Clean your house first, Minister Chang!

THE EDITOR,

HSir:

AVING BEEN a member of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) for more than a decade and a half, I totally agree with Dr Horace Chang, the current minister of national security, that the force needs complete overhaul.

I also agree, as is widely known, that the JCF was formed to protect the bourgeoisie while it oppresses the proletariat. However, even though Dr Chang is on point in the correctness of his statements, I still find them loathsome. I think he should have kept his comments to himself and let some other person or entity, such as National Integrity Action (NIA), INDECOM or some other human-rights organisation utter those sentiments.

First of all, Dr Chang, I would like you to answer these questions:

1. Who is ultimately responsible for training and equipping the force?

2. Who are the upper-class people the JCF was created to protect and the lower-class people it was created to oppress? Are you and your fellow politicians in the category it was formed to protect, Minister Chang?

3. Who is ultimately responsible for the backward culture of the police force?

4. What have you and your friends done to address the fundamental problems plaguing the force over many years?

The answers for questions 1-3, Dr Chang, are pointing directly at Gordon House, and I suspect that if a survey were to be done on a similar name to be ascribed to you and the rest of ministers and MPs as the name you ascribed to members of the JCF, it wouldn’t be ‘glorified ministers’. In fact, it may not even be suitable for airplay or public viewing without warning.

Also, the answer to question 4 is ‘absolutely nothing!’ So then, sir, how can you criticise the police force when you and those before you are completely responsible for the defects which you speak about so vehemently?

Are you aware, Minister Chang, that you are presiding over a force that uses 10 rounds to retrain a police who has not fired a weapon in years?

Are you aware that police are literally falling through ceilings at stations?

Are you aware that there are stations that lack basic amenities and basic resources such as stationery?

Are you aware that politics is entrenched in the officer corps, so that many of them act out of pure political interests instead of the interests of Jamaica and the police force? Sounds familiar, sir?

Minister Chang, I suggest you do an introspection, then ‘wheel and come again’. Until you begin to clean house, I really don’t appreciate your bashing of the force. Let someone else do it.

After all, there is always something not quite right with the pot calling the kettle black. JOHN DOE

19-year JCF Veteran