Current Affairs

Current Affairs

MORE than third of Jamaica's adults say they believe the findings of the commission of inquiry into last year's West Kingston violence have hurt the Opposition, nearly twice those who say that the report will work for Edward Seaga's Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).

The commission probed, primarily, the July 7-10 incident in Seaga's parliamentary constituency that left 27 people, including a policeman and soldier, dead during what the authorities insisted was shooting between the security forces and gunmen from the Tivoli Gardens and Denham Town communities which stridently support the JLP.

Justice Julius Isaac who chaired the West Kingston Commission of Inquiry

Seaga, who had claimed that the violence was orchestrated by the ruling People's National Party, had called for the inquiry but the JLP later denounced the commission -- headed by Grenadian-born Canadian judge Julius Isaac -- as partisan, walked out of the hearing and went on a campaign to discredit its work. The aim of the unrest, the JLP had argued, was to demonise Seaga as a man of violence.

But a survey done between August 17 and 18 for the Observer by the Stone Organisation, found that approximately 71 per cent of voting-aged Jamaicans were aware of the June release of the report and 35.3 per cent felt that it would have a negative impact on the JLP.

Photos above show scenes from West Kingston after the shootings in July last year.

Approximately 19 per cent said that the findings would be positive for the JLP and nearly 46 per cent didn't have a position.

Stone, for this survey, used a sample of 1,202 people, aged 18 and over, in 40 communities across the island. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus three per cent.

According to Stone, a little over 43 per cent of the people said that they had followed up media discussions on the Isaac report, which, essentially, vindicated the police of acting politically or wantonly and said they had gone into Denham Town to search for guns and drugs when "sheer terror" was unleashed on them.

Despite the heavy death toll, the security forces had acted with restraint to save lives in the face of the attacks, the report held.

It also made a damning characterisation of Tivoli Gardens, describing it as an area that posed "a problem of enormous proportions" for politicians and the security forces.

Said the report: "It seems to us that there should be no inch of Jamaican soil where the writ of the commissioner of police does not run, and yet Tivoli Gardens, we are told, is the garrison community where entry of the security forces is on sufferance."

The JLP had initially said that there was nothing in the report to hurt that party, arguing that what was an orchestrated effort by the government had fallen flat. But the JLP appeared to revise the position, and again went briefly on the offensive, after the emergence of remarks about Tivoli and statements critical of Seaga for his snubbing of peace initiatives by the Jamaica Council of Churches (JCC) and the commissioner of police during fights between gangs from rival communities.

Seaga had argued that the JCC lacked credibility and that Commissioner Francis Forbes was promoting symbolism when serious policing was required.

In a survey last November, at the height of the JLP's criticism of the commission, 59 per cent of the sample had said that nothing of substance would come from the inquiry, in contrast to the 80 per cent that had supported its establishment.

But by February, 45 per cent were saying that the JLP's decision to pull out of the hearings and failure to give evidence would hurt the Opposition party.

It made Seaga and his party appear as if they had something to hide, most people felt.

Question:

Recently, the report of the commission of inquiry into the West Kingston violence over a year ago was released. Are you aware of this? If yes, have you followed up media discussions of the report?

Answers:

Yes, aware of its release....................................71.4%

No, unaware of its release.................................28.6%

Total.................................................................100%

Yes, have followed discussions.........................43.4%

No, did not follow discussions..........................28.0%

Total..................................................................71.4%

Question:

Based on what you have heard and the impressions you have formed, what impact do you believe the report will have on the JLP: positive or negative?

Answers:

Positive.............................................................18.9%

Negative............................................................35.3%

Don't know........................................................45.8%