Dear Reader,

So the Commission of Enquiry into the Manatt and “Dududsgate” affair has started, but as far as I am concerned it is already off to a false start, and should be disqualified by the Jamaican people.

I believe that the prime minister must be laughing all the way to the bank. What he has been successful in doing is to secure the balance of power, and by extension the control of both the input and output of the enquiry.

It is clear to me that the Golding administration’s damage control strategy sessions are already paying off. The first victory was to use apologies, double-speak and an assortment of “rapprochement” techniques to hoodwink civil society into watering down, and then to completely abandon the call for his resignation. The second was to keep the critics focused on the narrow issues of who commissioned Manatt, Phelps and Phillips, who wrote the cheque for the law firm’s services, etc.

And then the clincher. Mr Golding agrees to an “independent” Commission of Enquiry knowing full well that he possessed the power to choose who sits on the commission. He then proceeds to select a man with a long-standing association with the JLP to head the commission. It seems to me that Emil George’s appointment must have been carefully and deliberately calculated, for while George is known to have links with the governing party, he has also had a long and distinguished record of service to Jamaica. What better man to head the commission?

As I am sure the Golding camp predicted, Emil George’s selection went largely unopposed, and so the so-called independent Commission of Enquiry to determine culpability on the part of a JLP prime minister and his administration is under way, headed by a man with ties to the very same political party. What an arrangement!

Having ensured that the working apparatus of the commission of enquiry was in the hands of “their man”, the administration was unshackled to determine the terms of reference of the enquiry, and the announcement was made to the country – the enquiry would focus on the narrow, “technical” and “legalistic” issues of the who, what, where and when of the transactions between the JLP and Manatt, Phelps, and would completely disregard the deeper and more potentially damaging examination of the alleged relationship between the ruling party and Christopher “Dudus” Coke’s criminal empire.

Worse yet, the commission would not investigate the killing of the 76 Jamaicans who lost their lives in Tivoli Gardens during the Dudus Coke-induced insurgency.

It is shameful and scandalous that even now we the people of Jamaica have been kept in the dark about the circumstances that led to the killing of close to 100 of our citizens. In fact, to this day, we are not even sure what the precise number is of those who lost their lives.

Since the Tivoli insurgency, Public Defender Earl Witter has been clamouring for a full investigation, but to no avail. Speculations abound regarding teenage boys who have not been accounted for, and rumours of persons being burnt and their bodies disposed of, continue to run wild throughout the society.

An enquiry into the Tivoli killings is especially urgent, not only because of the gravity of what happened, but because this is the second time in 10 years that so many Jamaicans have been killed.

In 2001, 27 or more people were killed in the same community. Just as it is in this case, there is still a debate as to how many people lost their lives.

The story carried in the Gleaner on May 22, 2010, “Tivoli Gardens Flashback” read, “A HUGE black cross at the corner of Darling Street and Spanish Town Road in West Kingston bears testimony of two unforgettable deadly events in the recent history of Tivoli Gardens.

“‘Lest We Forget’, as the monument is called, has engraved on it the names of the 31 people killed in clashes with security forces during operations in that section of the city.

“Twenty-five of those residents, one soldier and a policeman were killed in 2001 after the police and the defence force entered the community in search of guns and wanted men. The stand-off lasted three days, from July 7-10, and has been regarded as the darkest spot in the history of Western Kingston. The other four residents were killed during a similar operation in Tivoli Gardens from May 7-9, 1997.”

I expect the church and other civil society groups, along with the rest of us in the society, to speak out with the loudest voices about the travesty of justice surrounding this Commission of Enquiry. As far as I am concerned, it is nothing but a sham, and to waste taxpayers’ money pursuing an investigation that is flawed from the inception, and the results of which are already predictable, is a downright shame. What a country!

With love,

bab2609@yahoo.com