(From left) Opposition Leader Andrew Holness and Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller
KINGSTON, Jamaica — A group calling itself the Tivoli Committee has accused both the Jamaican government and the Parliamentary Opposition of uniting to protect the security forces from scrutiny in the 2010 Tivoli incursion.
According to a release from the Committee Thursday, they, along with residents of Tivoli Gardens attempted to deliver open letters to parliamentarians at Gordon House on Tuesday, May 27.
However, the group say they were refused entry to the compound and barred from delivering the letters.
One resident was given permission to deliver the letter to the Orderly of the House with accompaniment from a uniformed police officer but was later denied entry after the order was overruled by another policeman, the release said.
Over 70 people were believed shot dead when the security forces conducted an operation to enter Tivoli Gardens in search of strongman Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke after residents had barricaded entrances to the community.
The Committee says it believes that the “clear and present danger of another massacre being engineered by the State to solve social problems stemming from the ghettoization of the 1.2 million Jamaicans living in absolute poverty seems not to be understood by uptown, middle class Jamaica.”
