IT is quite okay for Amnesty International to condemn any execution, as it is wont to do. Their campaign to have the death penalty expunged from every country’s laws is no secret to anyone. Whenever there is a condemned person scheduled to meet his/her fate, Amnesty springs into action with the sole purpose of preventing it, regardless.
Since becoming aware of Amnesty in the 1970s, I am yet to see a pamphlet or tract, or hear or view a radio or TV message from them urging the people of the world to lay down their weapons and settle their differences amicably. In other words, their message is not to protect the rights of the would-be victims of crime but those of condemned criminals.
I recently looked at their website and saw the story of a young Ugandan who was convicted and languished on Death Row for 18 years, to be released only when the man he was convicted of killing turned up alive and well. Therefore, the argument is that, in order that no one goes to his/her death unnecessarily, get rid of the death penalty altogether, regardless. I couldn’t disagree more.
While there are cases where people have been railroaded by corrupt systems, one cannot, in fair conscience, overlook the circumstances surrounding other cases. Take, for example, the case of Al Laplace whose recent execution brought Amnesty’s condemnation upon us; he lured his estranged wife to his house under the guise of helping him tend one of the children. He set upon her whilst she was within the house but, although she was wounded, she escaped into the street, screaming for help as he pursued, knife in hand. He caught up with her and, despite the efforts of members of the public to stop him, proceeded to slash her throat in full view of them all.
Nineteen ninety-eight (1998) was when David ‘Shit’ Wilson of Ottleys Village was hanged. He had been duly convicted of entering onto Ottleys Plantation Inn, which is some distance from the village itself, and, in the company of some friends, murdered a man. Going to the Inn was not a routine thing. One does not just happen upon it. They did not go there to socialise; they went to kill!
Before Wilson was John Ible of Lodge Project. He had lived next door to a young, pregnant woman whom he is said to have repeatedly threatened. One day, to the knowledge of his fellow villagers, he saw his chance. While she was at home alone, he grabbed his machete and went to her house. My understanding is that she fled to the next-door neighbour’s house for refuge. He pursued her there and hacked her to death. He was hung in 1985.
In 23 years, therefore, we have executed three men. However, there have been literally hundreds of murders since 1985. The statistics are not readily available but let’s take a look at the last three years as an example. There were 17 in 2006, 16 in 2007 and a record-breaking 23 in 2008; a grand total of 56.
On three separate occasions that I can remember, there have been two shooting deaths in one incident. A few years ago, in the height of festivities following Sandy Point High School Sports Day, two men were gunned down. A young man aptly nicknamed ‘Gun Child’ stood trial for it but got off on a technicality. Sandy Point was the scene of another double when brothers Khurt and Keva Hodge met their fate on the same night, in the same area. The third happened on November 30, 2008 in Cayon when eight persons were wounded by gunfire; of the eight, Travon ‘Waxy’ Francis and Desroy ‘Shootout’ Walwyn died.
There was a fourth incident in which two people were murdered. However, the reported evidence was not clear as to whether or not they were shot. I am referring to the murders of Lorenzo and Michelle Greene at their Lime Kiln home in the closing days of 2005.
The presence of the gun in St Kitts and Nevis has gotten to critical mass and the people who have them seem to have no qualms whatsoever about using them to settle their differences; so much so that more than 75 percent of the 56 murders over the last three years resulted from gunfire.
People have scores to settle and each time one is settled it gives rise to another which, in time, will be settled. As a hypothesis let us take Alf, Bill, Cody and Dario. Alf murders Bill. Bill has a relative, friend or fellow gang member named Cody. Cody then takes it upon himself to take out Alf and winds up in the crosshairs of Dario’s gun; Dario is Alf’s avenging angel; thus the vicious cycle continues.
Let’s examine the word ‘murder’. To kill someone is not necessarily murder but if one kills another out of malice and with deliberateness that is murder. Every dictionary that I have read describes it as the unlawful taking of another human’s life with premeditation or malice aforethought. Consider that a killer may study his victim’s movements for days, weeks or even months, learns when he/she is most vulnerable then strikes at the most opportune time. Take the case of our most recent poster boy, Al Laplace. He plotted his wife’s demise and went about it by deceitfully getting her to go to his home. In his house, she was virtually caged. It was at that vulnerable moment that he made his move; that time when he figured he might have gotten away with it had she not escaped onto the street.
In my view, what caused his case to cry out for the death penalty was when he proceeded to slash her throat in full view of others. Had he stopped when the people on the street tried to stop him, he would have served time in jail but, at least, he would have been alive because although attempted murder is serious, it is not a capital offence.
Notwithstanding the grisly details of any killing, whenever the time comes for the state to necessarily exact vengeance on behalf of its citizenry, in order to deal with its crime situation within the ambit of its laws, Amnesty’s emerges intent only upon sparing the life of the calculated killer so that he/she could exist upon the dole of the said citizenry. In other words, this institution has absolutely no regard for either the circumstances or the deliberateness with which a killer goes about his business. They couldn’t care less about either the victims or the victims’ families. In other words, whatever the laws of a country say, Amnesty is trying to bully its way into bringing about a cessation of the death penalty everywhere across the globe but is making no effort at changing the common man’s attitude towards settling differences.
As I said in my opening salvo, there are no pamphlets, no tracts, no radio/TV sermons, and no town hall meetings that seek to redress people’s readiness to maliciously kill each other. From Amnesty’s perspective, the individual member of society should be able to kill another for whatever reason and, with Amnesty’s success, hope only to serve some time - maybe the rest of his/her life - in jail.
It seems almost comical how country after country around the world has been abolishing the death penalty, yielding to the argument that it is inhumane. In the same breath, however, the propensity with which people inhumanely snuff out others’ lives, at least in our part of the world, has been worsening. The predictable regularity with which murder happens in St. Kitts and Nevis is, to say the least, frightening and cries out for something more than mere incarceration. A term in prison has now become a badge of honour that our young men seem to wear with pride. In my days growing up and until a few years ago, one of the last things anyone wanted to say to another was that he had been to jail. That time is a thing of the past.
In what seems like a few short years in St Kitts and Nevis, we have gone from one or two murders per year to almost two per month. Barely two weeks into 2009, we have already recorded one; Isimba ‘Simba’ Bradley was gunned down in the early hours of January 10 on Central Street in Basseterre, when masked gunmen approached him and opened fire. He was a tender 17 years old.
I am profoundly encouraged by the pronouncements of Prime Minister Denzil Douglas who recently informed the nation that the hangings would continue despite Amnesty’s agitation. The murderers have to be shown that they cannot operate with impunity; that there is both the will and the muscle to deal with them. The message has to be strong, resolute and continuous. We simply cannot afford to continue the model of the past 23 years.
Nobody revels in execution because, at the end of the day, someone dies. However, it is the only means at the disposal of the authorities whereby they can visit equal justice upon deserving elements of society. Anyone who does it outside the scope of the law is a vigilante; and vigilantism is something that all law-abiding citizens strongly oppose.
As a country of laws, hanging still forms part of our code and Government owes it to its citizens to ignore Amnesty and do its job by upholding the law!
