THIS DAY IN OUR PAST

The following events took place on June 17 in the years identified:

1980: The Gleaner Peace Fund of over $136,000 is to be administered for the benefit of the Truce Areas of Kingston and St Andrew by a Committee of Concerned Ministers. The Gleaner Peace Fund was launched in 1978 after the Peace Movement in the west was started by the late Claudie Massop and the late ‘Buckie’ Thompson. In October 1978, The Gleaner handed over the amount of $32,841.25 to the chairman of the Central Peace Advisory Committee, Pastor Bennett, who in turn passed it for safe-keeping to the Jamaica Community Development Foundation – the local development committee of the Caribbean Conference of Churches, whose purpose is to assist the development efforts of the people of the Caribbean.

1993:the A new system for the distribution of relief supplies in the event of a disaster is put in place by the Office of Disaster Preparedness (ODP). According to Major John Nelson, the acting head of the agency, the system has already been tried and proven successful. Major Nelson tells of the new system when he appears as the sole witness before the Commission of Enquiry set up to investigate the misappropriation of hurricane relief zinc. Under the system, storage area for these supplies at the airports will come under the control of the army and distribution done under strict supervision by the ODP. There will be no political involvement in the distribution. “Our own concern at the moment is the wharves,” he says.