The American Government continue to talk down to smaller less powerful nations, through its various arms of government as well as directly from the horse’s mouth at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
At the same time countries like Iran, North Korea, and others insist that respect is a two-way street.
That is essentially true, respect is earned, it has nothing to do with one’s size, power, or wealth, and it certainly is not given because a powerful country engages in threats, bravado, intimidation or bellicosity.
In the process of speaking down and acting as a strict parent to wayward kids, the US has developed its own grading and rating system through which it chastises admonishes and punishes less powerful nations for what it deems to be a lack of adherence to the orthodoxy of the rules it created.
Usually, those infractions are injurious to no other country except the United States. In many cases, the injury is merely a matter of perception.
I find this lording over other nations curious, as the US allows no one to tell it what to do. Which brings us to the question of human trafficking and more substantially the question of human rights.
In a recent article published in the Jamaica Gleaner, the US Government chided Jamaica for not being aggressive enough in prosecuting offenders and protecting victims.
Read article here; http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/lead-stories/20190625/not-tough-enough-us-raps-jamaica-limp-action-human-trafficking .
My question for Jamaica is this, why not create and maintain a grading and rating system which grades America’s efforts in stopping the flow of guns into Jamaica?
Since as far back as the early ’80s, Jamaica has gone over and beyond to eradicate marijuana and prevent it from getting into the United States.
As a young police officer, this writer has done more than most cops to wage war on a weed that I never smoked or had anything to do with, all because the Americans wanted us to do so.
While we were actively eradicating marijuana our poor country was paying exorbitant (fines/extortionist fees to the Americans) when Ganga was found on the national airline, the then [Air Jamaica].
In the same vein, thousands of Jamaicans have been incarcerated and deported, some innocently, because of America’s hatred for marijuana. America’s police departments did not care who they hauled into their marijuana dragnets, innocent or guilty. If one was/is black or brown it did/does not matter.
All this was going on while American states were actively engaged in the growth and sale of far more marijuana than tiny Jamaica could ever hope to produce.
Tens of thousands of Jamaican lives have been ruined while marijuana is now being decriminalized across America.
America’s tendency to dictate to others on what they ought to do is certainly not lost on this writer. Despite this tendency, America’s police departments combined, kills thousands of people each year. Not just armed suspects, but unarmed people with whom they come in contact, who have committed no crimes but who may have questioned their assault on their persons.
These innocent victims are generally African-American and other people of color.
Police body and dashcam videos are always available to slime potential accused suspects but are withheld (“pending the completion of the investigations”), when racist and corrupt cops are accused of crimes against innocent citizens.
And so while we are on the question of people’s rights I will take this opportunity to reiterate something I stated to a friend just today.
We are experiencing a stubborn rise in the Islands violent crime rate. I believe the leaders of our country have squandered opportunity after opportunity to right the ship.
Nevertheless, because of their own criminal exposure, they have used smoke and mirrors to create the impression that meaningful work is being done to remediate the existential issue of violent crime on the Island.
However, in reality, police and other statistical data shows that the trajectory of violent crimes and the brutality and brazenness with which they are being carried out has been on a steady northward trajectory.
(1) I am opposed to (INDECOM), Terrence Williams and Hamish Campbell’s ZEALOTRY, PERSONAL AGENDAS AND EGOS. I am not opposed to police oversight. Police cannot be left to police themselves.
The JCF has the most oversight of any police agency anywhere, yet police corruption is on the rise. It follows, therefore, that oversight is not the issue, the approach is wrong. Just as the wrong-headed ZOSO’s and States of Emergencies cannot stop murders, neither can the proliferation of pressure groups on the JCF work to lower crime.
I am opposed to INDECOM because it was born out of Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ), an anti-police agitator, and criminal enhancement group.
(2) If the Government had followed our suggestion in 2010 when they created INDECOM. If they had put the M$355 per year it throws down the dark hole known as INDECOM, into the JCF, that B$3.2 Billion dollars would have brought the JCF to first world standard.
It would have rooted out corruption, drove down crime through more effective investigations and apprehension of criminal suspects.
(3) Additionally, had the Government decidedly shown the criminal rights fraternity the door and backed the JCF legislatively and through compensatory means, I would be writing from Jamaica about the massive infusion of real investments which have flooded into our country.
Mike Beckles is a former Jamaican police Detective corporal, a business owner, avid researcher, and blogger.
He is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel for the latest podcast all free to you of course.