THE security forces mounted a huge operation in Tivoli Gardens, West Kingston, yesterday for what they insisted was a search for cop killers. By nightfall they had detained 40 people.

But with four persons having been reported shot during the day and other claims of abuse against citizens, the police were fending off claims that their action was politically-motivated and accusations of human rights violations.

Parallels were being drawn between yesterday’s operation and the one of July 2001 when in a weekend of violence, 27 people were killed – 25 civilians, one policeman and a solider. Then, it was also claimed that the police went to Tivoli Gardens and fired, unprovoked, on civilians.

Last night, the rights group Jamaicans for Justice demanded an explanation of yesterday’s operation from the national security minister, Peter Phillips, and told the commissioner of police Lucius Thomas that they held him personally responsible for the conduct of his men.

“We are… calling on the commissioner to ensure that there is a prompt and transparent investigation into all the events surrounding this operation,” JFJ said in a statement. “We hold him personally responsible for securing all the necessary evidence to ensure that justice is done for any trampling on, or breaches of, rights of the persons in the area.”

Earlier, West Kingston MP and Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) leader Bruce Golding said he found it curious that the operation came only two days after a speech which praised the peace and relatively low crime rate in the constituency. He juxtaposed this to the violence in the nearby South St Andrew constituency of finance minister Omar Davies, where teachers at two schools have cut classes since Friday, after the rape of one student and the shooting of another.

Golding’s implication was that the governing People’s National Party, apparently with the support of the Constabulary and the Defence Force, wanted to foment unrest in his constituency.

This is a recurring accusation of Tivoli residents and JLP supporters. The community, fiercely loyal to the JLP, is at the heart of the West Kingston constituency that was represented by the JLP’s former leader, Edward Seaga, for over 40 years, until his retirement in February.

Golding highlighted an incident on Spanish Town Road – not far from the Denham Town Police Station – when two women who were part of the crowd in which he was being briefed, were allegedly shot and injured by soldiers.

“They opened fire on the crowd; two women were shot,” Golding said. “I helped to put one of them in my vehicle and rush them off to the hospital. One of them was standing on my right and one was standing some distance from my left. Completely uncalled for!”

There were reports of two other persons – a man and a woman – being shot by soldiers further south, at the corners of North Street and Regent Streets.

Among those held by the police yesterday was Tivoli Gardens strongman and so-called area leader, Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, and one of his ‘business associates’ and Tivoli powerbroker Justin O’Gilvie.

Neither was held in Tivoli Gardens but at well-appointed uptown St Andrew residences. O’Gilvie was released without charge, but Coke and a girlfriend were charged with the possession of a marijuana cigarette, and bailed.

Police cast yesterday’s operation – which began with a 4:30 am curfew – as a search for the backers and the triggermen who killed three policemen and a security guard, as well as shot up the Cross Roads Police Station within a nine-hour period between May 3 and May 4 of this year.

In the first of the incidents, Corporal Hewitt Chandler, who was travelling in a marked police car, was shot dead while he waited at a traffic light in Kingston. His attackers were in turn shot dead by security officials.

One of the attackers was a half-brother of Coke, the fourth member of the family, including their father, a former Tivoli don who was in prison awaiting extradition to the United States, to die violently.

Within hours two other policemen were shot dead, one while standing on the steps at the Cross Roads station in the early dawn.

At the time of the shootings deputy commissioner of police in charge of crime Mark Shields, an English import who is charge of the crime portfolio, said the killings were linked to men from Tivoli Gardens.

But Shields, having been blasted by Golding and apparently mindful of past antagonisms between the constabulary and the community, said any further police action would be intelligence-driven.

Yesterday he declined to comment on the developments ahead of a debriefing. “We will go through what happened,” Shields said. “At the end of that process there will be a press conference.”

The police information agency, the Constabulary Communications Network (CCN), in a separate statement made the very same point, but also promised action against officers who abused citizens.

“Any report of the use of excessive force by the security forces will be swiftly and thoroughly investigated and the public advised of the outcome,” the statement said. “As always, the co-operation of the public is critical to the success of our mission and is therefore fully appreciated.”

But Desmond McKenzie, the head of the capital’s local government and councillor for the Tivoli Gardens division, said that there was no attempt to get that cooperation. He claimed that residents were terrorised.

Said the JLP politician: “I am not saying that everybody in Tivoli are angels but you cannot deal with the matter in the way that it is being dealt with by the security forces. What is happening is downright terror.”

Rev Patricia Hall of the Faith Deliverance, a fundamentalist church on Bustamante Boulevard in Tivoli Gardens, claimed, too, that there was indiscriminate shooting by the security forces.

“Something that really disgusted me is that soldiers were on top of the Top 10 building on Bustamante Highway, firing shots in the direction of a building facing the community centre,” she said. “Right now there are eight bullet marks on the building.”