A senior churchman has accused the police of failing to take measures to prevent gangsters from chasing residents from their homes in the St Catherine communities of Tredegar Park and Gravel Heights.

“We have problems when we see the police officers lining up to provide security for people who have been given 24 hours to leave their homes,” said Pastor Glen Samuels, president of the West Jamaica Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

“This is not the role of the police. We need police that will stay there and see to it that the people don’t have to leave their homes,” added the churchman.

Pastor Samuels was speaking Saturday night at the East Jamaica Conference Seventh-day Adventists Praise Reunion and Thanksgiving Service at the Kencot Seventh-day Adventist Church in Kingston.

Among the worshippers were Prime Minister Bruce Golding and Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller.

Samuels delivered his message a day after Golding instructed the army to set up a temporary military police post in Gravel Heights in an effort to bring the situation there under control.

“The Government will not allow criminal elements to continue to terrorise law-abiding citizens,” a news release from the Office of the Prime Minister quoted Golding on Friday. “We promised to intensify our police and military operations for this year and we will continue to keep up the pressure.”

According to the release, Golding said every effort will be made so that persons who were forced to flee the community will be able to return to their homes.

Tredegar Park and Gravel Heights came to national attention late last year when residents began moving out in droves on the orders of gunmen, said to be members of the notorious One Order and Clansman gangs.

The One Order gang, affiliated with the ruling Jamaica Labour Party, and the Clansman, which is loyal to the Opposition People’s National Party, have fought deadly battles for control of the old Jamaican capital Spanish Town, where they both operate lucrative extortion rackets.

In his sermon on Saturday, Pastor Samuels also called for an overhaul of the country’s justice system.

“We need to fix our justice system,” he said. “We must ensure that justice is not a long and tedious process. [We must make sure that] the man on the corner does not have to pay what he doesn’t have to find justice, or take justice into his own hands.”

He also told the congregation that the Church has a priestly and prophetic function in the society and must play an integral role in lifting its moral fibre.

“No longer can we just have a Church with four walls. The Church must put on its working clothes and get its hands and feet dirty,” he said. “We can’t afford for ‘dons’ (community enforcers) to have more power in the community than the Church has.”

Prime Minister Golding, in his address, challenged the religious community to become more emphatic in its efforts to help the Government effectively tackle the ills of the society, including a murder toll which shot past the 1,600 mark at the end of 2008.

“The Church has its own prophetic authority no one can challenge. even among those who have never entered the door of a church. They can be reached, they can be influenced,” he said.

Simpson Miller, who also addressed the church service, said the country had benefitted greatly from the partnerships between the State and the Church over the years.

She commended the Church for the outstanding contribution it has made to education, health-care and disaster relief.