This Sunday, June 19, will be the 40th anniversary of the declaration of a national state of emergency by then Prime Minister Michael Manley. This Sunday will also be observed as Father’s Day.

As a nation, we are not yet at a stage to objectively analyse the 1976-77 State of Emergency. In his book,

Detained, Pearnel Charles opined that he was unfairly incarcerated. Research tells me that up to 60-odd years after the Morant Bay Rebellion, the event was being referred to as the “Gordon Riots”, although George William Gordon was innocent. Similarly, after only 40 years, one can expect spoken and written statements about the 1976-77 State of Emergency that are incorrect.

Michael Manley, as prime minister, strengthened diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1974 at a time when the Cold War between the United States of America and the Soviet Union and its allies like Cuba was still raging. But there was no break in diplomatic relations with Cuba until Edward Seaga, as prime minister, did so based on allegations that have never been proven.

There was no break with Cuba in 1959 after Fidel Castro overthrew Fulgencio Batista when Norman Manley was chief minister and later premier. Nor did it happen when Sir Alexander Bustamante, Sir Donald Sangster, Hugh Shearer or Michael Manley served in succession as prime minister.

Did the Central intelligence Agency (CIA) of the USA do anything to bring down the Jamaican Government in the 1970s? While there is no hard evidence of that, there were in fact similarities in what happened in other nations that had decided to determine their own destiny, especially such nations in the periphery of the USA, like Jamaica. This sort of thing also happened in some nations on the other side of the world that had commodities such as oil, rubber, bauxite, iron, steel, gold or diamonds.

In his book

Struggle In The Periphery, Michael Manley wrote about acts of destabilisation in 1976, such as unexplained fires and violence apparently designed to create panic and make the Government unpopular to get them voted out of office. But prominent members of the Jamaica Labour Party stated that the 1976-77 State of Emergency was really a plot to rig the general election that was held on December 15, 1976, by arresting supporters of the Opposition who would stop the rigging if they were not deprived of their liberty. Was there some truth in both claims by the opposing political parties? Was there any truth at all in either allegation? I was 22 going on 23 years old in June 1976 and I recall some things vividly.

And one thing for sure is that there was certainly a new and unusual form of violence prior to the 1976-77 State of Emergency. On pages 210 and 211 of

Struggle In The Periphery, Michael Manley quoted the US Army Manual of Psychological Warfare. And, in my opinion, the happenings of the time resembled the strategy from that manual, as quoted by Manley: “ i) Create discouragement, demoralisation, apathy; ii) Discredit the ideology of the popular movement; iii) Promote disorganised and confused behaviour; iv) Encourage divisive and antisocial actions to undermine the political structure of the country; v) Promote and support movements of resistance against the authorities.”

Did the food shortages of the 1970s have anything to do with what was written in the

US Army Manual of Psychological Warfare? Was the unusual sort of violence, with no known motive, such as the Trench Town fires of 1976, a part of what was described in the manual as the strategy? Was it aimed at sabotaging the tourist industry? Why does the US Army have a manual of psychological warfare?

In January 1976 the International Monetary Fund had a meeting in Jamaica. This meant that the media personnel from all over the world were in Jamaica, so the news coverage of the terrible Trench Town fires reached the ends of the earth.

With the 40th anniversary of the state of emergency coinciding with Father’s Day, it is timely that I tell you this. I grew up hearing all the anti-Castro and anti-Cuba propaganda from the time Castro took over Cuba when I was only five years old. I had, like everyone else, reached a saturation point in hearing how “terrible” Cuba was. In the summer of 1964, just before I entered Jamaica College, when I was 10 going on 11 years old, my parents took their five children to Mexico, where my late father Keith C Burke, who was an attorney-at-law, was Jamaica’s delegate to the International Bar Association Conference that year.

On our return to Jamaica, 15 days later, there was a two-hour delay of our flight. From the departure lounge in the Mexican airport, my three sisters, my brother, and I saw a Cubana aeroplane getting ready for take-off. We were excited to see a Cuban aircraft and we thought it very unusual because of all of the anti-Cuba propaganda that we had been fed. My father told us that, as far as Mexico was concerned, America’s quarrel with Cuba was of no concern to them so they had no problem in flying their planes between the two countries. This was when I realised that the source of the anti-Cuba propaganda was really the USA alone.

And this was really a part of my father’s philosophy. He had Rastafarian clients at a time when most lawyers would not represent them. This was before the singing days of Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, and this was basically Michael Manley’s policy of non-alignment, which even the current Jamaica Labour Party Government now adopts.

Why should the USA’s international quarrels be Jamaica’s?

Happy Father’s Day to all fathers, and please teach your children about things not always taught in school, like my father did.

ekrubm765@yahoo.com

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