How To Build Better Commissions of Enquiry: 15 Lessons from the 2010 Tivoli Commission
Why I Have To Write This
(I wrote this 3 years ago. But I’m brave enough to share it today. The 15-part series now begins.)
At 5:08 on the morning of Thursday, the 25th of March, 2021 my brain would not allow me to sleep until I wrote out 5 years of thoughts about the two Commissions of Enquiry coming out of the extradition of Christopher “Dudus” Coke in 2010.
It is extraordinary really that the single series of events leading up to his extradition were separated into two distinct Commissions.
A few days ago, the world marked the International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims. It is a day to remember those who have died and many more who have survived, after gross violations of human rights.
Gross violations like the events that took place in Tivoli Gardens and the surrounding communities in Jamaica in 2010.
I have to write this because an analysis of the Commissions is needed.
I have to write this because horrors happened. And after two Commissions of Enquiry, we can't be sure that the exact same horrors will not confront us unless we learn the lessons of Tivoli 2010.
The lessons on how to build better and more effective Commissions of Enquiry.
The Importance of Tivoli 2010
Tivoli 2010 is one of the most significant events in my life. But more than that, it was a national event. A global event even. Christopher "Dudus" Coke was to be extradited from Jamaica to the United States to face federal charges and that changed the path of so many things that happened in Jamaica.
Two whole Commissions of Enquiry came out of the single series of events leading up to Dudus’ extradition.
A Pivotal Event and Two Resulting CoEs
The first, the Commission of Enquiry into the Extradition Request for Christopher Coke, is popularly referred to as the “Manatt-Dudus Commission of Enquiry”. Prime Minister at the time, Bruce Golding established the Commission. According to a media report,
Mr Golding set up the Commission of Enquiry, following howls of protest from human rights groups, civic groups, and the business community, about the government's handling of the extradition request for Christopher "Dudus" Coke.
Mr Golding and his party came under fire, after it was revealed that the Jamaica Labour Party(JLP) had engaged the services of the US law firm - Manatt, Phelps and Phillips - to lobby the US government, following the extradition request for Coke.
The second Commission, the West Kingston Commission of Enquiry II, narrowed its focus to the ground operation activities in and around Tivoli around May 2010.
The West Kingston Commission of Enquiry II report issued in 2016 was welcome. Six years after the event, there was quite a lot of concern that there would not be a full Commission of Enquiry report. Or at least one that made sense. Or, heaven forbid, there would be a situation like that facing the FINSAC Commission of Enquiry where there was nothing to compel the Commission to write an actual report and release it to the public.
(Update: As at May 10, 2024, the FINSAC Commission of Enquiry Report has not yet been released. Based on the reports, there is no full report after more than a decade, only a draft. But we might be getting it and all of the background data placed on a website. Soon. Soonish. Soonly. Hopefully. Maybe?)
The 2016 Report and Lingering Concerns
The Tivoli 2010 report was released in 2016. But there are several concerns I have. Several things I think we can do better in the next Commission of Enquiry. Because there will be a next one. And God forbid, it may just be in Tivoli once again.
Not the First CoE and it will not be the Last CoE
This is not the first Commission of Enquiry held in Jamaica and it is, unfortunately, not the first Commission of Enquiry held concerning Tivoli.
The 2016 Commission of Enquiry report into what happened in Tivoli coming out of 2010 is properly to be referred to as the "West Kingston Commission of Enquiry II". Because there is a "West Kingston Commission of Enquiry I".
Just that, that idea that a commission of enquiry can happen in a community and ten years later that community can face the same challenges is its own problem when we consider commissions of enquiry.
What the hell are they supposed to be? Are they even useful?
And why did Tivoli 201 spawn not one but two commissions of enquiry in the "Manatt-Dudus Commission" and "West Kingston II"?
These are some of the things that have had me perplexed since I did my Master's degree in 2016.
In 2016, the West Kingston Commission of Enquiry II report was released. That was monumental but also slightly anticlimactic.
Inaccessibility of a Crucial Document
The Commission of Enquiry report was voluminous. When a colleague emailed it to me, it was 40+ attachments of the chapters of the Commission's report with another seemingly 40+ annexes to the report. It was not put together in a single compiled document and there is no executive summary for the almost 1000 pages that the report spans.
There are many things in the report that grab me. But one of them was the inaccessibility of this incredibly crucial document for so many people who needed to read it. They needed to see justice on its pages.
The West Kingston Commission of Enquiry report also changed me because it was my thesis project.
The Broader Context of CoEs
In 2016, two other important reports from Commissions of Enquiry across the region were released: the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry in Guyana, and the Jamat al Muslameen Commission of Enquiry in Trinidad and Tobago.
Major events across the region being memorialised and marked by Commissions of Enquiry. Justice-seeking devices that are enabled under the Constitutions of these countries as well as through specific legislation.
Legislation that might as well be Swiss cheese.
And so, there are real challenges that existed across the region that would have required Commissions of Enquiry for both near and far events. But challenges exist in the Commissions themselves.
The Inspiration for this Work
I had wanted to do all three Commissions of Enquiry for my Master's thesis and my advisor asked me if I was trying to graduate or to stay at school forever. He advised, no told me rather, that I was to pick one. I chose Tivoli.
