Dear Editor,
I have just had the opportunity of reading thoroughly the Public Defender's Interim Report to Parliament concerning "investigations into the conduct of the security forces during the State of Emergency declared May 2010 -- West Kingston/Tivoli Gardens". For an interim report, I found it very comprehensive, albeit very disturbing and worthy of careful study, especially before the start of the long-awaited Tivoli Enquiry.
The report reveals two very clear and different accounts of the events, which resulted in what the report terms as "...the greatest independent Jamaica loss of life in a single state operation".
The security forces' position is that they came under sustained gunfire from a well-barricaded Tivoli Gardens. Further, that they provided every opportunity for law-abiding citizens to leave their homes and that the mortars were expertly handled and not aimed at built-up areas or civilian dwellings. The claims of ill-treatment of over 1,000 detainees will be dismissed, of course, and they will claim that the military couldn't be expected to provide five-star treatment or three square meals over and above bread and water and ablution amenities to suspects or possibly armed combatants. All claims of beating will be sternly denied and allegations that suspects were transported along with dead bodies will be met with rhetoric. Accusations of leaving the decomposing bodies of civilians lying in the roads will probably be met by claims that whenever they tried to remove these bodies they came under fire. In summary, the security forces will claim "no wrong".
Civilian accounts will claim that soldiers fired at unarmed civilians when there was no real threat to the soldiers, and that members of the security forces meted out cruel and brutal treatment to the civilians and damaged or destroyed their property.
It is in the interests not only of the future of the Jamaica Defence Force, but certainly the country itself that the inquiry determines the level of so-called 'resistance' that came from behind the fortified Tivoli during this operation. How many of those killed, for instance, were firing weapons? As the public defender has so correctly pointed out, the ratio of killed civilians to weapons recovered raises serious doubts and questions.
Above all, we sincerely hope this enquiry will uncover the real nature of the Tivoli operation. Was it some sort of counter-insurgency operation? Determining the type of military operation our troops were engaged in at Tivoli may explain whether these events will be conspicuous in military annals of how not to do it, or be recorded as one big disastrously botched operation, lacking in leadership and concern for human life.
It is my respectful recommendation that an unbiased military expert be employed to advise the commission on military matters. Finally, the public defender should be commended on a good interim report, and his reference to the British Bloody Sunday massacre proceedings is relevant. The commissioners of the Tivoli enquiry would hopefully study the respective reports of that inquiry to avoid committing similar mistakes.
Colonel Allan Douglas
Kingston 10
alldouglas@aol.com
The tale of two Tivolis
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I have just had the opportunity of reading thoroughly the Public Defender's Interim Report to Parliament concerning "investigations into the conduct of the security forces during the State of Emergency declared May 2010 -- West Kingston/Tivoli Gardens". For an interim report, I found it very comprehensive, albeit very disturbing and worthy of careful study, especially before the start of the long-awaited Tivoli Enquiry.
The report reveals two very clear and different accounts of the events, which resulted in what the report terms as "...the greatest independent Jamaica loss of life in a single state operation".
The security forces' position is that they came under sustained gunfire from a well-barricaded Tivoli Gardens. Further, that they provided every opportunity for law-abiding citizens to leave their homes and that the mortars were expertly handled and not aimed at built-up areas or civilian dwellings. The claims of ill-treatment of over 1,000 detainees will be dismissed, of course, and they will claim that the military couldn't be expected to provide five-star treatment or three square meals over and above bread and water and ablution amenities to suspects or possibly armed combatants. All claims of beating will be sternly denied and allegations that suspects were transported along with dead bodies will be met with rhetoric. Accusations of leaving the decomposing bodies of civilians lying in the roads will probably be met by claims that whenever they tried to remove these bodies they came under fire. In summary, the security forces will claim "no wrong".
Civilian accounts will claim that soldiers fired at unarmed civilians when there was no real threat to the soldiers, and that members of the security forces meted out cruel and brutal treatment to the civilians and damaged or destroyed their property.
It is in the interests not only of the future of the Jamaica Defence Force, but certainly the country itself that the inquiry determines the level of so-called 'resistance' that came from behind the fortified Tivoli during this operation. How many of those killed, for instance, were firing weapons? As the public defender has so correctly pointed out, the ratio of killed civilians to weapons recovered raises serious doubts and questions.
Above all, we sincerely hope this enquiry will uncover the real nature of the Tivoli operation. Was it some sort of counter-insurgency operation? Determining the type of military operation our troops were engaged in at Tivoli may explain whether these events will be conspicuous in military annals of how not to do it, or be recorded as one big disastrously botched operation, lacking in leadership and concern for human life.
It is my respectful recommendation that an unbiased military expert be employed to advise the commission on military matters. Finally, the public defender should be commended on a good interim report, and his reference to the British Bloody Sunday massacre proceedings is relevant. The commissioners of the Tivoli enquiry would hopefully study the respective reports of that inquiry to avoid committing similar mistakes.
Colonel Allan Douglas
Kingston 10
alldouglas@aol.com
The tale of two Tivolis
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