Last Friday, Caribbean Net News (CNN) published my commentary – entitled The tragedy of being Haitian at home and at sea – on the interdiction of a Haitian boat by the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) police, which resulted in the tragic death of 61 refugees after the boat capsized. And in that commentary I observed that unofficial (and even conflicting) news reports on this incident seemed to lead every Haitian and a fair number of TCIslanders to believe that action against the TCI police for gross misconduct, if not criminal offenses, was warranted.
But after it incited hysterical calls for summary arrests of the police and demands for compensation from the TCI government, I felt obliged to write a follow-up commentary – entitled Calls to punish the TCI police for the Haitian boat tragedy are premature, if not unwarranted – in which I admonished everyone to reserve judgment until British investigators – who were dispatched from London to the TCI – publish the findings of their official report. CNN ran this commentary the following day: last Saturday.
Little did I know, however, that as CNN was preparing to publish my first commentary, the BBC was preparing to publish the findings of an official report by British investigators on another far more notorious incident involving the British police. Perhaps some of you recall how Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes was shot eight times at Stockwell Tube station in London on 22 July 2005 – after being mistaken by the police for a suicide bomber.
Well, according to the BBC, after lengthy interviews and an exhaustive investigation, the Crown Prosecution Service “found no evidence to warrant the prosecution of any individual over the shooting of Mr Menezes”: An acquittal, incidentally, even more shocking and inconsistent with the undisputed facts than the acquittal of the white cops who were caught on tape beating the crap out of Rodney King, which provoked the 1992 Los Angeles riots. But the Metropolitan police disciplinary tribunal went even further in concluding that none of the officers directly involved in this shooting will even have to face disciplinary action.
This is hardly the forum to rehash details about the Menezes affair. Therefore, I shall suffice to note that initial news reports led every Brazilian and a fair number of Britons to believe that action against the British police for gross misconduct, if not criminal offenses, was warranted. Hence, it is not all surprising that this official report was greeted with utter indignation, frustration and dismay – as expressed in the following quote by Menezes’ cousin, Patricia da Silva Armani:
It is a travesty of justice and another slap in the face for our family. The police officers’ lives go on as normal while we exist in turmoil.
Hear, hear!
More to the point, however, if British authorities found no cause to charge any of the British policemen involved in the shooting of this “entirely-innocent” Brazilian immigrant, then surely fairness and equal justice preclude them from finding cause to charge any of the TCI policemen involved in the drowning of these desperate Haitians migrants – no matter what they determine are the undisputed facts.
After all, the TCI police could at least make a good-faith argument that – even if this tragedy was precipitated by their negligence and exacerbated by their incompetence – the drownings were just a terrible accident (or a weather-related act of God as I posited in my follow-up commentary). Whereas, the British police would be hard-pressed to explain firing eight shots – with intent to kill – into an unarmed Menezes who, according to eye witnesses, neither resisted arrest nor acted in any suspicious or threatening manner whatsoever.
Therefore, in light of this Menezes precedent, I urge the TCI government and British authorities to avoid compounding the suffering of grieving and aggrieved Haitians by conducting a prolonged investigation (the Menezes one took over 18 months) only to arrive at the inescapable acquittal of the TCI police as well. Instead, they should focus on improving preparedness and techniques to ensure that the conduct of the police in future interdiction operations is beyond reproach.
Finally, as I indicated in the above-referenced follow-up commentary, it would foster indispensable goodwill abroad and nip anxieties and restiveness in the bud at home (especially amongst our local Haitian population) for the TCI government to voluntarily offer to compensate the affected families – not only for their loss, but also to help them cope with their grief. Never mind the moral imperative that should compel it to do so….
I am acutely mindful that no accident or death at sea will ever deter Haitians from fleeing the nightmare of their daily lives at home. [from The tragedy of being Haitian at home and at sea]
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The tragedy of being Haitian at home and at sea
Calls to punish the TCI police…are premature, if not unwarranted
Haitian boat tragedy, Turks and Caicos Islands
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