IT was meant to be a meeting to end criminal conflict, but as participants departed the venue after upbeat discussions, gunmen struck, killing one and wounding another.

Now Heather Robinson, who just over 10 years ago resigned as Member of Parliament (MP) for St Catherine South Central, saying then she refused to associate with criminals, is still insisting that no good can come from politicians negotiating with criminals.

“Nothing changes when you negotiate with criminals. And if you decide to sit with such individuals, you need to decide what is the real benefit that will accrue from such meetings,” Robinson said in a Sunday Observer interview on events in Spanish Town.

Just over a decade ago, Robinson walked away from representational politics, citing amongst other things the growing annex of criminality and politics and disagreements with some of her constituency colleagues over their relationships with questionable characters.

At the time, Miss Robinson said she had no intention of giving birth to political dons.

“These are the ‘dons’ who, when they cannot get what they expect without working for it, unleash their guns on any and everyone, including their patron saints,” Robinson said then in her famous speech to Parliament.

“Mr Speaker, I am a single woman, and I do not intend to give birth to any don. I am not a don-maker and never will be. In that sense I am truly barren.”

Spanish Town has been a zone of conflict for years between the PNP affiliated gang Klansman and the JLP associated One Order gang. MPs Olivia ‘Babsy’ Grange and Sharon Hay-Webster are currently involved in negotiations to broker peace between the groups, whose war is largely over turf and the take from extortion.

Robinson, however, says nothing good can come of the attempt.

“All you do when you meet with these people is that you empower them. It is a whole process of empowerment.”

Hay-Webster and Grange and the police have said the talks do not involve men wanted for any crime, though they are associated with the gangs.

The police say the two gangs are responsible for the crime sweeping the old national capital.

“If they believe within themselves that there are benefits to be derived by meetings with these persons, if they believe that they can reduce crime and stop extortion, that is their belief,” said Robinson.

“I don’t see that that has happened in the past, and I have no reason to believe it will happen now.”

The Constabulary Communication Network (CCN) and Operation Kingfish have confirmed that those in the talks were not wanted men.

The peace meeting was held at the offices of the St Catherine Parish Council, and included Mayor of Spanish Town Andrew Wheatly.

Minutes after the meeting ended, several shots were fired at the departing cars transporting Grange and others, and a motorcycle carrying a rider and a pillion rider.

Two motorcyclists were shot, one fatally.

The dead man was a known One Order member, and he was reportedly shot by a member of Klansman reportedly opposed to peace talks.

Robinson pointed to the “shooting up of the car” in which Grange, her security detail, and Andrew ‘Bunman’ Hope, another One Order member was travelling.

The reputed leader of Clansmen is Donovan ‘Bulbie’ Bennett, who has been on the police most wanted list for years for murder and extortion.

Last Sunday, following the security raid on the JLP political garrison of Tivoli Gardens, of Kingston Western, the party’s deputy leader and spokesman on national security Derrick Smith, dared the police to respond to why Bennett has remained so elusive for so long.

“Why the police and soldiers can’t find ‘Bulbie’ after 10 years?” Smith demanded, at a meeting of the party’s corporate area constituencies at Tarrant High School that followed the October 5 on Tivoli Gardens in search of men alleged to have killed three policemen in May.

Robinson said peace meetings have been going on for “years, with some of the very same people”, with no end to the war.

“As I keep on saying, the people of Jamaica must decide who is the bigger idiot, and which God they serve. They should also decide if they can sleep in their beds at night,” she said.

Having made her decision a decade ago, Robinson now limits her involvement in politics to the organisational side, and is currently supporting Dr Peter Phillips’ in his campaign for presidency of the PNP.

“I sleep at nights now,” she told the Sunday Observer.

virtuee@jamaicaobserver.com