The year ending 2021 presented the usual mixed bag in terms of the news. There were the usual great personal accomplishments, especially in an Olympic year, the questionable happenings, a murderous cult, the persistent crime problem and the plain bizarre. Scandals and the seemingly unending COVID-19 pandemic also dominated the news in the year under review. The question of whether there will be mandatory vaccine mandates for Jamaicans will carry over into 2022. This, as the nation eagerly watches developments in the courts as it relates to mandates.

Below, OBSERVER ONLINE presents the biggest news stories during 2021.

A legend passes – ‘Butch’ Stewart dies at 79

The region was plunged into mourning in early January when founder and chairman of the ATL Group of Companies, Gordon “Butch” Stewart passed away aged 79.

Stewart, who was also chairman of the Jamaica Observer, is most remembered for his multiple award-winning Sandals and Beaches Resorts, which helped to establish the Caribbean, especially Jamaica, as a world-class tourist destination.

Stewart’s accomplishments in tourism and business in general won him many awards and honours, most notably the Order of Jamaica. He was also invested as Commander of the Order of Distinction.

Kevin Smith and the Pathways International Cult

Jamaicans at home and abroad were hit by the shocking news on the evening of Sunday, October 17 that several members of a religious organisation described as a cult, were killed during what was said to be a human sacrifice event.

That news and that which followed, including the bizarre death days later of cult pastor Kevin Smith, dominated the airwaves and newspaper pages not just in Jamaica but far beyond. Placed front and centre of the news cycle for weeks afterwards was Smith, his Pathways International Restoration Ministries and his dedicated flock that worshipped him as a god.  

Jamaicans are still trying to come to grips with how two members of the Montego Bay-based organisation were stabbed and slashed to death, including one woman whose throat was cut, and how members of the police force came under attack when they responded to reports that members of the church were being sacrificed by Smith. One man was shot and killed by the police.

In a bizzare twist, the bombastic Smith, who designated unto himself such titles as His Excellency, died one week later in a motor vehicle crash along the Linstead Bypass in St Catherine. He was being escorted by the police from a lock-up in St James to Kingston to face gun and murder charges. One member of his congregation which included high-ranking members of the army and police force is before the court charged with murder.

The Khanice Jackson murder

The gender debate, in particular the treatment of women and girls, was reignited in March following the brutal murder of Khanice Jackson, a 20-year-old accounting clerk of Portmore, St Catherine.

Jackson went missing on March 24 after leaving home for work.

Her body was found two days later off the Dyke Road close to the Portmore Fishing Village.

A post-mortem examination determined that the young woman had been strangled.

A 50-year-old mechanic, Robert Fowler, who was known to the victim and who often transported her to work, was charged with her murder. He is behind bars awaiting trial. 

Gender Minister Olivia Grange led a debate in the House of Representatives shortly after Jackson’s murder as she sought to put the spotlight on the plight of women and girls in Jamaica.  

History in the JDF; Commodore Antonette Wemyss Gorman next army chief

The news in September that Jamaica will soon have its first female Chief of Defence Staff was met with elation throughout the country.

Career soldier Commodore Antonette Wemyss Gorman will take over in January as head of the Jamaica Defence Force [JDF] when the current head, Lieutenant General Rocky Meade proceeds on retirement. 

Wemyss Gorman will be promoted to the rank of Rear Admiral in January.

General Meade has served the JDF for 38 years. He was appointed Chief of Defence Staff in December 2016.

Wemyss Gorman, 48, was among three senior JDF officers who were interviewed for the position. She is a career soldier whose 29 years of service have been characterised by notable achievement and exceptional service to the JDF.

She has performed at the strategic level of command within her technical area of expertise and in other domains both internal and external to the JDF.

Wemyss Gorman holds a Master’s Degree with distinction in National Security and Strategic Studies from the University of the West Indies.

Promoted to her current rank in December 2019, Wemyss-Gorman assumed the post of Force Executive Officer in January 2020. She currently provides strategic guidance to the Force in support of the transformational vision of the Chief of Defence Staff.

She is also responsible for the establishment of the Caribbean Military Maritime Training Centre and the Maritime Air and Cyber Command, which includes the JDF Coast Guard, the JDF Air Wing and Special Forces.

The man with the stool – George Wright

Beginning in April with a viral video, and for several months afterwards, the most talked about story in Jamaica centred on first-term parliamentarian, the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) George Wright. That was until the Kevin Smith and the Pathways International cult saga.

