KINGSTON, Jamaica — The People’s National Party (PNP) is rejecting remarks by Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) General Secretary and the Minister of National Security, Dr Horace Chang, who over the weekend said the Opposition is to be blamed for the current upsurge in murders, particularly in ST James.

Chang, who was addressing a conference of the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) affiliate youth arm, Young Jamaica in Montego Bay on Saturday, the PNP’s decision not to support the extension of the state of public emergency(SOE) signalled to criminals that they now have the greenlight to once again to carry out their evil deeds with impunity.

“The current wave of crime which dampens the country, we see solutions that the country could relate to but the People’s National Party has forced us to discontinue with this anti-crime measure because they used a narrative which was completely wrong based on lies and innuendos and the country needs to understand how it emerged,” Chang charged as he addressed the young party faithfuls.

“They are using cheap politics in what is a national problem which is crime which affects people’s lives on a daily basis,” the security minister argued.

The PNP, in a statement today, said Chang’s statement is contemptuous, reckless and inimical to the process of by-partisan talks, which both parties started a few weeks ago at Vale Royal.

“The People’s National Party will never accept blame for the upsurge in crime for defending the principle that fighting crime cannot be on the sole basis of the arbitrary detention of hundreds of our citizens without due process. As a democratic party rooted in the principle of justice for all, we would not now or in the future, support the trampling of the basic human rights of the Jamaican people. It is not in our DNA,” the party said.

See PNP’s statement in full:

The People’s National Party (PNP) says it rejects as supercilious the remarks by the General Secretary of the Jamaica Labour Party and the Minister of National Security, Horace Chang, MP, for imputing blame on the Party for the new upward movement in murder on our decision not to support the extension of the State of Public Emergency (SOE).

The Party said Dr Chang’s statement is contemptuous, reckless and inimical to the process of by-partisan talks, which both parties started a few weeks ago at Vale Royal. The PNP said the statement by Dr Chang is another indication of the government’s failure to arrest the murderous state of affairs in Western Jamaica, and elsewhere in the country.

Dr Chang and the JLP government are well aware of the Party’s position which is firmly rooted in principle and the Jamaican Constitution, as outlined by our team of lawyers at the Vale Royal Talks. His statement, therefore, is a red herring which is aimed at distracting the nation from the core issue of the government’s policy failure on crime.

Shadow Minister of National Security and the PNP’s Chairman Fitz Jackson, M.P., said Dr Chang is seeking to scapegoat the PNP for the obvious failure of the government to bring a credible solution to the crime situation in the country.

He said the PNP and civil society have been asking the government for a crime plan and to date, the government’s response has been the promulgation of the Zones of Special Operations (ZOSO) and the declaration of states of emergencies in selected areas.

The statistic shows that even while those measures were in effect, crimes and gruesome murders were still taking place. Since the start of the year, for example, 183 Jamaicans have been killed violently in various communities across the country. In Montego Bay and other areas where the special operations zones and/or states of emergency were enforced, more than 16 persons were killed, and other crimes continued unabated.

Dr Chang needs to use his time to convince Prime Minister Andrew Holness to schedule the long-awaited meeting with civil society stakeholders as agreed at the Vale Royal Talks.

“We eagerly await the resumption of those talks, to which the Office of the Prime Minister is yet to schedule so that the nation can come to a consensus on a set of crime fighting principles to break the continuous cycle of crimes affecting our citizens in every socio-economic stratum,” Mr Jackson said.

The People’s National Party will never accept blame for the upsurge in crime for defending the principle that fighting crime cannot be on the sole basis of the arbitrary detention of hundreds of our citizens without due process. As a democratic party rooted in the principle of justice for all, we would not now or in the future, support the trampling of the basic human rights of the Jamaican people. It is not in our DNA.

“We, therefore, urge Dr Chang to desist from politicizing the crime situation and seek by-partisanship to tackle the situation in the interest of nation building,” Mr Jackson said.