APPEARING at his most impassioned since 2005 when he stepped away from the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) he had led for 31 years, Edward Seaga came out swinging last Thursday night, as security forces tightened their control over Tivoli Gardens in West Kingston.

Seaga, in a comprehensive interview with CVM Television, went for Prime Minister Bruce Golding’s jugular, blaming him for the flare up and all but calling for his resignation.

In the lengthy CVM interview, the former prime minister also lashed several Jamaicans, including Joseph Matalon, the head of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ), Col Trevor MacMillan, the former police commissioner and Bishop Herro Blair, the political ombudsman.

Seaga took issue with the killing of residents of Tivoli, saying that the people who had arms had left the community. “And they are gone because they got a signal from what was said before, knowing that there was going to be this type of operation. So why are you continuing? Why you shooting people?”

“You must remember that the member of parliament is also the prime minister and he is the one who makes the decision…. He can make the decision to stop it. Why is he not doing so? But I can only tell you that since he has become PM he has neglected the area. And I’m not talking about Tivoli Gardens, the entire West Kingston. Neglected it. Because that is not his understanding of how an MP should operate.

“According to the philosophy of the NDM (National Democratic Movement), which he founded and left, an MP supposed to go to parliament and talk about national and international affairs. You’ve heard that. And the constituency must run itself. Now this constituency was left to run itself. And on that basis, fell into the hands of stronger and stronger gang activities that was providing assistance to them, which they had to appreciate because there’s nobody else that’s helping them. You don’t run a constituency like that, not this type of constituency.”

Seaga said Golding needed to be in that constituency on a regular basis. That’s what he did and that’s what the people were accustomed to, and if Golding could not do it, “he must leave it”.

“I told him from the beginning that this constituency does not suit you. But he was determined to go there because the very same people he is trying to catch now are the ones who told him to come. They want him there because the prime minister should occupy that seat. It has been occupied by three prime ministers in a row. And so they wanted him there for that purpose. He should have gone to Spanish Town, which he represented before, and let Olivia ‘Babsy’ Grange come there…. because she is a caring person,” Seaga insisted.

Golding held the Central St Catherine constituency until he was ousted by Grange in 1997 when he contested it for the NDM. When Seaga stood down as Opposition Leader and MP, following a bruising internal party fight in 2005, Golding took over West Kingston, winning it in the 2007 general elections. “If he plans to stay on as prime minister, he should find another seat. Other than that, he may have to consider resigning,” Seaga told his CVM interviewer.

Referring to what he said was a statement by Matalon on the security forces operation, Seaga said what was happening in Tivoli was now bringing out the problem of this country, “the coalition of the classes against the masses”.

“It doesn’t matter how many poor people died down there. Plenty of them are there to replace them, so if you want to kill off a few, it no matter, it is worth it, that’s what Mr Matalon said. It is worth it. Worth it to do what? He has enough sense to understand how to read the situation. How can he be talking about gunmen in a battle and you don’t have any guns. Where are the guns? Ask yourself that question (and) you realise something is wrong. Businessmen they don’t stop to do that. They only want to know you killing off people down in that area, and when you do, that you must be curbing crime.”

Seaga’s comment was pointing to the low official count for guns recovered by the security forces — four up to the time he was speaking — against the high body count, 44 at that time, which he claimed was more than 100 bodies.

Asked about his own role while he was MP for Tivoli Gardens, Seaga declared that he was the only “higher authority in the history of this country” who had given the police a list of persons who were conducting criminal activities in there, including murder and that the list was headed by Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke himself.

Seaga had handed Commissioner MacMillan a list with 13 names of Tivoli residents whom, it was said, he could not control, at a time when criminal elements were taking hold of the area.

“I offered a $25,000 reward to find his whereabouts. And what did the police do with that list? MacMillan the commissioner said it was on a piece of dirty paper. It may have been. But that was just the start.”

Later in the interview, Seaga said of MacMillan: “I don’t know what he has ever cleaned up in his life, I must tell you the truth. Because he certainly is a failure here. If he had attended to what I gave him by way of a starter and we were able to continue that discussion so that they could know who should be on their list to watch, some of this would have been cleaned up long ago. But he never did.”

Commenting on Bishop Blair’s visit to Tivoli Gardens on the invitation of Prime Minister Golding, Seaga was equally caustic: “I am disappointed in him… Not using any analytical experiences he had from the previous incident in 2001. You don’t just go there and hand poor people food and say ‘okay sit down here until the next package come’. They want to get out. That’s what you must call for. They want to be free. They want to be citizens with their rights. It’s not a package of food they want. I am disappointed in him…That’a foolish approach.”