PRIME Minister Andrew Holness has made good on his inauguration day promise to invite the Opposition leader to work with him to end the garrison culture in the country.
Observer sources said that a letter urging People’s National Party (PNP) leader, Portia Simpson Miller, to accompany him on a tour of communities with the garrison label and linked to both political parties, was sent to her office last Thursday.
The prime minister threw down the gauntlet to the Opposition leader during his inauguration speech last Sunday at King’s House, St Andrew.
Observer efforts to ascertain whether the letter was received by Simpson Miller were unsuccessful.
Holness had said that the walk-through would symbolise the parties’ commitment to ensuring these closed communities become accessible to all once more.
“Zones of political exclusion are incompatible with freedom and aspects of our politics are an affront to liberty. It is time to end garrison politics. This will not happen overnight, and it should not happen by force. There must be consensus on the way in which this is done. Both political parties have it within them to mutually agree to end the social construct of the garrison,” Holness said then.
He told the guests at his swearing-in as the ninth and youngest prime minister of the country, that it was important that people living in garrisons get to see political representatives from the other side of the divide, without the objection of enforcers.
“Let us start the process by getting the leaders to walk together in these areas of exclusion. I am willing to walk with the Leader of the Opposition in Tower Hill, and I may just turn up in Whitfield Town,” he said, referring to the section of Simpson Miller’s South-West St Andrew constituency.
He also noted that the integration of all Jamaican citizens with a shared common vision was critical for progress and a part of this was the guarantee that people in garrisons would receive equal treatment and respect from the state.
“Criminals must never be seen by the community as protectors. Once there is this integrated and shared national vision, garrisons will no longer be havens for criminals,” the prime minister said.
Source: jamaicaobserver
