Texas-based media highlights PM Harris’ failure to mention Saunders role in Tivoli Gardens Massacre

Photo shows Dr. Timothy Harris (left) and Stewart Saunders 

BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS, JULY 13TH 2017 – Texas-based Caribbean News Now has highlighted the absence to references by St. Kitts and Nevis’ Prime Minister Dr. the Hon. Timothy Harris to the role played by his newly-appointed national security advisor, retired Major General Stewart Saunders, in the Tivoli Gardens Massacre in 2010, the same year he retired.

“However, left unexplained by Harris were the findings of a commission of inquiry set up in the aftermath of the so-called Tivoli Gardens Massacre in Kingston in 2010, which accused Saunders of dereliction of duty and incompetence,” Caribbean News Now noted.

Caribbean News Now pointed out that the inquiry would have recommended that Saunders never again serve in internal security operations had he still been the chief of staff of the JDF.

The 2010 Kingston unrest, also known locally as the Tivoli Incursion, was an armed conflict between the Shower Posse drug cartel and Jamaica’s military and police forces. The conflict began on May 23, 2010 as security forces began searching for major drug lord Christopher “Dudus” Coke, after the United States requested his extradition.

The violence killed at least 73 civilians and wounded at least 35 others. Four soldiers/police were also killed and more than 500 arrests were made, as Jamaican police and soldiers fought gunmen in the Tivoli Gardens district of Kingston.

Coke was eventually captured on June 23 and, in a 15-minute hearing, he waived his right to an extradition trial before a judge.

In 2011, Coke pleaded guilty to racketeering and drug-related charges in a New York Federal court, and was sentenced to 23 years in prison on June 8, 2012.

In 2013, the government of Jamaica announced it would set up a commission of inquiry to investigate and report on the operation. The commission, informally known as the Tivoli Inquiry, started sitting in December 2014, chaired by Barbados judge Sir David Simmons.

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