­port­ers, that is as a result of the CIA, the Labor Party or both, desta­bi­liza­tion, the tooth fairy or all the above.

Me ? I rather look at the facts and num­bers . It bears remem­ber­ing that for the last 4 decades the peo­ple’s National Party has had state con­trol for 28 years. The ques­tion in syn­op­sis then becomes “Is Jamaica bet­ter off now, than it was 40 years ago”? As Ronald Reagan asked America pri­or to the 1980 General elec­tions, that is the test, “Are you bet­ter off”?.

With the excep­tionof the brief respite between 1980 – 1988 when Seaga returned the coun­try to a path of pros­per­i­ty and low­er crime and the 4 years under Golding and Holness, Jamaicans have self­ish­ly and stu­pid­ly turned what was once the stan­dard by which the Caribbean was judged to the pari­ah of the Caribbean.

Neither of the two polit­i­cal par­ties are with­out sin, the labor par­ty after Hugh Shearer, depart­ed from the plat­form of no tol­er­ance to crime and cor­rup­tion, lit­er­al­ly mak­ing itself impos­si­ble to dif­fer­en­ti­ate from the PNP. Of course when it comes to gut­ter pol­i­tics the labor par­ty could only play catch-up. The ¹⁸¹⁄₂ year exile from state pow­er is tes­ta­ment to that fact. The labor par­ty was the par­ty which offered peo­ple hope, not hand-outs. Educational oppor­tu­ni­ties through hard work , not crash pro­gram. Economic growth through low crime. Understanding of course that the biggest deter­rent to growth is crime and cor­rup­tion. Once the JLP decid­ed to play ball on the PNP’s turf there was no rea­son to pick them for office, at best the labor par­ty could only be PNP lite. Why buy lite when you can have the real thing.

So the PNP built 3 gar­risons to every one the JLP had, notice I said had, not built. The JLP could not build Garrisons with­out state pow­er and state mon­ey. The PNP had and did. So when we look at why the PNP is per­pet­u­al­ly in con­trol of state pow­er, we need look no fur­ther than the homogoneus com­mu­ni­ties (gar­risons) under their con­trol. The win­ner of these homoge­nous con­stituen­cies are known before a sin­gle vote is cast. In most cas­es the raw vote far exceeds the amount of elec­tors on the vot­ers list. This is over-kill yes , but it is pos­si­ble because of the iron-clad con­trol par­ties have on the machin­ery in these communities.

The result is there are far few­er con­stituen­cies up for grabs, or where the elec­tion real­ly mat­ters. He who con­trols the state purse rules the day, check mate. The PNP has sub­se­quent­ly reduced Jamaica to a beg­gar nation , soaked and drenched in the blood of a peo­ple not smart enough, or too scared to extri­cate them­selves from its cult-like ten­ta­cles. As the coun­try’s sit­u­a­tion gets more des­per­ate they delude them­selves that just over the hori­zon is sal­va­tion, the next oasis. Deluding them­selves like a sun-stroke wan­der­er stum­bling in the desert. Convinced that the mirage they see is an oasis on the horizon.

The coun­try is not get­ting bet­ter, there are no jobs, no oppor­tu­ni­ties, crime and gang activ­i­ty are on the rise. The lead­ers fat­ten them­selves while the elites who live above Cross-Roads pre­ten­tious­ly and gra­tu­itous­ly rev­el in the beau­ty of the Empresses new clothes. Jamaica is not a devel­oped coun­try, it is not on a sus­tained path to first world sta­tus, mere­ly say­ing I love Jamaica does not make a coun­try suc­cess­ful, if that was so Jamaica would be rival­ing Dubai. Jamaicans ‚par­tic­u­lar­ly the new­ly edu­cat­ed ones are the most pre­ten­tious Pharisees. They rather stand around and glee­ful­ly clap and cheer the Empress and her new clothes instead of rec­og­niz­ing that the path the coun­try is on is unsus­tain­able and can only lead to destruction.

This brings us to the crime sit­u­a­tion which is lit­er­al­ly drain­ing the life blood from the coun­try. The year 2010 the secu­ri­ty Forces had most of the Gangs on the run after they rout­ed Christopher Coke from his redoubt in Tivoli Gardens. Mercenaries who had come from far and wide irre­spec­tive of par­ty affil­i­a­tion to aid the don of dons, final­ly felt the pow­er of the state’s secu­ri­ty agen­cies. This was the oppor­tu­ni­ty of a life­time to cement the author­i­ty of the state in root­ing out crim­i­nals and estab­lish­ing once and for all, a zero tol­er­ance for that kind of behavior.

The Commissioner of Police and the Chief of Defence staff of the JDF asked for an exten­sion to solid­i­fy the gains they had made under the lim­it­ed state of emer­gency the Golding Administration had asked for and was grant­ed by the Governor General. To a man, every sin­gle mem­ber of the People’s National Party then in oppo­si­tion vot­ed no. I wrote then that no vote was the biggest betray­al any polit­i­cal par­ty could vis­it on a coun­try. https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​m​y​w​p​b​l​o​g​/​?​p​=​845.

Gang activ­i­ty thrives in homoge­nous com­mu­ni­ties (Garrisons)the rul­ing Administration has devel­oped a polit­i­cal net­work of gar­risons which makes it almost assured state pow­er. That is the rea­son the Neanderthal war­rior Portia and her acolytes could not sign on to an exten­sion of the lim­it­ed state of emer­gency in 2010. Portia and the par­ty she rep­re­sents are rel­e­vant because of gar­risons and all which comes with them. They can­not and will not be the soul­tion to Jamaica’s crime prob­lem. They are the problem.