KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC – Prime Minister Andrew Holness has sent a message to those involved in the firebombing of 11 houses in St Catherine, southeast of here, over the last weekend.
One man was also killed as gunmen went on a rampage, burning down the houses and firing gunshots at the homeowners to prevent them from escaping.
“We are going to treat this one special. The people who committed the crime were seen, and I will be personally on it to ensure that every last one of them is found and dealt with within the remit of the law. We cannot allow this to become a feature in Jamaica. You have no right to try and destroy people’s homes and displace them,” Holness said as he toured the affected area on Monday.
Holness, accompanied by the Commissioner of Police, Major General Antony Anderson, and the parliamentary representative for the East Central St. Catherine, Alando Terrelonge, said he had committed that the 11 houses that were destroyed would be repaired.
“If the objective of the terrorists is to displace the people here so that they could import who they want in the area, they will not have that comfort, and they will not have that victory.
“We will rebuild the structures so that the people here have a good life and living conditions. We will never allow them [criminals] to win,” Holness said, adding that the area targeted was previously assessed and deemed one needing a housing upgrade.
“That process will be fast-tracked. If criminals thought they had won, they would be sadly mistaken,” he said. He added that the various government agencies will work alongside Terrelonge and the police to implement a peace-building program.
“This kind of incident is going to percolate in the minds of the residents here, and you could very well have an entrenchment of the internecine gang war that exists, meaning that people who suffered may want to take things into their own hands, which we can’t have.
“Sometimes, when we engage them in the restorative justice process, and they begin to speak, they realize that what they were fighting over is meaningless and of no value.”
Prime Minister Holness also said that legislation must be enacted to deal with the situation.
“We might have to create new laws so that we can act in a pre-emptive way to treat these terrorists and criminals, but of course, there is an element in the society who does not want us to empower the police force to act pre-emptively,” Holness noted.
He said having the opportunity to speak to the residents and being told that they feared for their lives, “it is clear that there has to be some social intervention that supports your mental health.
“That will be mobilized particularly because many children must return to school. This is inexplicable for a young child to experience this trauma. You can never tell how they will grow up and internalize it. We don’t want them to internalize this and have a vengeful heart. We must have social intervention very quickly to ensure our young people are stable.”
Police Commissioner Anderson said several people had been identified as persons of interest. The police following up on leads engaged gunmen Monday believed to have been involved in the firebombing and murder on Saturday.
“We are after the people who did this. We understand that women came over to help the men burn out other women and children. That indicates the sort of threat we have been facing as a police force and will continue to do so.
“We are up to the task. We are going to find these people. We already engaged some of them this morning, but they managed to escape, but we will be on them. We have identified a number of them, and we will be following up on that. Some wanted persons will be put out on Wednesday. This was an act of terror,” Anderson said.
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