Unanswered questions?
Dear Editor,
The Letter of the Day in The Gleaner on Monday, August 22 asked the question: Why are we clinging on to the Privy Council? This was followed by five subsidiary questions, and like Pilate at Mark 15; 2-5 the question receives no answer. Lawyers are taught not to ask a question without knowing the answer.
The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is the only place where Jamaicans can go to get compensation from Britain for the centuries of mental and physical abuse under Britain’s colonial rule. Keeping the Privy Council as long as we can to stand up for our rights is the answer to the question.
The unprecedented cruelty of legalised chattel slavery inflicted on our ancestors from Africa remains without reparation after 60 years of declared Independence. Yes, these are people from Africa, where enlightened Jamaicans respectfully genuflect, perhaps the only people who have never been compensated for a crime against humanity.
Standing up for the right to get back what was extorted from our ancestors for the enrichment of Britain is long overdue, except we are playing ‘follow the leader’, like former UK Prime Minister David Cameron, by moving on with nothing more than expressions of regret. Those who shed blood and tears to get us where we are on the journey to complete independence remain unrewarded — empty-handed for the second time, leaving a mortgaged paradise as inheritance.
Many more questions will be asked that the media will publish unanswered, while poverty stalks the land spawning social inequality with uncontrolled crime (read murder) and indiscipline. Many more lives will be lost while we stand aside and look.
Frank Phipps, QC
frank.phipps@yahoo.com
