MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica--In the wake of the overwhelming crime strangling Jamaica, which pushed the murder tally over the 1,600 mark last year, pastor of Glendevon Seventh-day Adventist Church in St. James, Charles Brevitt, is calling on Government to make a fresh start and apologise for grossly underestimating the severity of the crime situation while in Opposition.
The clergyman argued that with crime now out of control, rhetoric by the then opposition Jamaica Labour Party leading up to the 2016 General Election is a “ghost now haunting the nation.”
“When the Governors were in Opposition, they made some statements and comments that they must have the decency to swallow. When these men were in Opposition, these men made this crime thing a Sunday evening picnic. So they made wild and irresponsible promises like when you elect them you will be able to sleep with your windows and doors open. I feel that the time has come when the men must admit that they overestimated their ability and underestimated the crime problem,” Pastor Brevitt declared.
“I feel that we need a multi-pronged approach [in the war against crime – Ed.]. And I feel among the basic of our problems is that those who govern us need to admit that they are humans. We are not in a political campaign, so we must disengage the campaign mode. In South Africa they had a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I believe these men need to apologise for comments that they have made with regard to the crime,” the man of the cloth continued
The spiritual leader also charged members of the Administration to adopt a bipartisan approach to prevent a repeat of last year’s murder surge, which saw St. James leading the 19 police divisions with nearly 340 murders, and raised eyebrows on those who are now pinning their hope on prayer as one of the solutions, after mocking former National Security Minister Peter Bunting when he called for divine intervention.
“Remember when Peter Bunting went to the NCU [Northern Caribbean University – Ed.] and appealed for prayer, and the men were all over him say him incompetent? The same men turn around now and calling for prayer. So I feel that the place where we must start is, the men must go back into the starting blocks and apologise to those whom they succeed and say, ‘listen man, we never understood the extent of this thing; let’s sit and talk because no one group has all the answers,’” he suggested.
“And the only way for these men in good faith to engage in a bilateral, bipartisan discussion is that they must be prepared to admit we were wrong. Let’s join hands across Jamaica towards the solution of this problem. I feel that that is a way to start a bipartisan approach to the crime problem.”
Despite additional allocation of police and soldiers across western parishes last year, there were numerous reports of vicious, brazen and deadly attacks by gunmen who preyed upon their victims, even along busy highways in broad daylight, especially in St. James.
Another suggestion by the churchman to tame the vicious crime monster this year is for a public campaign to highlight the debilitating effect it is having on the economy.
“We need to help the citizens, the ordinary guys in the street, understand what this crime problem is costing this country. Just like how you hear the road safety people talking about the amount of accidents they are having is putting pressure on the health sector, and they’re doing that publicly to help people to be aware that reckless driving is putting pressure on the already over-pressured health sector. We need to help people to realise that the ability of the Government to fix the road, to pay teachers and to pay police is proportionally aligned to what the crime problem is costing us,” he pointed out.
“I am saying that most of us don’t know that crime is costing us beyond the deaths and burial of our relatives,” Brevitt said.
Last year Prime Minister Andrew Holness declared the first zone of special operations (ZOSO) in Mount Salem for 60 days, which has since been extended for a further 60 days. A second ZOSO has since been declared in Denham Town in West Kingston. Pastor Brevitt is suggesting that the budget for ZOSO should be put out for public consumption.
“People think that ZOSO is free. The Government needs to roll out the cost and put it on a screen and make people see that your road can’t fix because of this; this is what the Government is spending to put soldiers and police in your community to keep it safe. It is not just one side that needs to do that in the community, the two sides need to get together,” Brevitt remarked.
He is also advocating the temporary suspension of right of movement and privacy to fight the chronic crime situation.
“ZOSO limits your freedom of movement and that type of stuff because we are in a crisis. What I am saying is that there are certain rights that must be suspended now in order for us to bring back this country. This country is too small to be out of control. It needs the political will,” he argued.
Another suggestion which was posited is for the inclusion in the mix of “the guy on the corner” who “has information about what is happening.”
“As a matter of fact, I am prepared to say there is more intelligence on the street corner than [in – Ed.] the Police Force. So I feel we need to engage communities because it is the communities and not the police who are going to chase these crazy baldheads out of town,” Pastor Brevitt declared, using the line from Bob Marley’s song Crazy Baldheads.
Meanwhile, Reverend Everton Jackson of Calvary Baptist Church in Montego Bay, who is also Chairman of the Peace Management Initiative’s western Jamaica arm, argued that “despite the galloping rate of crime in 2017, we must never lose hope for a reduction.”
“That is a challenge to all of us to have our hands on deck to do all we can to bring this monster under control. So for this year, my hope is that we will work more collaboratively, more assertively, more decisively in addressing the issue of crime and violence so that by the end of the year we would have succeeded in reversing the high level of homicides that marked 2017,” Reverend Jackson said. ~ Jamaica Observer ~
