Come clean on security pacts

WE WISH the United States (US) would institute sensible gun control laws so that firearms wouldn’t be so easily accessible to its citizens, who cause substantial numbers of them to be smuggled to countries like Jamaica, where they are used in homicides and other forms of criminal violence.

But even if a more rational interpretation of the Second Amendment of the US constitution on the right of Americans to bear arms were adopted, that wouldn’t obviate the logic of a partnership between Jamaica and the United States – and, indeed, other friendly countries – for the sharing of intelligence on, and the interdiction of, gunrunners and people who threaten national security. Such agreements, unless foreign partners want pacts so intrusive as to gravely diminish Jamaica’s sovereignty, should be priorities.

For not only are guns used in more than 80 per cent of the more than 1,000 murders committed in Jamaica annually, they flow into the country at a rate much faster than law enforcement agencies can confiscate them as was conceded last August by the National Security Minister, Horace Chang, in his remarks to the Parliament. In recent years, the police, on average, seize approximately 700 illegal firearms annually. But according to Dr Chang’s estimate, about 2,400 would have come to Jamaica illegally in 2019. Put another way, the police’s seizure of guns displaces less than 30 per cent of the number that make it across the country’s porous borders.

“So even when you get (seize) a hundred, we are not going anywhere,” Dr Chang remarked.

It is to this background that the Holness administration must clarify forthwith the suggestion by America’s ambassador to Jamaica, Donald Tapia, that it has dawdled for four and a half years – which, essentially, coincides with the life of the Government – over an agreement with the US on the sharing of intelligence relating to gun trafficking.

“We are getting close, but we are not close enough, where it takes four and a half years,” Mr Tapia told this newspaper’s journalists last week. “As I told them, it only takes nine months to make a baby, and we are talking about four and half years, and we still don’t have an MoU (memorandum of understanding).”

SIGNIFICANT DISCLOSURE

We find Mr Tapia’s disclosure significant, astounding even, on several grounds, not least of which is the political speculation it will arouse about the motive implied in the failure of Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ Government to move with alacrity on the matter; and the basis for the vehemence with which the Government pushed back eight months ago when this newspaper quoted an American official as saying that the intelligencesharing agreement between the countries had all but lapsed.

It is to be recalled that it was under the preexisting agreement that the United States gathered evidence, including via wiretaps, about drug and gunrunning on the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) aligned, west Kingston crime boss, Christopher Coke, whose extradition to the US was robustly resisted for nine months – between 2009 and 2010 – by the Government of Mr Holness’ predecessor as JLP leader, Bruce Golding. That imbroglio led, ultimately, to the implosion of Mr Golding’s Government. Mr Golding, however, insisted that his behaviour in the Coke affair was not about shielding a powerful political supporter, but rather a matter of legal principle: protecting the constitutional rights of a Jamaican citizen.

The Golding administration contended that the hitherto secret MoU – signed by current Opposition Leader Peter Phillips when he was national security minister in the early 2000s – illegally allowed for the sharing of Mr Coke’s intercepted communications. It is to be noted, though, that the Golding Government, in the aftermath of the Coke matter, amended the Interception of Communications Act to explicitly allow the sharing of wiretap information with foreign governments. That, therefore, ought not to be an impediment to new agreements.

SURPRISING CHATTER

It was, therefore, surprising when last year, there was chatter in diplomatic circles about Kingston developing cybersecurity and intelligencegathering agreements with Israel and downplaying arrangements with the US, Canada, and Britain. Those claims appeared to have been given credence when a US Drug Enforcement Administration official, as quoted by The Gleaner, reported that “Jamaica has pretty much left the agreement”, which had previously been used against lottery scammers and drug and gun dealers.

The administration dismissed that assertion, and Prime Minister Holness went to Parliament to assure Jamaicans that even as his Government developed security relationships with new partners, it continued to embrace the old ones. “It doesn’t mean, therefore, that there is any change or shift in the cooperation between our traditional partners,” he said. “That’s not the case. The fact is that we have intensified our cooperation with our traditional partners.”

That, however, is not the essence of the argument by Ambassador Tapia, whose tone, as we hear it, is one of frustration.

Perhaps it is time that Prime Minister Holness be transparent about Jamaica’s security deals, with new and old partners, and the reservations that may be holding up the one with the Americans. Knowing the broad framework of the pacts won’t undermine how they work. Criminals, after all, already know that there are attempts at monitoring their actions.

The opinions on this page, except for The Editorial, do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Gleaner.