‘What if I should praise someone from our community who is a rascal, a drug trafficker or other bad example for our people?’

There was, not so long ago when I still was a journalist, the murder of a female in the Balata area that I sought to investigate. It happened just after a shoot-out on Chaussee Road, in our nation’s capital. I was interested in this particular murder because the suspect was the sister of someone in my employ. I found out that a group of people had visited her home on a Sunday morning. I have their names but won’t mention them here. They wined and dined with her. Her boyfriend is a Rastaman. He rides a motorcycle. She went out to buy more drinks and food for the group. After they had eaten, the woman was taken out of the house and dealt a thorough beating. Then she was killed.

The incident was drug-related. Allegedly, she had not paid money owed, so an example had to made of her. In the ethics of the drug trade, it is important that examples be made of people who derogate from the principles of the trade.

I am well known in the community of Balata. I visited several homes but no one I spoke with was courageous enough to say what they knew of the murder. They were scared what might happen to them if they talked. So, everyone clamped up. Some admitted they knew what had occurred but to speak would cost them their lives. Or the lives of relatives.

And then I struck gold. Someone called me. We met, and she said: “Brother George, what I’m about to tell you must never be repeated. Promise me.” I did and she told me the whole sickening story. Who did it and how it was carried out. I considered publishing the shocking details in my newspaper, but the individual who worked for me begged me on her knees to reconsider. “Please, please,” she pleaded, “we’ve already lost one sister. Nothing you do can bring her back. We don’t want to lose more members of our family.” I finally agreed not to write a word of the horror story I’d been told. I prayed the culprits would be caught anyway. They were never arrested. The details I’ve presented here offer but a hint of the level of fear that could turn a whole community into reluctant accessories to murder.

Our most important job, as a government and as regular citizens, is to bring about a change in the general attitude to crime in our country. Governments must    instill in the people the confidence that every tool will be used to fight all kinds of criminality. Members of government must give the people every reason to trust them when it comes to fighting crime. The government must at all times be seen to be on the side of justice and far away from anything with the sniff of venality. If we are to restore peace, as the prime minister has promised his government will, then it is imperative we develop a link of trust with the community at large.

The police are themselves a problem. For a long time, they have been that. I gather from the Minister of Legal Affairs that there is a green light in terms of improvement, but for a long time it was considered dangerous to pass on to the police what was known about drug trafficking and other serious crimes. Citizens were never sure they could trust the police not to expose them to deadly consequences. For a long time, it has been convenient to say the previous regime was easy on crime, even to the point of protecting the drug barons. I have my reservations about that. I still cannot forgive myself for not speaking out at the time of the Balata killing. I should not have kept my mouth shut.

I remember a time when I was about to step down voluntarily from government and received several calls from concerned friends in Grenada when their own island was in turmoil. One in particular reminded me that “state power is important. You don’t give up government.” And I replied: “State power can never be more important than personal integrity. Give up the power if you feel that the psyche and the feeling are not on the track of justice.”

That is why I want to tell my local colleagues, and I want to keep it as a principle for myself, that whatever we say and whatever we do, we must use our words accurately, so that people understand exactly what we mean.

Derek Walcott has given us these immortal lines: “What if I gave the wrong things praise, the wildest sorrow about, all I have is a craft of words to fling my griefs about.” What if I gave the wrong things praise, what if I praise one person in this community who is a rascal, a drug trafficker or other bad example for our people? If I praise him, then I am a traitor to my beliefs. To my society. We, as members of the media, have a strong responsibility to call a spade a spade. Our words must be precise, honed so that our children, our parents and our church leaders have that responsibility too: the responsibility to convey precise meaning, to show we are not shadowing or giving succor or shelter to criminals or anything deleterious to our society.

There are many areas of this society in need of special attention. Immediate attention, because we are at this point psychologically demoralized. We have no moral bearings. The church has an important role to play, together with the leaders of the society. We have now to give firm direction. Our young people are confused, at odds, at sixes and sevens. We have to define that. Mostly, by example.

For years, I have railed about venality in government. I have pursued people I perceived as bad examples for the country. I pursued them, at the expense of my personal security. I have always insisted that no government would sit well in the years down the road unless certain elements were expunged from the body politic. I have spoken out about the attendant horrors of money-laundering. I have identified companies in this country that encourage the exploitation of loopholes in the law that permit money laundering. It is the responsibility of government to stand strongly against such pernicious influences with all the   means available to them. Peace must be restored to our country by all the means afforded the protectors of law and order by our Constitution.

Editor’s Note: The preceding was spoken by the late George Odlum in parliament, shortly before the Kenny Anthony government launched Operation Restore Peace, in 1998!