I chose Tivoli because I was in Jamaica as a law student in 2010 when the search for Christopher "Dudus" Coke shut down the country and had areas inside and outside of Kingston and St. Andrew under a State of Emergency to quell the unrest.
Witnessing the Unrest Firsthand
I watched as individuals from all sorts of communities from all across the country went into Tivoli to harden the borders. Where people referred to the area as the "Republic of Tivoli" and so distanced the people in that community from being Jamaicans with all the protections due to Jamaican citizens from the Jamaican State.
I watched as women walked in the middle of the road saying they would die for Dudus. And other women take everything they owned to jump onto a public bus, knowing that the decision not to do the same meant they could never go back home.
I am changed by Tivoli 2010.
The human rights work that I do now is as a result of Tivoli 2010. My work as a journalist is as a result of Tivoli 2010. My fascination with accountability mechanisms, including Commissions of Enquiry, is as a result of Tivoli 2010.
Personal Trauma and a Call to Action
I saw the fear and panic in my community as young men were scraped up and put in the back of trucks and taken to detention centres where, days later, they could not be found because people had to be moved around. So many men had been taken in.
I couldn't find my brother during this time and the terror I felt was real and stays with me to this day.
No Jamaican should have to hope that someone they loved, who wasn't involved in anything that required a police operation, would be put in the back of a truck, and be gone for days.
Tivoli 2010 is something that lives with me.
A Fragmented Picture and Incomplete Justice
It is 5:08 in the morning and I was asleep. But my brain woke me up to have this discussion. It woke me up so I could say what needs to be said about creating better Commissions of Enquiry.
Commissions are amazing tools. But if a Commission of Enquiry ends as merely a procedural overview and not one that is concerned about the humans that were affected and impacted by a massive police and military operation and how to prevent it from ever happening again, that Commission of Enquiry must be put under the microscope to see if it has failed its task.
And where two Commissions of Enquiry exist, neither referencing the other in any meaningful way, both operating as though it was not a whole series of events that had led to the hardening of Tivoli and to the massive operational response carried out by the Jamaica Constabulary Force and the Jamaica Defence Force, then we don't have a clear picture.
And we paid to get a clear picture.
No Monuments, No National Day of Mourning:
The persons in Tivoli are considered to be the "constantly forgotten". The 10-year anniversary was in 2020 and as yet there are no monuments recognising the horrors that the persons in Tivoli, Fletcher's Land, Denham Town, and other communities had to endure under the hands of the security forces of Jamaica while at the mercy of heavily armed gunmen who came in to stop the extradition at all costs.
As Jamaican citizens, there is no place for them to go to memorialize the deaths of those they had lost, a number we are still not clear on, 11 years on.
(Update: 14 years on, we still don’t have that single and undisputed number.)
The Long Shadow of Tivoli 2010: Unhealed Wounds and Unfinished Business
We are still living in the shadow of Tivoli 2010. We've become much more accustomed to States of Emergency and their use. And though it is a considered discussion that should happen, 2010 helped normalise the use of States of Emergency and allowed us to see them as legitimate tools to suppress individuals we thought weren't complying with the idea of the Jamaican State. That they raised themselves up against the State and therefore needed to be pushed back down. A concept that is not found in either in the pre-2011 Bill of Rights in the Jamaican Constitution nor its replacement, the 2011 Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms.
But it is a mindset that we have taken from Tivoli 2010.
The idea some Jamaicans are worth protecting more than others was also on display with many Jamaicans feeling that the very decision by the Jamaican government to resist the deportation of Christopher Coke was a very Animal Farm-like idea of "some being more equal than others".
And on May 17, 2010, when former Prime Minister Bruce Golding announced that the Government of Jamaica was ready to extradite Christoper Coke, my country bled and wept as we were all affected.
The 10th anniversary had passed and I had this book on the Tivoli Commission of Enquiry and how to improve future commissions written in parts since 2017.
But I've grown since then. And I have recognised the danger of what I have decided to do.
A Decade Later: The Pursuit of Justice Stalls
2010 is long gone and yet, here today. It is present. It casts a long shadow and there are many who would prefer that it disappear.
But as of March 25, 2021, there has not been a single completed prosecution for the deaths of any individuals connected to Tivoli 2010. And the only three prosecutions that are taking place right now have to do with the death of a businessman outside the community of Tivoli.
(Update: As at May 10, 2024, the prosecutions are still not concluded.)
No prosecutions have been initiated for dead and injured people in Tivoli and the surrounding communities affected by 2010 nor are there any likely to be forthcoming.
This isn't going to be able to bridge the gap of justice for those individuals. That would be much too ambitious a task and quite frankly far outside anything I could accomplish on my own in these posts.
Offering Expertise and a Path Forward
But what I can say to you is, having read the West Kingston Commission of Enquiry II report coming out of 2010, having read the Manatt-Dudus report, and having read the Public Defender’s reports, and a ton of other documents coming out on and about this Commission of Enquiry and Commissions as accountability mechanisms in general (both domestic and international), I stand ready to discuss how we can improve.
How we can create better Commissions of Enquiry coming out of Tivoli 2010.
