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Re: Comrade Dudley Thompson is dead
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Tuff Gong</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: franksterr</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The Current example is a poor one if that is what you intended to substantiated....bring another more exacting one?? </div></div>
I would say all your examples are poor and way off base.
But since you insist here a small example as told by a supporter of the Party.
These all involved folks like I who are supporters of the PNP. This is how Saint Michael and his gang treated folks who criticised their bloody actions.
<span style="font-size: 14pt">The Orange Lane Fire Enquiry </span>
<span style="font-style: italic">Laura Tanna </span>
<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black'">The story of Justice Ronald Hugh Small </span>
IN PREPARING this series of articles on the human side of Hon. Mr Justice Ronald Hugh Small, one of the first black Supreme Court Judges in Jamaica, appointed in 1956, I interviewed not only him, but also two of his sons. On June 2, 1999 his eldest son and partial namesake, Hon. Ronald Hugh Packer Small Q.C., spoke about two of the most powerful political figures in the turbulent 1970s: <span style="font-size: 17pt">Michael Manley</span> and Tony Spaulding.
"After he retired from the Bench," Hugh Small says of his father, "he did a number of public enquiries. Let me tell you something about the interface between my father's role as an enquirer, my own position in the Cabinet (Minister of Youth, Sports and Community Development 1977-79) and the pain and difficulties it caused both of us.
He did a general enquiry into the violence that was taking place in the Corporate Area and then the <span style="font-size: 14pt">Orange Lane thing happened (On May 19,1976 ten people died in a fire set by gunmen at a tenement building on Orange Lane, Kingston)</span> and the Governor-General asked him to extend it, to deal with the Orange Lane fire.
"What I'm about to say now, I've said to some people before. I think somebody needs to do some research into it, because it is an indictment of Michael Manley and an indictment of the PNP Administration.
"A number of people went to <span style="font-size: 14pt">Ronnie Thwaites</span> and told him that they had evidence as to who was responsible for the Orange Lane fire. And they were afraid for their lives. Ronnie Thwaites, who had a fairly close relationship with my father, contacted him and he agreed that he would hear this evidence in camera. Tony Spaulding gave evidence (amongst others) and he was represented by a lawyer.
<span style="text-decoration: underline">In camera </span>
"After the 1976 election, which was held on the 15th of December 1976, before Michael Manley did his Cabinet, one day I was at Michael Manley's home and I was told that daddy had sent him a preliminary report on the Orange Lane Fire which he wanted Michael to have before he appointed the Cabinet. <span style="font-size: 14pt">In it, he had made findings about Tony Spaulding's involvement in the Orange Lane fire.</span> He had called the then Attorney-General, Carl Rattray, and asked him to deliver the report to the Prime Minister, that the Prime Minister should know about it before he made any appointments.
<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black'">"A couple of months later, the full report of the Commission of Enquiry came out. It did not include the secret report that had been sent to the Governor-General. In the course of the report, he made a reference to Tony Spaulding as having: 'More than a blushing acquaintance with gunmen'. </span>
I sat through the Cabinet meeting in which I heard most of the members of Cabinet, but mostly lawyers, savaging my father: 'There was no evidence in the enquiry for this. How can this be done?' Michael Manley kept quiet.
"The truth is, I used to run with Michael in the mornings. I spoke to him. The matter was put off to the following week's Cabinet meeting. I<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black'"> said to him: "Michael, I had to sit down and listen to you people say some very unkind things about my father, which I know are not true.</span> I think that there is evidence for what he said, in his findings, and I wish to be excused from the Cabinet meeting while you deliberate." He said he would think about it and he would let me know.
"The next Cabinet meeting, he said: "Well, we've discussed the matter and the Cabinet feels you can't be exempted. You have to stay." I remember it very clearly because Winston Jones, I had a lot of respect for, was the person who he got to articulate the position. They came up with a statement blasting my father, criticising him for this finding. He was very hurt and upset about it.
"<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black'">After the 1980 defeat, Michael Manley's action against The Gleaner Company and John Hearne, for libel</span>, was being heard. I was brought into the case late. P.J. (Patterson) was junior to me at the Bar but he insisted he was leading the case. I said: "All right, no problem."
