Three boys missing from Tivoli incursion
Every day since May 25 when soldiers and police took 16-year-old schoolboy Dale Anthony Davis from his home in Tivoli Gardens, his mother stood at the gate of her house hopefully, anxiously awaiting his return. The day after the security forces mounted a bloody assault on the community against Christopher “Dudus” Coke’s militia who manned barricades to prevent his capture and extradition to the United States to face drugs and two gun charges, Dale was seen being taken away by policemen and soldiers. There has been no sign of him and two other boys missing since the Tivoli Gardens incursion.
Reports are that many law-abiding residents killed by the security forces were not at the barricade fighting, but apparently the security forces did a complete job and there were a lot of extra-judicial killings in the community. All told, more than 74 people were killed in Tivoli Gardens and elsewhere in West Kingston. The last time Dale’s family saw him was on May 25 when the soldiers and police were taking him away. When his sick grand-aunt, whom Dale helped to take care of, often cooking her meals, asked where they were taking him “because ‘im no do nothing”, a policeman in the party replied that he was going to the detention centre at the National Arena to be checked out. But residents told investigators that they heard shots in a neighbouring house and shortly afterwards they saw a body wrapped in a sheet being taken out by police and soldiers. “They seemed to have checked him down,” said an angry resident The investigators have not been able to establish the identity of the police and soldiers who carried out the body.
Despite the best effort by the investigators from the Bureau of Special Investigations to find Dale, interviewing and showing photographs of him to juveniles who were held at the National Arena, visiting several places where he could have been, there was no sign of him. His was not among the bodies videotaped and photographed by the BSI. There was no structured or organised attempt by the security forces to identify those killed during the operation. This aspect was clumsily handled by the security forces. A truck moved through the community and picked up the bodies one by one and carried them to the Kingston Public Hospital morgue where they were stacked high to the ceiling.
The inadequacy of the country in the area of scientifically identifying bodies and guns used by the security forces through ballistic and forensic tests to determine whose gun fragments of bullets come from has once again proved a barrier to proper investigation and justice. It is understood that a team from the United Nations is coming to investigate weapons used by the police and army. The team will also carry out tests of the weapons used by four soldiers in the killing of businessman Keith Clarke at his home in Kirkland Heights. Clarke received 20 shots. The truth is that too often the security forces get away with murder because the country does not have the expertise or equipment to back up the BSI.
The hope of Dale’s mother finding her son alive has dimmed, but at least she would like to get hold of his body to give him a decent funeral. She told me that Dale “was not a bad boy; he was not a robber or a murderer, and as young as he was he cared for the family”.
However, Assistant Commissioner of Police Granville Gause, head of the BSI, is not giving up on this case or the two other cases of missing persons after the incursion of Tivoli Gardens by the security forces. He said the investigation is still being pursued to determine the circumstances under which Dale disappeared, especially in view of the report that a body was seen being taken away by soldiers and policemen. The incursion and reported killing of so many innocent people in Tivoli Gardens cannot be allowed to go away without the establishment of a commission to inquire into the matter.
Gov’t communication
Often communication to the public by the PNP Opposition is far more effective than that of the government and I am not writing about false propaganda. The government does not seem to know how to communicate effectively like the PNP. Take, for example, the discussion of the interest rate charged by the Students’ Loan Bureau. Minister of Finance Audley Shaw argued strongly for a reduction in the interest rate paid by students and announced that steps would have to be taken to reduce the rate. He failed to state that one of the reasons for reducing the rate is to enable more poor children to pursue tertiary education.
The Gleaner did not miss this point in an October editorial when it said that the Bureau played a critical role in society by providing poor students with the means of equipping themselves with higher education.
In another instance, the government failed to provide full background information on the three commissioners appointed to inquire into the Christopher Coke extradition and Manatt, Phelps and Phillips affairs. The commissioners are Attorney Emil George, Attorney Donald Scharschmidt and Anthony Irons, former permanent secretary in the Ministry of Labour when Portia Simpson Miller was minister of labour and who was brought out of retirement to be her special adviser. The men are of high integrity and served in independent positions in their careers. Perhaps if the government had published their careers when making the announcement of their appointment, this would have taken the wind out of the Opposition’s objection to George and Scharschmidt. It’s noteworthy that the Opposition was silent on the appointment of Irons.