Dear Editor,

I refer to Ewart Walters’ comments on Bustamante in your Sunday Observer of March 2, 2014. Based strictly on your reporting, as I have not read the book, it would seem Ewart ‘Fatz’ Walters wanted the usual central cast of characters for his new book, and he has found them in Busta, the villain, and Norman, the hero. Such is the case with most fictional work.

However, if he intended for this book to be seen as a serious work that reflected upon the period of history which saw the early birth of our nation up to the present time, then it would appear that his opinion is in a titanic struggle with the realities of those times. Or is it that his motive for writing is the very fact that, at the time of his birth, he was born standing firm as a PNP supporter. Incidentally, I do not suppose anyone is born of a particular political persuasion, but I could be wrong, and Ewart Walters is just that special.

It cannot be that Busta, according to Mr Walters’ account, simultaneously hijacked the labour movement, which was already violent to begin with, and used it as a launching pad for his trade union and political career; yet he was the one who introduced violence in the movement and subsequently in politics as a tactic to intimidate rivals.

Next, in any budding democracy where no opposition party exists, the tendency to flirt with dictatorship is a real and present danger. For Busta to form an opposition party that would offer competing ideas for the direction of the country is viewed by those who value individual freedom and democracy as nothing short of being courageous and honourable.

The thing that has become so stubbornly annoying for rank- and-file PNP members is the fact that Busta ran on a self-autonomy platform in the 1962 referendum and defeated Norman who ran on keeping Jamaica in the West Indies Federation. This colossal victory cemented Busta as the true and only founding father of an independent Jamaica. And this fact cannot be changed.

Despite this, at every turn, embittered PNP members with access to the media jump at the opportunity to distort, smear and muddy Busta and his contributions so that they can deceptively advance their brilliant attorney/leader (yet impotent politician) Norman Manley as the true founding father of Jamaica.

Now, for the record, I believe Norman and Busta were two patriotic and well-intended politicians who wanted to better their country. I cannot speak with the same certainty for the others. What I am certain of, though, is that politicians on both sides of the political divide have supported the killing and maiming of our citizens, and for which they should stand trial.

I suspect that Ewart is an elder, and for that the time is well ripe for him to now get over his birth defect of being born a PNP and seek the truth.

Jay Kirby

citysmile7@yahoo.com