While the public was being “buggered” by gays via the media and was been bitten by “mongrels”, Commissioner of Police , Mr Owen Ellington gave what I considered to one of the best speeches in modern time by a Commissioner of police.
While most if not all the speech was hardly reported in mainstream media, what we did get and which was the subjected of outrage by the Jamaican lawyers, was the fact that he had reported that ” too many gang members were being given bail by our judges“. Lawyers went has far as to call for the intervention of the Minister of National Security to “silence” the police commissioner.
I have decided (along with what Martin Henry wrote about in the ) to present to reader some of the more salient points of what the Commissioner had to say and allow Jamaicans to really focus on what they think is important.
In 2000, when American President Bill Clinton visited Colombia, that country was declared a “failed state”. Security analysts describe a failed state as one in which the state has lost the capacity and the political will to perform basic governance functions, such as efficient revenue collection; assure public security and safety; build and maintain critical public infrastructure; public services such as security, public health, education; enforce the rule of law and exercise sovereign control over the territory.
Drug lords and transnational organised crime syndicates had become so powerful that they had taken over court houses and killed judges. They recruited and paid young boys to kill policemen (1,000 policemen were killed in a single year); they slaughtered witnesses and innocent civilians and undermined citizen confidence in the capacity of the State to protect them and their rights.
Today, the state is in full control of Colombia’s territory; the country’s murder rate has dropped to around 30 per 100,000 of the population. Colombia achieved economic growth of 4.6 per cent between 2004 and 2009. The economy was described as a ‘rising star’ by the International Monetary Fund in 2011.
This turn-around in Colombia’s fortunes has been credited with the leadership of President Alvaro Uribe, which began in 2002. Anthony Harrington, writing in QFinance February 17, 2011, quoted from a speech by current Colombian President Manuel Santos in which the latter praised his predecessor for his decisiveness in leadership.
He notes that upon taking office, President Uribe applied a very simple, yet very important concept that the Romans invented — namely, security. Security must be the first law of the republic; otherwise the other laws will not operate effectively.
For President Uribe, security meant that every citizen should be able to go about their business, secure in their possession of their property and their rights. It also meant taking back Colombia from the rebels and drug lords. In the said speech, President Santos praised Uribe’s stance on security as paving the way for the present Government’s success against terrorism.
The commissioner further added.
I have visited Singapore and Colombia, seen for myself the progress that has been made in security, stability and economic prosperity. I have interacted with security officials at high levels and I know how well they understand the linkages between the fortunes of their nations and the first priority of public security.
I live in Jamaica. I am fully aware of Vision 2030. Every element of police planning, from the strategic priorities to station level plans, makes reference to Vision 2030. We remind ourselves in every discussion about our promises, and our contribution to making Jamaica the place of choice to live, work, raise families and conduct business by 2030. We are very conscious of where we are, a mere 16 1/2 years from that acid test.
Read the full address all the way to end, its worth reading.
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