Tivoli residents want int'l enquiry into deadly operation

BY PAUL HENRY Observer staff reporter henryp@jamaicaobserver.com

Friday, July 09, 2010

RESIDENTS of Tivoli Gardens, led by attorney Hannah Harris-Barrington, are seeking an international enquiry into the recent security incursion into the West Kingston community.

The operation, which was intended to apprehend former 'don' and accused drug lord Christopher 'Dudus' Coke, left 73 people dead.

Fifty-eight civilians and security personnel were also injured in the three-day clash that began on May 24.

Immediately after the fighting settled, reports of wide-scale police abuses and extrajudicial killings began to surface.

There were also reports of significant damage and theft of property, allegedly by members of the security forces. Outposts of the Office of the Public Defender set up in the community have recorded more than 700 complaints from residents.

Harris-Barrington told the Observer yesterday that more than 200 signatures have been secured from residents as they push to have the international community scrutinise the operation.

"A lot of people have suffered down there and we want an international enquiry into the matter," she told the Observer.

"Atrocities have been committed," she alleged.

She said that the drive to collect more signatures would continue and that representatives are now in England, rallying Jamaicans living there to join the cause.

There have been numerous calls for the Bruce Golding-led administration to hold an enquiry into the matter.

This is now Harris-Barrington's second tussle with the State in relation to the West Kingston saga.

Just last month, the lawyer filed an action for Judicial Review of Government's May 23 decision to impose a State of Public Emergency, limited to Kingston and St Andrew, in response to the chaos caused by marauding gunmen loyal to Coke, who traded bullets with the security forces and set fire to the Hannah Town and Darling Street police stations. The upheaval caused an almost total lockdown of the capital city for three days, resulting in losses of hundreds of millions of dollars to businesses. There was also significant damage to property.

Coke has since been extradited to the United States to answer drug and gunrunning charges.

The suit was filed on behalf of the Portland-based group Jamaican Forum for Human Rights, of which Harris-Barrington is president, and names Golding, Attorney General Dorothy Lightbourne, Director of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewellyn, Governor General Sir Patrick Allen and former commissioner of police Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin as defendants.

The claimants are Dr Clarice Ledwidge, Tivoli Gardens resident Annett Marshall, and other concerned citizens.

The application for Judicial Review will not be heard before September.

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Tivoli residents want int'l enquiry into deadly operation