Exodos of the Jamaican Conscience

http://reggaelicious.pbworks.com/Green-Bay-Massacre
January 5, 1978 was not only a shameful day in our history but an unprecedented opportunity for the then PNP government to lay the foundation for the rest of Jamaica's post independent journey. Tragic though Green Bay was, it presented us with the perfect opportunity to steer the Jamaican conscience in the right direction, we could have averted the calamity we are now in, the nightmere we now have to live through.

The Green Bay tragedy presented us with the ideal launch pad from which we could have established firmly in the minds of generations to come, the value of truth and the sanctity of the human life. We could have used this opportunity to impress upon the minds of Jamaicans that those among us who seek to kill and maim their fellow man would not be tolerated but would be exposed and brought to justice without fear of favour.

Instead what have we ended up with? we have a situation where agents of the state have taken on the attitude of the very "criminals" that they are sworn to stop, killing hundreds of young men not counting women and children who are cut down in the process and this they do with impunity and in some of the most dubious circumstances.

A JDF captain who should have been involved in the operation providing air support, thank God was late in arriving, hence changing the outcome of this story and giving credibility to the actual facts. No doubt the story would read similar to the rhetoric that we hear now-a-days when young men are killed by the security forces. This air captain would have responded the way solders respond in combat when under threat, these men would have been terminated and there would be none to tell the tales.

This same captain gives graphic accounts of the tragic way in which some of the men were killed. One of the young men we were told, was shot from behind as he was running away the bullet had entered his hand, travelling up his arm, through his neck, entered his jaw and finally exiting the other side of his face, a death not even the most cruel among us deserves. Let me remind us that these were agents of the state sworn to serve and protect who had lured these young men out of their beds before daybreak under the guise that they were going to be getting jobs, picking them up in an ambulance knowing fully well what was going to be their fate. One can't help but to feel a kind of shock and disbelief that there was not one there who was able to recognise the irony of the situation, "no angels died at Green Bay" was one comment but does that make it right to have them expired in that way? I think not...

So what are some of the lingering side effects of this tragedy? some are not immediately obvious but the kind of disregard for human life exhibited by our security forces and the society at large must be viewed as being inextricably linked to incidents such as this one and we have the accolades to bear testament.

* Murder capital of the World: several years running
* Extra judicial killings: most in this region
* Seemingly a culture of violence
And on and on we go with no apparent solution in sight and all the more with a statements such as this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f9w8reGnjE

We are now in a most crippling cycle of mistrust between the security forces and the citizens, one that gives rise to reprisals without end, continued police brutality, jungle justice and all the conceivable evils of that ilk.

I want to submit however that we do not have to continue down this path but we can stop, take stock and realise that like Barack Obama suggested: "we do not have to compromise or values, morals and ideals in order to ensure the security of any of our 'peoples'.