Why is the Department of Homeland Security assisting in the murder of innocent Jamaicans?

Madison Ruppert, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

In May of last year, the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) helped the Jamaica Defense Force (JDF) carry out a drug raid which resulted in the slaughter of 73 innocent Jamaicans, and they are now attempting to cover up the incident by not releasing the footage.

Through a response to Mattathias Schwartz of The New Yorker’s FOIA request to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), we learn that they utilized a P-3 Orion aircraft owned by the Department of Homeland Security over Kingston, Jamaica on the day in question. Schwartz has published an astonishing and disturbing look into the massacre that day in Tivoli Gardens, in West Kingston in The New Yorker, which can be found here.

The reality of the DHS involvement is troubling not only because of the massacre of innocent people, but also because the mission of the Department of Homeland Security (as one would rightly assume by the name) is supposed to deal solely with the so-called “homeland” and not law enforcement operations in foreign nations.

The mission of the Department of Homeland Security is clearly laid out in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Strategic Plan Fiscal Years 2008-20013, entitled “One Team, One Mission, Securing Our Homeland.”

On page three, we read, “We will lead the unified national effort to secure America. We will prevent and deter terrorist attacks and protect against and respond to threats and hazards to the Nation. We will secure our national borders while welcoming lawful immigrants, visitors, and trade.”

Obviously there is no mention made of assisting law enforcement agencies in foreign countries, yet the Jamaican Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, Andrew Holness, announced, “the United States Government provided surveillance assistance to the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) through the presence of an aircraft over Tivoli Gardens during the May 24, 2010 operations in the West Kingston community to serve a warrant on convicted drug lord Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke.”

Holness said that the United States was not taking an on-the-ground role in the operation, but was only assisting the JDF with “surveillance imagery and equipment.”

However, this is hardly relevant given that a nation’s airspace is technically their sovereign territory, so being on the ground doesn’t make much of a difference insofar as the concept of national sovereignty is concerned.

In a quite odd statement, given that the DHS was supposedly playing a surveillance role in the operation, the Jamaican Minister of National Security Dwight Nelson claimed, “In discussions with the Jamaica Defence Force and the Jamaica Constabulary Force, no images and no photographs were supplied to the Jamaica Defence Force or to the Jamaica Constabulary Force during this operation.”

Nelson also made the clearly inaccurate claim that the American government “did not, at any time, participate in the operation in Tivoli Gardens.”

Yet Holness confirmed that the Jamaican government accepted the U.S.’s offer to provide surveillance capabilities and technology, clearly showing that they did indeed participate in the operation.

Clearly the Jamaican government is as transparent and reliable as ours – that is to say, not at all.

The glaring issue at hand is that the Department of Homeland Security witnessed – and was possibly complicit with – a brutal massacre, and now they are actively covering it up using some typically laughable reasoning.

They claim that the exemption from disclosing “personnel or medical files and similar files the release of which would cause a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy,” prevents them from releasing the footage.

They also cite the exemption which “protects records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes that could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”

Along with the exemption which prevents the disclosure of documents “the release of which could reasonably be expected to disclose the identities of confidential sources” along with the exemption which prevents the release of documents “which would disclose techniques and/or procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions, or would disclose guidelines for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions if such disclosure could reasonably be expected to risk circumvention of the law.”

They further invoke exemption which “permits the government to withhold all information about any individual when disclosure of information about him could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety of any individual.”

If you’re struggling to see how any of these exemptions is remotely relevant in this case, you’re not alone.

I fail to see how Schwartz’s request for “video recordings of a raid on Tivoli Gardens” which “were made from a Department of Homeland Security P-3 Orion aircraft that was flying over Kingston that day” and “video recording or any written accounts relating in whole or in part to any gun battles that took place in Kingston, Jamaica between May 20, 2010 and June 1, 2010,” along with, “Flight records showing the location and registration numbers of all Department of Homeland Security aircraft that were in Jamaican airspace between May 20, 2010 and June 1, 2010.”

The only document they provided was an incredibly brief “Significant Incident Report” which is heavily redacted in typical government fashion.

The report is completely devoid of any mention of the 73 murdered civilians and mentions that, “No arrests were observed during the flight.”

They do mention that “All scenes were continuously recorded,” but still refuse to release this damning footage for the above listed preposterous reasons.

The menace of airborne surveillance in the United States is one that I have covered extensively, especially relating to drones and the Department of Homeland Security.

As the recent case of a Predator B drone being used in an arrest in North Dakota proved, we are facing a quite serious situation here in the continental United States, but apparently the despicable DHS is branching out to foreign nations as well.

I also find it quite troubling that the Jamaican government so readily compromises sovereignty – and attempts to cover up this fact – especially to a body like the DHS.

The only people the DHS is protecting with their exemptions are themselves, as they are the true criminals actively attempting to cover up the massacre of civilians.

If the United States government cared even remotely about the sanctity of human life and the most basic of human rights, they would release the footage and help hold accountable all responsible parties.

However, if you’re holding your breath for this you’re likely to get a brutal wakeup call when you slam into the floor and realize you passed out from anoxia.

This is just another symptom of the cancerous, corrupt system which has spread virulently across the world and is now in the final stages of clamping down and destroying the rights of every man, woman and child in the United States and around the globe. 

This article originally appeared at End the Lie