The question on the lips of every Jamaican was ‘Who is the man in the video?’

Wright, who wrested the previously impregnable Westmoreland Central constituency from the People’s National Party in the September 2020 general election, is believed to have been the man who was caught on a poor quality video recording dealing a vicious beating to a woman in Hanover.

The severity of the beating was underlined by the fact that the man used both his clenched fists and stool in the beat down of the woman who was later identified as his common-law wife, Tanisha Singh. She had to seek medical attention.

After the video emerged, Wright was promptly dropped from the governing party’s parliamentary caucus. With both Singh and Wright refusing to give a formal statement to the police, the investigation ended before it got underway. Eight months later, Wright has still not publicly stated whether he was the man in the low-quality video.

That did not prevent calls for his resignation from the Parliament. He has refused to do so and, while he has resigned from the JLP, Wright remains in the House of Representatives as an independent Member of Parliament.

Oxygen shortage amidst delta third wave

A shortage of medical grade oxygen in late August when Jamaica was battling a deadly third wave of the coronavirus brought on by the highly contagious delta variant, and which may have contributed to a number of deaths, led to calls for an independent enquiry which the government is yet to endorse.

Hospital CEOs from around the country made desperate pleas for the life-saving oxygen on the weekend of August 26-29 as bed occupancy from COVID-19 infections rose, pushing both hospitals and healthcare workers to breaking point.

In the aftermath, and in the face of mounting criticism and calls for an inquiry to determine whether any deaths in hospitals that weekend could be attributed to the oxygen shortage, both the Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr Christopher Tufton and the country’s lone supplier of medical grade oxygen, Industrial Gases Limited [IGL] pointed the finger at each other.

“It is for this reason that I believe the call for a probe by the Leader of the Opposition [Mark Golding] is reasonable. And I, too, join that call,” declared Senator Damion Crawford, during his contribution to the State of the Nation Debate in the Senate on December 10. Crawford noted that it has been suggested “That had it not been for the lack of oxygen [in August], some of our citizens that died would not have died”.

“That is an assumption/conversation that is worth probing, especially where there are assertions that the government was negligent,” Crawford said.

IGL accused the health authorities of ignoring requests for supply forecasts, a claim that was rejected by the government on the same day it was made.

Omicron is here

It may have emerged only in the last week of November when it was identified as a variant with dozens of mutations but omicron has dominated the news in the last month of 2021 as the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic drew to a close with an uncertain future ahead.

Jamaica would join dozens of countries that rushed to impose travel bans on South Africa, where omicron was first identified, and seven other southern African nations. Those bans would shortly be reversed after it was accepted that the variant had already spread around the world.

Health and wellness minister Dr Christopher Tufton has since announced that a visitor to the island tested positive for the omicron variant on return to the United Kingdom, underlining that the variant was likely already spreading in the local population.

Like many other countries, Jamaica has, in the last two weeks of the year, begun to see a sharp rise in coronavirus cases with the likelihood that the omicron variant as well as activities associated with the Christmas holidays are responsible for the spread.

Vacccine kerfuffle; when they turned on Tufton

While he was lauded for his stellar performance in his ministry’s management of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the shine faded somewhat for health and wellness minister Dr Christopher Tufton in 2021.

In particular, the oxygen shortage that hit hospitals on the weekend of August 26-29 and the botched roll out of the Pfizer vaccine overshadowed his efforts.

While questions remain about whether persons who died in hospitals on that fateful weekend in August perished because of a lack of oxygen, Tufton has pointed the finger of blame at Industrial Gases Limited, the country’s sole provider of medical grade oxygen while the company has pointed the finger back at him.

And, in an unusual departure from the principle of collective responsibility, government Member of Parliament for St Andrew West Rural, Juliet Holness, launched a broadside against the Tufton-led Ministry of Health and Wellness over its handling of the administration of the Pfizer vaccine.

On October 5, while appearing before the Parliament’s Public Administration and Appropriations Committee, Holness voiced her disapproval of Tufton’s ministry, accusing it of contributing to the poor vaccine take up in the country. She took issue with the fact that the ministry changed course on its original decision that was communicated to the public, that the Pfizer vaccine would be administered only to children and adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17.

The vaccine was subsequently given to adults and the 208,000 doses were quickly used up. At one stage over 80,000 people were awaiting their second dose of the vaccine which has since been made available to general population as there are now adequate supplies.

Vaccine mandates

As it relates to vaccine mandates, Jamaica’s Supreme Court in December refused to grant injunctions blocking the implementation of mandatory COVID vaccine policies by telecommunications provider Digicel and Cari-Med Limited pending trial.

