https://proudstars.blogspot.com/2015/12/reparation-for-rastas-justice-minister.html
Reparation for Rastas?
Justice minister wants apology, compensation for brutalised victims of Coral Gardens, Back ‘o’ Wall, Pinnacle
SENATOR Mark Golding, the minister of justice, believes that Rastafarian victims of the infamous Coral Gardens, Pinnacle and Back ‘o’ Wall incidents deserve both an apology and reparation from the Jamaican State which he said had brutalised and oppressed them.
Golding made it clear in an interview with the Jamaica Observer yesterday that he was stating his personal views at this time, but would raise the matter in Cabinet next month, possibly through the just-released report by the public defender on the bloody Coral Gardens incident that claimed several lives in 1963 in St James.
“The treatment of the Rastafarians is a matter of social justice. There were decades of fairly brutal and oppressive conduct by the State towards them. After the Coral Gardens incident there was a sort of witch-hunt. All of this was quite improper,” said Golding.
The justice minister also listed the controversial destruction by police of the Leonard Howell-led Rastafarian community at Pinnacle, St Catherine, and the demolition of Back ‘o’ Wall in Western Kingston, among actions for which he believed the State should pay compensation and apologise to their victims.