He assigned to me that I should prepare Michael Manley, leading him in evidence. He was going to take cross-examination of John Hearne and so on. I had 88 hours of conference with Michael Manley, preparing him. And one of the things that happened is that I mock cross-examined him.
"<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black'">Among the justifications that The Gleaner had pleaded were: what he had allowed D.K. Duncan to do; what had happened in relation to Paul Burke; what had happened in relation to Tony Spaulding;</span> how he had kept Tony Spauldingin his Cabinet after this finding by the Commission of Enquiry. I had known at the time that The Gleaner had served a subpoena on my father to produce his reports. My father had taken the position that he had handed over his reports to the Governor-General, because he wasn't going to get involved in that controversy at that time. But also I knew that he had been subpoenaed."
<span style="font-size: 17pt">Initially it was alleged that JLP gunmen had surrounded a building, at 182 Orange Lane, inhabited by PNP supporters, set it on fire, had even thrown a baby back into the fire </span>and prevented firemen from reaching the building. This took place on May 19, 1976 a<span style="font-size: 14pt">nd was one of the events cited when the PNP Govern-ment declared a State of Emergency the next month, in June 1976.</span> The Jamaica Labour Party refuted these claims, countering that the building, which had been purchased by the Ministry of Housing, of which Tony Spaulding was the Minister, had been marked for destruction and that it was in fact PNP gunmen who carried out the action with high-powered weapons and Molotov cocktails to force Labourites from the area.
I<span style="text-decoration: underline">ndictment </span>
<span style="font-size: 14pt">That a former member of the PNP Government should be alleging that Manley suppressed part of the report by the Commission of Enquiry and in so doing smeared Justice Small's reputation would be an indictment of Michael Manley's administration and makes one wonder if the fear of either a suppressed report appearing, or of witnesses who had testified at a closed hearing being called, might have contributed to Manley's dropping the case against The Gleaner. </span>
It also makes one wonder about the nature of the role Tony Spaulding played within the administration during that turbulent period of Jamaica's history. </div></div>
Good article and it does support your argument that the PNP could have been invovle in these violence......where is the link?
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Tuff Gong</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: franksterr</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The Current example is a poor one if that is what you intended to substantiated....bring another more exacting one?? </div></div>
I would say all your examples are poor and way off base.
But since you insist here a small example as told by a supporter of the Party.
These all involved folks like I who are supporters of the PNP. This is how Saint Michael and his gang treated folks who criticised their bloody actions.
<span style="font-size: 14pt">The Orange Lane Fire Enquiry </span>
<span style="font-style: italic">Laura Tanna </span>
<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black'">The story of Justice Ronald Hugh Small </span>
IN PREPARING this series of articles on the human side of Hon. Mr Justice Ronald Hugh Small, one of the first black Supreme Court Judges in Jamaica, appointed in 1956, I interviewed not only him, but also two of his sons. On June 2, 1999 his eldest son and partial namesake, Hon. Ronald Hugh Packer Small Q.C., spoke about two of the most powerful political figures in the turbulent 1970s: <span style="font-size: 17pt">Michael Manley</span> and Tony Spaulding.
"After he retired from the Bench," Hugh Small says of his father, "he did a number of public enquiries. Let me tell you something about the interface between my father's role as an enquirer, my own position in the Cabinet (Minister of Youth, Sports and Community Development 1977-79) and the pain and difficulties it caused both of us.
He did a general enquiry into the violence that was taking place in the Corporate Area and then the <span style="font-size: 14pt">Orange Lane thing happened (On May 19,1976 ten people died in a fire set by gunmen at a tenement building on Orange Lane, Kingston)</span> and the Governor-General asked him to extend it, to deal with the Orange Lane fire.
"What I'm about to say now, I've said to some people before. I think somebody needs to do some research into it, because it is an indictment of Michael Manley and an indictment of the PNP Administration.
"A number of people went to <span style="font-size: 14pt">Ronnie Thwaites</span> and told him that they had evidence as to who was responsible for the Orange Lane fire. And they were afraid for their lives. Ronnie Thwaites, who had a fairly close relationship with my father, contacted him and he agreed that he would hear this evidence in camera. Tony Spaulding gave evidence (amongst others) and he was represented by a lawyer.
