This is a compelling question for the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) and its unconscionable parliamentarians, who have chosen to ignore the fear and tension wrought by criminals in this country: If the 1,600 Jamaicans who were murdered last year could speak from the grave, what would they say of the PNP’s decision to kill off the State of Emergency?

Moreover, what would the legions of fatherless children, the mothers who have lost innocent offspring, the wives who have lost husbands and breadwinners and the many others who have lost loved ones — including police officers whose lives are on the line everyday — to those heinous criminals. What would they say of your party’s action?

We don’t believe it’s too difficult to imagine what they would say. If they could speak, they would condemn in one strong and unequivocal chorus the betrayal of our country by a party that has lost its way.

The PNP supported the calling and subsequent extension of the State of Emergency. One of its members, the usually honest Mrs Sharon Hay-Webster, even called for its extension to St Catherine, where she is under the gun.

Suddenly, the party figures that crime as a social issue is so important that were the Government to bring it to within tolerable levels, it might just win the next election, a view which, by the way, we think is rather silly.

The political parties have never really trusted the Jamaican electorate. The PNP is not now about to believe that when it comes to an election, the voters will weigh Prime Minister Bruce Golding’s action, which led us to this sorry path, against the opportunity presented to deal crime a blow and make a wise decision.

Rather than trust the people, the PNP chose to put party before country. It doesn’t matter that the country and our economy had been held back in its development as the murder rate climbed wantonly to record levels every year. It doesn’t matter that since the State of Emergency our people had begun to feel safer and more secure in ways they had not since the late 1960s.

We pressure and pillory the security forces for not doing their job, but choose to ignore them when they tell us what they need to do that job.

Those who met their untimely death at the hands of gunmen would say, without a shadow of a doubt, that this is indeed a sad day.