National Security Minister Colonel Trevor MacMillan has responded with a flat no to a suggestion from Dr Peter Phillips that the Government should consider declaring a state of emergency to deal with Jamaica’s spiralling crime rate.

“I cannot support a state of emergency at this time. In fact, I don’t support a state of emergency for many reasons, which I do not want to go into at this time,” MacMillan said yesterday in an interview with the Observer, a day after Phillips’ view was aired on Radio Jamaica’s weekly news review programme, That’s A Wrap, hosted by Earl Moxam.

Phillips, who served as security minister during the previous administration, said that although he did not put to the Cabinet the idea of martial law during his tenure, it may be worth visiting by the current Government.

Phillips said he did not raise the issue to the then People’s National Party (PNP) Government, as he believed there were residual resentments from the state of emergency declared in the 1970s by the then ruling PNP, which left a trail of abuses of citizens by the security forces.

He also said he did not think it would have been supported, given Jamaica’s tourism-dependent economy.

Critics of the state of emergency say it was used by the PNP to crack down on Opposition politicians in order to win the 1976 general elections. However, the Government of the day argued that it was necessary to stem rampant violence.

Since then, intermittent calls have been made for martial law, especially when there is an increase in murders. However, no Government has so far yielded to the calls.

On Sunday, Dr Phillips, in seeking to justify his suggestion, said: “We are in an emergency situation and ought to therefore resort to the emergency powers that exist.”

The possibility of a state of emergency being implemented only in the island’s crime-ravaged communities was also raised on the programme, while yesterday, callers to radio talk shows signalled a willingness to give up some rights in order to stem the violence, which has so far resulted in 1,509 murders between January 1 and the end of November this year.

But MacMillan, who along with the Government has come under attack for failing to put a leash on crime, said the idea could not be supported, given the current state of affairs.

“For one, we don’t have the number of security personnel that would be needed for the kind of co-ordinated effort that is needed in these communities,” he said.

The police force establishment is currently just over 8,000, nearly 4,000 shy of what would be considered satisfactory. Added to that, repeated calls for a merger of the Jamaica Defence Force and the constabulary to increase numbers, have been rejected.

On Sunday’s programme as well, Phillips, in response to the exodus of residents from Gravel Heights and Tredegar Park in St Catherine last week on the orders of gunmen, suggested that the Terrorism Prevention Act be amended to include atrocities committed by criminals against members of their communities.

“When you lock a young child and a family in a house and set it afire and ensure that they cannot escape, that is terror,” said Phillips. “When you simply go through a community, in Hope Pastures for example, where you burn out five houses and people have to become refugees in their own land, that is terror.”