This means that employees of the two companies must comply with COVID vaccination or undergo routine testing at their own expense.

The employees had argued that their constitutional rights were being breached and some had refused to get vaccinated on health grounds. However, the court countered, arguing that the companies had a duty to protect all employees.

Andre ‘Blackman’ Bryan and the Klansman trial…

The gripping trial of the so-called One Don Gang faction of the notorious Klansman Gang which is based in Spanish Town, St Catherine, has the rapt attention of the entire country.

With former gang members turn state witness spilling their guts, the gory details of the inner happenings of the gang allegedly led by Andre ‘Blackman’ Bryan are being revealed to an attentive audience.

Chief Justice Bryan Sykes is presiding over a trial of 33 individuals, including one female, the largest number of accused ever to be tried together in a single matter. It is being handled by 40 attorneys.

The accused are being tried under the Criminal Justice (Suppression of Criminal Organisations) (Amendment) Act, commonly called the anti-gang legislation, with several facing additional charges under the Firearms Act for crimes allegedly committed between 2015 and 2019.

All 33 accused, who are being tried under an indictment containing 25 counts, when arraigned on September 20 at the start of the trial, pleaded “not guilty” to the charges against them.

The offences for which they are being charged include being part of a criminal organisation, murder, conspiracy to murder, arson, illegal possession of firearm, and illegal possession of ammunition. Bryan is charged with, among other things, being the leader of a criminal organisation — the Klansman/One Don gang.

Dog Paw’s last bark

Accused murderer and feared gang leader, Christopher ‘Dog Paw’ Linton was shot and killed during a reported shootout with the police on the afternoon of Monday, October 11 in Elletson Flats, St Andrew.

This was barely six months after he had his conviction and 15-year sentence for supposedly shooting at the police overturned in the Court of Appeal. He was eight years into the sentence which was handed down in 2013.

The police said that in the short time that he and his co-accused Michah Allen were freed, Dog Paw, who shares a child with Leah Tavares-Finson, the daughter of Senate President Tom Tavares-Finson, had been implicated in several murders. The Jamaica College old boy was among four persons who were shot and injured by unknown assailants in the Cane River area of Bull Bay, St Andrew on June 26.

PNP’s mass resignations

On July 16, the widely publicised divisions inside the People’s National Party [PNP] grew even wider with the mass resignations of the party’s vice presidents – Damion Crawford, Dr Wykeham McNeill, and Mikael Phillips as well as party chairman Phillip Paulwell.

Phillips had just been nominated to be re-elected to the post.

A joint statement from the four said that the move was prompted based on a recognition of the risk that may arise from another internal election before the wounds of the last presidential elections were adequately healed.

“Despite all the reasonable efforts to broker a platform of unity, there were otherwise covert attempts to sabotage the goal of peace and harmony with a plan to horde the available positions,” they stated.

The quartet said they had engaged the wider leadership of the party in good faith negotiation to avoid a further widening of the internal rift, recognising that the party leader – Mark Golding – had declared publicly that the party could not countenance another divisive internal election.

It was revealed shortly after that PNP Youth Organisation President Krystal Tomlinson also resigned from her post.

Golding would hit back, stating that “Discussions with respect to the four vice presidential candidates were attempted, but unfortunately these did not lead to consensus”.

The Ruthven Towers saga

The National Housing Trust [NHT] was thrown into the spotlight in November when the entity that is known for constructing low income housing for Jamaicans placed the pricey Ruthven Towers in the heart of New Kingston on the market. Unit prices ranged from a low of $27.7 million to a high of $37.7 million, out of the reach of a majority of contributors.

Following much criticism, including from a former NHT Chairman, Howard Mitchell, Prime Minister Andrew Holness who has portfolio responsibility for the NHT announced that phase two of the development would be put on hold. He had put up a stout defence of the project and sought to brush aside criticism as “public distraction”.

All 86 units in the Ruthven Towers have been sold.

SOEs derailed

On November 25, the Government was dealt a massive blow to its main crime-fighting tool – the States of Emergency [SOEs] that were imposed in seven police divisions across five parishes on November 14—after the Senate failed to approve an extension of the security measure.

The defeat of the motion in the Senate came two days after the government used its super majority in the House of Representatives to approve the extension.

During an hours-long debate in a rare Thursday sitting of the Senate, the government failed to get the single Opposition vote it needed for a two-thirds majority in the Upper House that would have extended the SOEs until February 10, 2022.

