IN JAMAICA: Enough Is Enough! East Kingston Residents, MP, Mayor, Bunting Walk For Peace After 17-month-old Infant's Murder......"We are tired of being tired! Enough is enough!" ...."What we need is change to the hearts of men."

Gleaner Published: Monday | February 17, 2014

Traumatised by raging acts of violence in Eastern Kingston which snatched the life of a 17-month-old baby, among others, a throng of residents yesterday spilled into the troubled communities on and around Oliver Road to pour out their anguish to political leaders.

A rallying call for peace by National Security Minister Peter Bunting resonated with the people who walked him and others through the beleaguered communities.

Residents of the Rockfort Development Council
take part in a march through the troubled
East Kingston community, the first step in an
 intervention and outreach programme that focuses
 support on those in the community who
 are in need of help. - Rudolph Brown/Photographer

"We are tired of being tired! Enough is enough!" declared David Goodlitt, pastor of Johnson Town Seventh-day Adventist Church. "We don't need a change to any system. What we need is change to the hearts of men."

For many, including Bunting, Member of Parliament for Eastern Kingston Phillip Paulwell, as well as Kingston Mayor Angela Brown Burke, the councillor for the division, the murder of 17-month-old Trejaun 'Treasure' Harvey and the attempted reprisal against a two-month-old baby were just too much to bear.

"Before we came here, the member of parliament, the commissioner of police (Owen Ellington) and I visited the communities where the infant was murdered, and if that wasn't bad enough, to imagine that there would be an attempted reprisal on a two-month-old shows that something is seriously wrong with us as a people," Bunting lamented.

The national security minister spoke religiously in an atmosphere that had already taken on a rich gospel flavour as the church led other community groups in songs which called for the intervention of the Almighty.

"If I am to paraphrase the Bible, I have to ask, do we wrestle against flesh and blood or against principalities and powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world and spiritual wickedness in high places?" Bunting declared. more