<span style="text-decoration: underline">In camera </span>
"After the 1976 election, which was held on the 15th of December 1976, before Michael Manley did his Cabinet, one day I was at Michael Manley's home and I was told that daddy had sent him a preliminary report on the Orange Lane Fire which he wanted Michael to have before he appointed the Cabinet. <span style="font-size: 14pt">In it, he had made findings about Tony Spaulding's involvement in the Orange Lane fire.</span> He had called the then Attorney-General, Carl Rattray, and asked him to deliver the report to the Prime Minister, that the Prime Minister should know about it before he made any appointments.
<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black'">"A couple of months later, the full report of the Commission of Enquiry came out. It did not include the secret report that had been sent to the Governor-General. In the course of the report, he made a reference to Tony Spaulding as having: 'More than a blushing acquaintance with gunmen'. </span>
I sat through the Cabinet meeting in which I heard most of the members of Cabinet, but mostly lawyers, savaging my father: 'There was no evidence in the enquiry for this. How can this be done?' Michael Manley kept quiet.
"The truth is, I used to run with Michael in the mornings. I spoke to him. The matter was put off to the following week's Cabinet meeting. I<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black'"> said to him: "Michael, I had to sit down and listen to you people say some very unkind things about my father, which I know are not true.</span> I think that there is evidence for what he said, in his findings, and I wish to be excused from the Cabinet meeting while you deliberate." He said he would think about it and he would let me know.
"The next Cabinet meeting, he said: "Well, we've discussed the matter and the Cabinet feels you can't be exempted. You have to stay." I remember it very clearly because Winston Jones, I had a lot of respect for, was the person who he got to articulate the position. They came up with a statement blasting my father, criticising him for this finding. He was very hurt and upset about it.
"<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black'">After the 1980 defeat, Michael Manley's action against The Gleaner Company and John Hearne, for libel</span>, was being heard. I was brought into the case late. P.J. (Patterson) was junior to me at the Bar but he insisted he was leading the case. I said: "All right, no problem."
He assigned to me that I should prepare Michael Manley, leading him in evidence. He was going to take cross-examination of John Hearne and so on. I had 88 hours of conference with Michael Manley, preparing him. And one of the things that happened is that I mock cross-examined him.
"<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black'">Among the justifications that The Gleaner had pleaded were: what he had allowed D.K. Duncan to do; what had happened in relation to Paul Burke; what had happened in relation to Tony Spaulding;</span> how he had kept Tony Spauldingin his Cabinet after this finding by the Commission of Enquiry. I had known at the time that The Gleaner had served a subpoena on my father to produce his reports. My father had taken the position that he had handed over his reports to the Governor-General, because he wasn't going to get involved in that controversy at that time. But also I knew that he had been subpoenaed."
<span style="font-size: 17pt">Initially it was alleged that JLP gunmen had surrounded a building, at 182 Orange Lane, inhabited by PNP supporters, set it on fire, had even thrown a baby back into the fire </span>and prevented firemen from reaching the building. This took place on May 19, 1976 a<span style="font-size: 14pt">nd was one of the events cited when the PNP Govern-ment declared a State of Emergency the next month, in June 1976.</span> The Jamaica Labour Party refuted these claims, countering that the building, which had been purchased by the Ministry of Housing, of which Tony Spaulding was the Minister, had been marked for destruction and that it was in fact PNP gunmen who carried out the action with high-powered weapons and Molotov cocktails to force Labourites from the area.
I<span style="text-decoration: underline">ndictment </span>
<span style="font-size: 14pt">That a former member of the PNP Government should be alleging that Manley suppressed part of the report by the Commission of Enquiry and in so doing smeared Justice Small's reputation would be an indictment of Michael Manley's administration and makes one wonder if the fear of either a suppressed report appearing, or of witnesses who had testified at a closed hearing being called, might have contributed to Manley's dropping the case against The Gleaner. </span>
It also makes one wonder about the nature of the role Tony Spaulding played within the administration during that turbulent period of Jamaica's history. </div></div>
Good article and it does support your argument that the PNP could have been invovle in these violence......where is the link?
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