Jamaica’s national security establishment is now grappling with how to deal with four serving policemen who have been sanctioned by a “hypocritical” lame-duck Trump administration for alleged “gross violations in human rights”.
“I’m searching and trying to understand why now; why almost two decades later,” a senior official in the Holness administration said of the US imposing the entry block and other sanctions on the six men and their immediate families over the 2003 incident in Kraal, Clarendon, that left four civilians dead.
“Visas are cancelled all the time, but we’ve hardly ever seen something quite like this where the law is invoked. It must mean something. What? Should current officers in the JCF (Jamaica Constabulary Force) and the army be worried if they are linked to any other controversial shootings?”
Chang cites link between rise in illegal events, COVID and shootings loopjamaica.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from loopjamaica.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
File photo of returned Jamaicans in a police service vehicle following the arrival of a deportation flight earlier this year.
National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang and Foreign Affairs Minister, Senator Kamina Johnson Smith, have moved to defend the decision of the Government to accept a flight from the United Kingdom on Wednesday, with 13 deportees aboard.
Apart from the potential risk posed by COVID-19 by persons entering the country, the Jamaican government was accused of being silent while numerous civil rights organisations, celebrities, a former UK Opposition leader and sections of the media made strenuous efforts to get the UK’s Home Office to abort the flight. In the end, only 13 of the reported 50 deportees made the flight after some of the men were granted a last minute reprieve.