Tivoli Payout Robbing Those Who Play By The Rules To Pay Those Who Don’t

Two hun­dred mil­lion dol­lars $200 million)has been approved by Cabinet as com­pen­sa­tion to aggriev­ed per­sons who were affect­ed by the oper­a­tions of the secu­ri­ty forces in West Kingston in May 2010. This was dis­closed by Minister of Justice Delroy Chuck in a state­ment to the House of Representatives.

This writer has no quar­rel with gov­ern­ment com­pen­sat­ing prop­er­ty own­ers whose prop­er­ty has been dam­aged by oper­a­tions of the state.
As a home­own­er, I would cer­tain­ly be unhap­py if my home was dam­aged or destroyed by the gov­ern­ment and I was not appro­pri­ate­ly compensated.
With that said, I find it appalling that the Government would apol­o­gize to the com­mu­ni­ty of Tivoli Gardens after what that com­mu­ni­ty did to the Jamaican state.

While we are on the ques­tion of com­pen­sa­tion to a com­mu­ni­ty which has lived free on the pub­lic’s dole, a com­mu­ni­ty which large­ly oper­at­ed with­out pay­ing for the com­modi­ties it used, a‑la elec­tric­i­ty, water, etc.
I would also like to ask the admin­is­tra­tion and indeed the Opposition this, who will com­pen­sate Jamaicans like myself who have worked hard, played by the rules, paid our tax­es and broke no laws. Who will com­pen­sate us the tax­pay­ers whose resources built the police sta­tions they burned, who will com­pen­sate the fam­i­lies of the mem­bers of the secu­ri­ty forces who were killed by peo­ple from that community?

How does a gov­ern­ment with the full acqui­es­cence of the Opposition com­pen­sate a com­mu­ni­ty which has thumbed its nose at the broad­er soci­ety and oper­at­ed out­side the bounds of the law with impunity?
This is an egre­gious stain on our his­to­ry, the rule of law, and a scan­dalous depar­ture from the norms of a mod­ern soci­ety. This action is a dis­grace­ful depar­ture from whats right and a rep­re­sen­ta­tive sam­ple of how to destroy the moral fiber of said soci­ety. I am ashamed of my country.

This tran­scends polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tions or alle­giances, the peo­ple of Tivoli Gardens oper­at­ed as most in Arnett Gardens and the oth­er Garrisons across the Corporate area did pri­or to 2010. They looked to crim­i­nals for lead­er­ship and the dis­pen­sa­tion of a kind of jus­tice which can only be char­ac­ter­ized as jun­gle justice.
They thumbed their noses at law enforce­ment and the nation’s laws while giv­ing def­er­ence and rev­er­ence to com­mon mur­der­ous thugs.

The tax­pay­ers of Jamaica includ­ing this writer have borne the cost of elec­tric­i­ty, water, hous­ing etc for those who live in zones of polit­i­cal exclu­sion for decades.
Sure we paid, did you think that the JPS does not get paid for the kilo­wattage of elec­tric­i­ty it gen­er­at­ed? The water com­mis­sion charges those of us who paid for those who did not. Who paid for the hous­es peo­ple in these com­mu­ni­ties live in with­out pay­ing any mort­gages, while many of us work­ing stiffs could not afford to own one of those lit­tle box­es ourselves?

Apologizing to the com­mu­ni­ty for dis­re­spect­ing the rule of law, for giv­ing its alle­giance to a thug is a prece­dent which will haunt this coun­try for gen­er­a­tions to come.
The apol­o­gy and full­some com­pen­sa­tion offered by the gov­ern­ment with the full acqui­es­cence of the oppo­si­tion par­ty is demon­stra­bly the great­est exam­ple that hard-work­ing peo­ple who play by the rules are at a disadvantage.
The polit­i­cal par­ties loy­al­ty is to their base in the most grit­ty law­less com­mu­ni­ties, hence this despi­ca­ble action.

I do under­stand that in the tox­ic polar­ized swamp which is Jamaica’s pol­i­tics this log­ic will find no fer­tile soil.
With that under­stand­ing, the lack of out­rage becomes far more illuminating.
This is sim­ply an act of reward­ing bad behav­ior with an apol­o­gy and then some.
Set aside all of the grand­stand­ing and the hyper­bol­ic non­sense you read on the pages of the news­pa­pers in Jamaica, they have their own agen­da, which is to fur­ther the break­down of the rule of law.
Instead, see this action for what it tru­ly is, a slap in the face of ordi­nary Jamaicans who obey our laws, pay their tax­es and play by the rules.
Political sup­port for crim­i­nal­i­ty is deeply embed­ded into the body politic, this is just anoth­er exam­ple of the ordi­nary cit­i­zen being held up and fleeced on behalf of those who made the deci­sion to say fuck you to the rule of law.
Only this time they did not do so at the point of a gun.