Dear Editor,

With as much flak as Clovis has caught for his cartoons, I wish to commend him on last Friday’s cartoon showing Bruce Golding with a leg on dead ‘donmanship’.

It is an indisputable fact that garrison crime or ‘donmanship’ is at its lowest today as it has ever been at any time since 1975, and for that Bruce Golding must be given credit and remembered. This is despite his very unfortunate, principled stand for ‘Dudus’ Coke who, I understand, Bruce believed at the time to never have travelled to America and was presented with questionable evidence by the US to warrant an extradition.

Had he taken this stand on the behalf of most other Jamaicans, he would have been lauded, but I believe, having been kept in the dark by the Americans, members of both the Opposition and his own party, he has been vilified.

History will show that Golding’s stand will be of benefit to not only Jamaica but the entire third world as hopefully America’s arrogance will diminish as it shows more regard for sovereign nations and their subjects.

The loss of life in Tivoli is truly one of the darkest moments in our history, but must be accepted for what it truly was, and the lesson taken going forward.

Many that died may have lived had they not sought to protect ‘Prezzie’. The ‘war’ was not sudden, but the writing had been on the wall for a while. The security forces were aggressively attacked by the donman’s protectors and much of the casualties were the casualties of a war most chose to be in.

This was markedly different and far more civil than a policeman firing rounds at a residential building in Tivoli while focusing his attention and conversing with a reporter — on camera!

If the lesson that it is wrong and can be fatal to protect criminals is taken by more of our people, then what happened last year will not have been a waste. We continue to protect criminals in our neighbourhoods, scream for mercy for them when they are caught, blame the Government when crime drives away factories and businesses that employ people, and most recently, demonstrate against our reduced standard of living at the end of all this.

Sad.

Fare thee well, Bruce Golding and may history treat you well. Thank you for your service to Jamaica and her people.

Stephen Smith

stavsig@gmail.com