Pleas by government senators for their Opposition colleagues to support the motion fell on deaf ears. This, as senators Donna Scott-Mottley, Sophia Frazer-Binns, Damion Crawford, Peter Bunting, Lambert Brown and Dr Floyd Morris, all opposed the measure.

At the end of the debate, all 13 government senators voted ‘yes’ while three Opposition senators voted ‘no’ and five were absent.

While most major crimes have recorded significant declines, Jamaica continues to have one of the worst homicide rates in the world – in the region of 46 per 100,000 population. By December 20, more than 1,400 people were murdered on the island.

The Montague controversies

Calls have been mounting for Prime Minister Andrew Holness to drop the controversy-plagued Minister of Transport and Mining, Robert Montague from his Cabinet.

Controversy and scandals have followed Montague throughout his time in the Executive. The much-travelled Montague has served as minister of agriculture, national security and now transport and mining.

In November, Montague sacked the boards of the Airports Authority of Jamaica and the Norman Manley International Airport amid the heat he was taking in relation to the controversial US$3 million [J$450 million] investment in start-up entity, First Rock Capital Holdings, without the requisite permission from the Ministry of Finance.

He was also thrown into the spotlight after questions were raised about the questionable award of millions of dollars in contracts at Clarendon Alumina Partners. Montague has insisted he has done nothing wrong.

Hansle Parchment’s savior

The story of 110m hurdles Olympic gold medallist Hansle Parchment is one for the ages.

While he won the title at the Tokyo Games in August in a massive upset over pre-tournament favourite, the United States’ Grant Holloway, the story about how he got to the semi-finals and subsequently the finals continues to tug at heart strings.

If it had not been for a volunteer named Tijana Kawashima Stojkovic, Parchment’s Olympic journey would no doubt have ended much differently.

Parchment, in a tear-jerking and heart-warming video on his Instagram page after winning the Olympic title, expressed his gratitude to the volunteer who, at that time was identified only as ‘Trijana’ — by showing her his gold medal and repaying her money she gave him for his taxi fare in order to get to the Olympic stadium.

Parchment had earlier explained that he had accidentally taken the wrong bus ahead of his semi-final earlier in the week.

“By the time I looked up I realised this bus was heading the wrong way. I’m not familiar with any of these surroundings,” Parchment told his Instagram followers. 

After arriving at the aquatic venue, he was told that he would have to go back to the Olympic Village and take another bus back to the Olympic Stadium. 

“If I had done that, I wouldn’t get there in time to even warm up. I had to find another way. I was trying to get one of the branded cars for the games to take me, but these people are very strict and adhering to the rules, and I would have to have to book the car from beforehand to get it to leave,” he shared.

And in that moment of what could have been a disaster for the Olympian, he saw a female volunteer who he had to “beg” for assistance. 

“She’s not allowed to do much, and she actually gave me some money to take one of the taxis that affiliate with the whole [Olympic] games. That’s how I was able to get to the warm-up track at the stadium, with enough time to warm-up and compete. And that’s just awesome,” he said. 

Parchment went on to shock the world by beating the overwhelming favourite and Stojkovic was later invited on an all-expense paid trip to Jamaica by the ministry of tourism.

Elaine’s exploits

Despite courting controversy, the indomitable Elaine Thompson-Herah proved in 2021 that she is the dominant female sprinter in the world.

That dominance saw her emerge with not just three more Olympic medals but a string of honours and awards.

The former MVP-based athlete who severed ties with the club that guided her career from 2014 and to five gold medals at the Olympics, was in December conferred with an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree by The University of Technology (UTech).

She was also crowned Female World Athlete of the Year and said she was overwhelmed with joy, ”to be recognised for my work and the many blessings from the Lord.”

”I thank my UTech family for awarding me with the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws. Thank you my fans and sponsors for always helping me to keep the flame to my fire,” she said on Instagram.

Thompson-Herah retained her Olympic 100m and 200m titles at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

She also added a third gold medal to her 2021 Olympic collection when Jamaica’s female 4x100m relay team stormed across the line in first place in the second-fastest time in history.

On top of her stellar Olympic triple, she also clocked world-leading times of 10.54 and 21.53 over 100m and 200m respectively, moving to second on the world all-time lists.

Jamaica’s strong showing at the Olympics

Jamaica had another strong showing at the Olympics, finishing fifth on the track and field medals table.

Overall, Jamaica won nine medals – four gold, one silver and four bronze.