Help from the Diaspora

JAMAICA has been exporting labour since the construction of the Panama Canal in the early 1900s.

Since then, through immigration, we have been supplying a steady stream of labour to the United Kingdom, United States of America and Canada. The United Nations lists 1,400,000 Jamaican-born individudals as living overseas. Then there is, of course, the second generation numbering another million, so we are up to about 2.5 million.

This group of people living and working abroad literally floats the Jamaican economy with the amount of money remitted to our country, usually to aid families. Because there is little or no input from Jamaica, the injection into the economy of these funds has a major fiscal effect.

If we should compare this to tourism, another major earner, the capital injection required to earn from tourism is significant, as is the support of Government services.

There is, in addition, the many organisations formed by these Jamaicans overseas to provide aid at other levels, from hospital equipment to schools. It is odd that we did not really see the benefit until the liberalisation of the US dollar that allowed for the remittance explosion. We used to actually complain about the brain drain phenomenon and other related issues.

Despite the incredibly positive impact of this group, there is a dark, minute subculture among them that has perhaps the greatest impact on crime in Jamaica. You see, part of the exporting of Jamaicans through immigration includes the exportation of Jamaica’s criminals. Sometimes they are low-end and go through as green card holders; and other times they are high-level gangsters who travel through illegal means.

The end result is that every gang in Jamaica has a criminal abroad either sending guns down illegally or sending money to buy guns.

This is the backbone of the Jamaican gang structure.

Gangs, of course, also finance their enterprise by extortion, lottery scamming and robberies.

This is significant, particularly in Spanish Town, as the monies to be earned from taxi drivers, vendors and Asian businesses all paying a ‘tithe’ is huge. I often wonder, based on the crisis, if draconian laws such as huge sentences for anyone actually collecting extortion should not be introduced. Trust me, a couple 30-year sentences for the actual collectors will minimise applicants for the job and result in a few persons turning State evidence.

This money pays for the guns, guns that are always imported.

We can break our backs trying to recover them but we are in essence ploughing the sea. As we recover one they send 10. We may stop a few at the ports but this is an island with a vibrant fishing industry. This has to be fought at the source.

This purge has to involve the Diaspora as a part of the fight. It will also have to involve overseas law enforcement who are not doing enough to combat this activity, which is illegal in their jurisdiction but yet has an inadequate sentencing penalty.

We have seen how narcotics going in there are handled. Well treat guns coming to us the same way!

The Diaspora through its security task force has been asking for a seat at the table for some time. Well, this is where we need you. Work with the legal bodies in your environment and do your part to destroy those among you who are destroying us.

The Americans long ago learnt in their battle against Colombian drug cartels that you have to fight the exporters at the source of the stream. It is how they brought down Pablo

Escobar and the other primary exporters of cocaine into the United States.

So firstly, enact a law against taking steps to export guns or ammunition to Jamaica that allows for us to have the offenders extradited to Jamaica to serve some real sentences in ‘our’ jails.

Let them contemplate being kept like an animal in squalor in our prisons, not a First World facility like what the USA, UK and Canada provide.

Secondly, task the Jamaica Diaspora Crime Prevention and Intervention Security Task Force to work closely with the specific overseas agencies that oversee guns in the USA.

Formalise the process. Do not just tell them to “Do it please.”

Have a formal arrangement with the foreign government and put together a plan.

Create targets, protocols and strategies. Do not hide, either.

The Jamaican criminals overseas must know that it is the decent Jamaican living overseas who is their enemy.

Bring the fight to them like the warrior you wanted to be. But your battleground is there, not here. Because that is where your country needs you most.