Gov’t blasts Amnesty
THE Government yesterday fired a blistering attack on Amnesty International, accusing the human rights watchdog of producing an unfair and offensive critique of its human rights record.
The criticism comes as two Amnesty officials are in Jamaica to release an apparently damning report titled Jamaica: The Killing of the Braeton Seven — A Justice System on Trial.
The report refers to the controversial shooting deaths of seven young men by the police on March 14, 2001, an incident that has inflamed passions locally and intensified Jamaica’s hostile relationship with Amnesty.
Police say the seven were killed in a shoot-out, but residents claim they were murdered. No charges were ever brought against cops involved after six persons on a 10-member coroner’s jury found — following nine months of testimony — that no one was criminally responsible for the young men’s deaths.
Hours after Amnesty officials Piers Bannister and Olivia Streater met with top Government officials yesterday, the foreign ministry issued a scathing two-page statement against the human rights organisation and its conclusions on Braeton.
“The report flies in the face of evidence the Government is taking to deal effectively with police excesses,” said National Security Minister Peter Phillips. The report, he added, even stooped to “character assassination” for having suggested that the chief prosecutor was guilty of corruption.
“We can’t comment on what’s in the report,” said Streater last night.
Whatever is in the report, however, clearly irked Phillips; K D Knight, the foreign affairs minister; and Justice Minister A J Nicholson, all of whom met with the Amnesty officials at the foreign ministry.
Amnesty has “consistently sought to impugn the Government in its reports,” said the foreign ministry’s statement. The ministers objected to one conclusion they said was contained in the report: that it is “extremely unlikely” that the director of public prosecutions would bring charges against police officers.
“The ministers concluded that it is an unwarranted accusation, bearing in mind that several policemen have been indicted on offences ranging from dereliction of duty to murder.”
Moreover, the ministers claimed that Amnesty had failed to approach the Braeton case with an “open mind” and that “not one member of the team has seen the depositions taken at the coroner’s inquest”.
Jamaica and Amnesty became embroiled in a bitter quarrel a month after the Braeton incident when Amnesty threatened to take its concerns about Jamaica’s human rights record, particularly cases of police killings, to the United Nations, as well as to governments that have developed partnerships with Jamaica and to other human rights organisations.
Government, in response, accused the human rights group of trying to damage Jamaica’s reputation and injure its economic prospects. The administration also charged that Amnesty was guilty of political interference and said it took offence to Amnesty’s representatives “who carry political messages by referring to what people should do when elections are held”.
“We accept that they can deal with human rights concerns,” said the then foreign minister, Paul Robertson, “but it is not acceptable that these external human rights groups should step into the internal politics of Jamaica.”
Before last October’s general elections, Nicholson had called the group unaccountable “zealots” who were attempting to corral nations to embrace their stance against capital punishment.
Nicholson’s comments followed an Amnesty claim that Prime Minister P J Patterson was playing politics with his proposal to return to capital punishment, and was essentially “offering to kill for votes”.
Nicholson, calling that characterisation “crass and disrespectful”, said: “What Amnesty International should understand is that they are not a supra-national governmental entity such as the United Nations, to which Jamaica is tied by treaty or otherwise.”
Last night, Streater declined to comment on the Braeton report until a news conference scheduled for this morning.
“It was a passionate exchange but it was a respectful exchange,” she said of yesterday’s meeting.
“Basically, we welcome the Government’s acknowledgment there is a problem. We hope that expression of commitment will lead to actions both on this case (Braeton) and reform of the system on a wider scale,” she said, referring to investigations of alleged unlawful killings by the police.
Streater complained yesterday that Jamaica had not been forthcoming, in the past, with information that Amnesty had requested. However, a United Nations official who visited Jamaica last month to investigate its unusually high levels of police shootings had praised Jamaica for its co-operation with her efforts.
Asma Jahangir, a lawyer with the UN Commission on Human Rights, said Jamaica suffers an unacceptably high number of questionable police shootings and needs to do a better job of prosecuting cops.
Still, she said some of Jamaica’s efforts to curb police killings were encouraging.
According to the Constabulary Communication Network, police killed 133 people last year, compared to 148 in 2001. Sixteen cops were killed in 2002 and 15 in 2001.
“In a place like Jamaica, it’s unacceptably high,” said Nicholson of the level of police shootings.
“The basic and fundamental question is, are we doing something?” he added. “We have done a lot of things. They are not enough.”