MINISTER of Justice and Attorney-General AJ Nicholson yesterday sharply rejected calls, from Amnesty International, for a second inquiry into the July 2001 West Kingston shootings that left 27 people dead.

“I can state at the very outset that the government has no intention of accepting this preposterous recommendation,” the justice minister said in a tersely-worded press release.

“Whatever Amnesty International may regard as its role in relation to a small but proudly democratic nation like Jamaica, we do not regard that organisation as entitled to assume the posture of a review body controlling our constitutional and judicial procedures,” Nicholson added.

On Monday, the anniversary of the July 7-10 killings, the international human rights group argued that “impunity for state killings will persist” until there is a “proper inquiry” and called for Government to set up an independent judicial inquiry.

“The… inquiry has failed to fulfil its obligations under international law to fully investigate the deaths of at least 27 people killed,” said Olivia Streater of Amnesty International’s Caribbean and North America research team.

Two members of the security forces were among those who lost their lives.

The new probe, the international human rights group said, should be conducted with international support, arguing that the financial costs “pale in comparison to the suffering caused… and the worldwide damage done to Jamaica’s reputation”.

The first inquiry, headed by retired Canadian Judge Julius Isaac and completed in June of 2002, cost almost $45 million.

But according to Amnesty, it had been bound to fail as it was fundamentally flawed.

“With legal advice suggesting that the security forces had the right to fire on unarmed women and children, the findings of the commission were a foregone conclusion,” Amnesty said in its report, which was sent to the Government.

The inquiry, Amnesty said, had been structurally biased in favour of the state, which had the predominant voice throughout as “no evidence was heard from any of the victims or their families and most witnesses called to give evidence were members of the security forces or otherwise employed by the Government”.

Other flaws in the inquiry, as listed by Amnesty, included:

* an imbalance between the number of lawyers representing the state (eight) as opposed to the two representing citizens;

* Victims were inadequately represented and independent witnesses were neither represented, protected, nor compellable;

* With no independent investigators, commissioners were dependent on the police that were the very subject of the inquiry to unearth all the available evidence;

* Procedure for cross-examination meant it was virtually impossible for evidence from security forces to be properly tested, preventing the independent fact-finding that should have characterised a rigorous investigation under international law;

* No closing submissions were made on behalf of any victims of police killings; and

* No submissions were made on international law applicable in incidents of state killings.

Yesterday, Nicholson said he would supply a point-by-point response to Amnesty’s claims after a detailed study of the report; however, he partially addressed some of the issues raised. He said:

* Civilians who were in the affected areas at the time of the incident gave unconvincing reasons for refusing to give evidence;

* The attorneys who initially appeared on behalf of the deceased and injured civilians later voluntarily withdrew of their own volition and for their own reasons; and

* There was no attempt by the Government or the commission to prevent any person from giving evidence or being represented by a lawyer.

“The procedures adopted by the commission were entirely in keeping with the requirements of an inquiry of this nature,” Minister Nicholson said, “and certainly no one can doubt that the members of the commission were fully aware of the requirements of natural justice that were relevant to proceedings of this kind.”

In a June 2002 report on the inquiry, Justice Isaac, along with Dr Hyacinth Ellis and Rev Garnett Brown, cleared the police of any wrongdoing in the West Kingston shootings. In fact, the commission ruled, the death toll could have been higher had it not been for the lawmen’s restraint.

The violence, the three-member commission said, had been triggered by gun and drug owners’ attempts to protect their contraband from the police. But the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) has steadily contended that the incident was part of a larger plot, by the ruling People’s National Party, to portray Opposition Leader Edward Seaga — in whose constituency the shootings took place — as a man of violence.

The Opposition initially called for the inquiry but Seaga later refused to give evidence after arguing that the commission was biased against him.

The JLP has never accepted the findings of the commission, and neither has Amnesty.

“The… inquiry has missed a unique opportunity to provide justice and accountability for the victims and to help prevent such a major loss of life from reoccurring,” said Streater in the group’s report. “Only another inquiry will be able to afford the in-depth scrutiny necessary to provide any chance of discovering how 27 people lost their lives in West Kingston.”