WESTERN BUREAU The civic action group Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) will today hold a memorial service for three homeless men who they claimed went missing on the night of July 14, 1999, and who are believed to be dead.

The men, Anthony Walker, also known as “Tony” or “Da Ugly”, Dudley Bernard and Dennis Hanson, were suspected to have been among a group of approximately 32 mentally ill and homeless people who were forcibly trucked to St Elizabeth, and abandoned in a deserted area two years ago.

President of the Montego Bay chapter of the JFJ, Elizabeth Hall, told the Observer that the men deserved a memorial service in their honour.

“We thought it would be good for all of us to remember these three souls who walked our streets, and (who) left in such an undignified and horrible way,” she said.

The 6:00 pm memorial service for the three, which is slated for Sam Sharpe Square in Montego, is being held against the backdrop of keeping alive the memory of the scandal as a whole. Meanwhile, Hall who expressed disappointment with the outcome of the Commission of Inquiry, vowed that the JFJ would continue to do what it could to keep the incident alive in the minds of Jamaicans. And that civic group firmly believes that today’s memorial service is one way of ensuring that the nation remembers, not only the great injustice that was done to those homeless people, but the lack of justice that ensued from the Inquiry.

The July 1999 incident, now infamously known as the “Street People Scandal”, sparked national and international debate, and highlighted the demeaning manner in which the less fortunate are usually treated.

But despite the disgrace the incident wrought on Montego Bay and the rest of the island, the Commission of Inquiry, which was geared at ferreting out those involved, held no one accountable.

In fact, the St James Parish Council, which was implicated in the incident, was later absolved of any wrongdoing following the Inquiry. So too were the Parish Council’s truck driver Roger Leslie, Western Parks and Markets (WPM) contractor Egbert Campbell and P olice Constable Maxine Pindling, who were all charged in connection with the incident. They were recently freed on the basis of a lack of evidence.

Hall, however, disagrees with this ruling. “There were areas where the evidence kept bubbling through (at the Inquiry). That could have been followed through, but was never done… If they really wanted to hold somebody accountable (they could have),” she said.

“And I go back to the young mayor,” she continued. “He gave evidence that he is only politically responsible, so what are we paying taxes for? Isn’t he responsible for the running of our city? Something like this happens and he knows nothing, he has seen nothing, he doesn’t ask any questions, nothing is said?” She added that people needed to become aware of the fact that they have the power to exact accountability from those who are chosen to lead the country.

“We have to begin to understand that, we, the people, can let the government know how we want our country to be run. We can set the terms. But it means that we have to come together and decide how we want it to be run,” she argued, adding that now was the time to stand up and “say enough is enough”.

Within this context, Hall issued a call for all Montegonians to turn up in a show of solidarity against the perpetrators of the street people scandal, and to remember and pray for the three missing men who are now believed to be dead.