Commentary: Woolmer: Not quite Holloway, but Jamaicans got some ‘splainin’ to do…
|
| Published on Friday, June 15, 2007 |
Email To Friend Print Version |
By Anthony L Hall
Jamaican Police Commissioner Lucius Thomas announced on Tuesday that he was compelled to reverse the local police’s original finding - that Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer was murdered (by “manual strangulation” and probably at the hands of one of his Pakistani players) - after an independent investigation by Scotland Yard found that he died of natural causes. But reaction to this stunning announcement here in the Caribbean amounted to little more than a tempest in a teapot. By contrast, over in South Asia, it caused a veritable tsunami of emotions – with vindicated Pakistanis demanding retribution for being so wronged.
 |
|
Anthony L. Hall is a descendant
of the Turks & Caicos Islands,
international lawyer and political
consultant - headquartered in
Washington DC - who publishes
his own weblog, The iPINIONS
Journal, at http://ipjn.com
offering commentaries on
current events from a
Caribbean perspective
|
Never mind that - as a people who seem congenitally disposed to feeling wronged (invariably by Americans) - we should have great empathy for the waves of outrage now flooding Pakistan. Yet Wednesday’s editorial in the Jamaica Gleaner made it crystal clear that - instead of expressing empathy - Jamaicans are wallowing in their own sorrow.
Because this editorial in the country’s oldest and most influential newspaper began a lamentation on the botched autopsy and bungled investigation by Jamaican authorities as follows:
“Try as hard as one might, it is hard to find any silver lining behind the cloud of embarrassment surrounding the investigations into the death here in Jamaica of Bob Woolmer, coach of the Pakistan cricket team. The country's image has been seriously besmirched.”
Meanwhile, the Pakistanis are fulminating with indignation over the wounds this investigation has inflicted upon their national pride. Indeed, they are beside themselves because within days after Woolmer’s death on 18 March, the Jamaican police rushed to declare that he was murdered and proceeded to treat all of the members of Pakistan’s team like suspects; most notably, by making quite a show for the rabid international media of interrogating and finger-printing them.
Although I suspect the ignominy Pakistanis are suffering is greatly exacerbated by the fact their cricketing sharks were eliminated from the ICC Cricket World Cup by the cricketing minnows of Ireland.
“Pakistan Cricket Board should sue everyone with responsibility because this was so damaging for the Pakistani team, for Pakistan cricket and to the country….They should have ruled out first whether this was natural causes….By what Pakistan cricket has been through -- players being DNA tested, finger-printed, insinuations of match-fixing, insinuations that the players might have killed their coach -- all this was so damaging and this went on for a good two months.”
[Former Pakistan cricket captain Imran Khan and now one of the country’s most influential political leaders – as reported by the BBC]
Nevertheless, apropos clouds, it’s virtually impossible to describe the dark clouds of suspicion that gathered in Jamaica after Woolmer’s death. But no one can deny that they were darkest and most concentrated over the heads of the Pakistani players – even as they traveled back home after their premature ejection from the tournament: In fact, this only resulted in the team being scorned in both places (if not around the world) as big-time losers who may have thrown their match and killed their coach in furtherance of some harebrained match-fixing scheme.
Therefore, I shall suffice to note that Agatha Christie could not have written a more dramatic spectacle. After all, in addition to the tragic comedy of keystone cops zealously searching for the murderer of a person who died by natural causes, there was also the macabre pathos of a grieving widow pleading for months for the Jamaican police to release her husband’s body for burial.
Meanwhile, swirling constantly about this farce were outlandish theories of the presumed crime that, unfortunately, the police themselves fomented. And chief amongst those theories was the claim that Woolmer was poisoned by the extract from some exotic plant, which presents as a heart attack….
That said, the fallout from Woolmer’s death is all too real. But instead of bemoaning their shame and pointing fingers of blame, Jamaican authorities would do well to move as swiftly to make amends to the Pakistani players as they did to place them under suspicion. And, notwithstanding Imran Khan’s jingoistic demand for pounds of flesh, an appropriately-groveling apology from the government should suffice to redeem their character and help cure their wounded pride, if only just a little. (They did lose to Ireland after all!)
Finally, in the wake of Woolmer-like blunders following the death of Anna Nicole’s son, it behooved Bahamian authorities to take remedial steps to improve the training of their forensic pathologists and criminal investigation detectives (CIDs). And this, not only to spare the government another international embarrassment of this nature but, more importantly, to ensure that pathologists and detectives provide more professional and reliable services to ordinary Bahamian citizens.
Likewise, it behooves Jamaican authorities to see that the silver lining in their cloud of embarrassment is a lightening bolt that should shock them into doing the same - for ordinary Jamaican citizens.
Alas, it does not bode well in this respect that Deputy Police Commissioner Mark Shields - who led the Woolmer investigation - reacted to the Scotland Yard review by insisting that he did nothing wrong and has no regrets. Nor does it inspire confidence when - even after Commissioner Thomas’ announcement - the Jamaica Gleaner ran a banner headline, which screamed defiantly:
“Local police sticking by their word that Woolmer died of manual strangulation….”
NOTE: Given international media coverage of bungled post-mortem investigations in Aruba, The Bahamas and Jamaica, I feel constrained to concede that foreigners can be forgiven their indignant demands for detectives from Scotland Yard or the FBI to be flown in every time foul play is suspected in the death of their loved ones vacationing in the Caribbean…. | | | | Reads : 49 |
|
