Dear Reader,

It is clear that the JLP government has agreed to utilise the strategy embodied in the saying: “the best means of defence is attack”. With obviously no credible response to the Manatt and Dudus scandal, the administration has apparently concluded that it is easier to distract the country by getting tough on the poor. Something tells me that the government believes the strategy is working.

It began a few months ago with the street boys’ eradication operation. Without forewarning and with no rehabilitation support systems in place, a draconian dragnet was placed around the Corporate Area to rid the streets of windshield wipers and street boys. It was carried out with brutal efficiency and the nation watched as boys and young men were accosted and arrested in the most inhumane manner and herded together en route to various jailhouses.

It didn’t matter how and why they had become street people, neither did the operation embody those organisations and individuals who have dedicated their lives to providing services and models for assisting “unattached” youth. I would have expected that organisations like Children First and the YMCA- under the leadership of Claudette Pious and Sarah Newland-Martin respectively – which specialise in rescuing and rehabilitating street children would have been invited to help with the processing and the social interventions necessary for societal and behavioural modification. Children First and the YMCA have demonstrated to the country that street children are human beings, and with a caring and supportive environment, targeted programmes and curricula, street boys can turn their lives around and become productive citizens.

The two organisations which I founded, Youth Opportunities Unlimited, and Hear The Children’s Cry, if notified, would have been happy to offer advice and expertise to address the problem, having designed and implemented numerous programmes for youth over a long period of time.

To have dealt with the street boys as purely a police matter, and to further shackle the innocent ones with criminal records is manifestly unjust. The street boys are prime candidates for a powerful second-chance programme run by people who know how to do it, and who have a heart and a commitment to children and youth. Instead of criminalising young men, and wasting time and energy on operations that are largely counterproductive, resources should be reallocated to expand the work being done by Children First and the YMCA.

On the heels of the street boys’ eradication operation, we saw the forced removal of vendors from downtown Kingston and other parts of the Corporate Area in a manner that appeared more barbaric than that of law enforcement. Pictures of poor people hanging on to their hard-bought goods, of women begging for mercy, and the most heart-wrenching scene of all – an elderly woman crying because the goods she had taken on credit were confiscated – pictures that looked heartless and insensitive, regardless of the illegalities of vending. What the country has been witnessing is nothing short of unfettered state abuse.

But the biggest problem with the organised attack on the poorest and neediest in the society is the hypocrisy inherent in the actions being taken by the authorities. Can somebody explain to me how, in a country where there are continuous allegations made by both domestic and foreign interests of fraud, corruption and links to criminal networks at the highest levels of government, that chasing a woman who is selling goods in a scandal bag to feed herself and her children, and arresting adolescent boys with neither mother, father nor hope can be given precedence? As far as I am concerned, if the Golding government is now embarking on a public clean-up campaign, it ought to start with the head of the stream.

With obviously no conscience about the plight of the poor, government senator Dennis Meadows adds insult to injury by calling for the criminalisation of squatters. Somebody needs to tell the gentleman that people who have a home to live in don’t squat. Senator Meadows needs to wake up and smell the coffee, or better yet, to try living in a community on the brink of forced evacuation by criminal gangs linked to both his government and the People’s National Party. I wonder if Senator Meadows is prepared to invite into his own home those who are given a few hours to leave a community or face death? Where do you have in mind that political refugees should be housed, Senator Meadows?

It is time that those of us with a heart and a conscience, and with any kind of influence, especially the Jamaican church, stand up in defence of those who can’t defend themselves. Those of us with a voice must shout out loudly: “Help the poor, don’t harm the poor!” Let us take heed of the words of the noted novelist, George Lamming, who reminded us that our goal should be to bring “this world of men and women from down below to a proper order of attention, to make the reality the supreme concern of the total society”.

With love,

bab2609@yahoo.com