KINGSTON, Jamaica, May 2, CMC – Jamaica’s Public Defender, Earl Witter has recommended that a Commission of Enquiry be established to look into the incursion that took place in the Corporate Area community of Tivoli Gardens nearly three years ago as security officials went on the hunt for the then fugitive Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke.
Witter, in presenting the long awaited “Tivoli Report” to Parliament on Wednesday, said there needed to be “a judicial enquiry into the activities of the State Security Forces and illegal gunmen during the State of Emergency, 2010”.
Opposition Leader Andrew Holness in an immediate response said he does not favour a Commission of Inquiry and suggested that those directly affected by the Tivoli incursion would be better served by a process of restorative justice and monetary compensation from the State.
There have been several calls for a Commission of Enquiry into the May 2011 security operation but successive governments have declined, pointing to the expected report from the Public Defender’s own investigation.
More than 70 people died when the security forces went into Tivoli Garden to execute an arrest warrant on Coke, who was wanted in the United States on drugs and gun running charges. Coke was later extradited to the United States where he pleaded guilty to the charges.
The Coke saga led to the resignation of then prime minister Bruce Golding, who had first objected to the manner under which the request for Coke’s extradition had been handled.
The police/military operation, which started on May 23, 2010 in Tivoli Gardens and adjoining sections of West Kingston, was later broadened, under the powers of a State of Emergency, to the rest of the capital and the neighbouring parish of St. Catherine as the search for Coke intensified.
In his report, Witter also recommended that the government’s Forensic Science Laboratory be adequately equipped and staffed “to facilitate completion of outstanding ballistics work in accordance with the agreed Protocol”.
He is also wants the Kingston and Saint Andrew Corporation (KSAC) to take immediate steps to “ensure due and sustained compliance with the provisions of the Kingston and Saint Andrew (Cemeteries) Act, 1874 and Rules promulgated thereunder, concerning interments at the May Pen Cemetery”. May Pen Cemetery is the principal municipal burial site for the Corporate Area.
Regarding the role of his own office in the future, Witter said there is need for the relevant to be amended to exclude “investigations related to allegations of infringement of any constitutionally protected right or freedom or, any criminal action”.
Witter also wants the government to take steps leading to the establishment of an entrepreneurship model “to drive economic and social development of Tivoli Gardens/West Kingston”.
But he has disagreed with suggestions that the International Criminal Court (ICC) should be asked to look into the Tivoli Gardens operation and dismissed his detractors, stating “utterances, at times vitriolic; rarely balanced, fair and informed, were grist to the mill of gleeful media, hungry for and thirsting after something they call news.
“Are their real motives honourable, or sinister and deplorable? Time will tell. Truth be told, so many of the critics know too little about way too much. They care to understand even less.”
