Editorial | Outrage over Commodore, but …

Even as this newspaper shares the national outrage over the murder of five people – including a four-year-old child – in Sunday’s mass shooting in the Clarendon community of Commodore, it is not our sense that the incident meets the largely agreed global standard of terrorism.

Neither is it likely to rise to the definition of terrorism in Jamaican law.

The initial assumption of the police, who were caught flat-footed by the occurrence, is that it was gang-related, perhaps a reprisal, although with some of the characteristics of terrorism. Notwithstanding, the incident may have “intimidate(d) a segment of the public with regard to its security”, it wasn’t, “in whole or part”, per the Jamaican law, “for a political, religious or idealogical purpose, object or cause”.

The Gleaner, in common with all decent and rational Jamaicans, appreciates the anger over this depravity, and looks forward to the perpetrators being swiftly caught and brought to justice in a court of law. We, however, caution public officials about how they invoke the idea of terrorism in domestic criminal matters, for which there are already purposeful laws, and which the island’s law enforcement agencies are quite capable of handling.

This is not to suggest that Jamaica must not be exceedingly vigilant against the terroristic possibilities of transitional criminal gangs, against which Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness has been advocating a global response. Global partnership on this matter, which must start with Jamaica’s regional partners, must be carefully calibrated and closely monitored for compliance with international law and respect for human rights.

We are also mindful that powerful state actors might use the fear elicited by events such as Sunday’s to exploit the concerns raised by the prime minister in a manner that undermines Jamaica’s sovereignty and erodes fundamental rights and freedoms enjoyed by the island’s citizens.

REGIME CHANGE

Obviously, Jamaica faces neither the geopolitical circumstances nor the internal instability that defines Venezuela’s relationship with the United States.

The US has accused the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, whose election victories it disputes, of operating a narco-state, and has sent a primed armada to the southern Caribbean, not far from Venezuela’s coast.

There is a deepening perception that the US is planning regime change in Caracas. But, more immediately worrying for the small countries of the Caribbean – from which Jamaica is not immune – is how the US has flexed its military muscle in the neighbourhood.

Apparently using attack drones, the US has destroyed, by its public accounting, at least four vessels in international waters in the vicinity of Venezuela. Seventeen people are known to have been killed.

Three of the four vessels were identified as Venezuelan. Caracas insists they were fishers. The Americans say they were transporting narcotics headed for the US.

In the normal course of things, rather than vessels being just blasted to smithereens, they would have been interdicted and people aboard taken to court and tried for drug trafficking, in accordance with the allegations and US domestic and international law.

The US administration has, however, justified its action on Washington’s designation of a Venezuelan gang accused of drug trafficking as a terrorist organisation and illegal combatants, and thus subject to the rules of war.

WHY OUGHT THIS TO BE OF INTEREST TO JAMAICA?

Jamaican fishing vessels have in the past been indicted in international waters and accused of trafficking narcotics. Recently, too, the US president, Donald Trump, reported to Congress that Jamaica is a major transshipment hub for narcotics entering the US. However, Jamaica was said to be cooperating with the US to deal with the problem.

In the current climate, it might not require much for the assessment of Jamaica as a cooperating partner to be upended, and for Jamaican vessels on the high seas to be branded illegal combatants, subject to drone attacks.

Which, in part, is why we urge clarity and precision in what the Jamaican authorities designate as terrorism in the context of domestic and international law, as against the ruthless actions of Jamaican gangs.

Indeed, the police have reported great success in dismantling the island’s criminal gangs over the past three years, contributing to an over 40 per cent decline in international homicides so far this year. Part of that success has been the constabulary’s effective use of the existing anti-gang legislation to target these groups.

Other gang cases are in the works, from which we expect similar success.

Last December, the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) told its officers that it would begin to rigidly enforce its dress code, including what officers wear when not doing duties that require uniforms.

The police should renew an information campaign on this matter, as well as ensure that officers (and the public) are indeed following the rules. The regulations should be tightened where necessary.

We raise this in the context of Sunday’s mass shooting in Commodore, where the killers allegedly impersonated officers to take residents off guard. It is not clear whether the hoodlums merely wore vests with the word “police” written across them, or if they were dressed in JCF-style blue denim.

However, it is not difficult to understand how people might be lulled into believing that men in vests that say “police” are indeed police officers. It’s common across Jamaica to see many dressed this way, carrying guns and apparently not on undercover operations but who are legitimate police officers.

This conditions the public into an acceptance that anyone so dressed is a policeman. The vests add legitimacy. We are aware that police officers sometimes operate in plain clothes and are identified by their vests. But this should be at a minimum, and the circumstances in which this should happen made clear to those officers who are part of those teams.

The aim is to make it less likely that criminals will impersonate police officers, and that, when it happens, citizens have a better chance of being aware.