On Tuesday, January 10, 2023, Dr. Rowan Edwards, founder and Bishop of the Lighthouse Worship Center in Spanish Town, called on both political leaders to “stop playing with the lives of Jamaicans.” And unite to end the long-standing iniquity started by their political predecessors.
Bishop Edwards declared that he knew none of the current leaders were involved in issuing guns to criminals. But he was adamant that neither leader had done nearly enough to reign in criminals. Whom they had inherited under the garrison systems. The Bishop said the garrison system was created by former leaders of both political parties.
The Bishop was one of the speakers at the New Year’s Prayer Breakfasted hosted by the Non-Geographic Number 2 Chaplaincy Services Branch of the Jamaica Constabulary Force.
“Sometimes I get angry because both leaders now are trying to play political football with the lives of the people in this country. Some of their predecessors built garrisons and gave the boys guns, and some came out and confessed it. They talked about it … that they did that.”
Bishop Rowan Edwards
“You know that the Clansman gang is connected to the PNP, and the One Order gang is connected to the JLP, and so they breed and multiply themselves over and over,” the clergyman told his audience at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston.
Bishop Edwards said ridding Jamaica’s streets of gangsters is a tall order. Because the dynamics changed when political leaders outfitted criminals with guns to help solidify control of their constituencies.
“In the old days, the politicians used to give them little ‘popcorn money’ to take care of their turf, but now the money the gunmen are making through extortion is bigger than the politicians, and the politicians now cannot control them. So, one time it was a political war, but now it’s gang war,” he explained.
Bishop Rowan Edwards
Bishop Edwards said political leaders should combine their efforts and ideas to bring the nation out of this rut.
“Their predecessors started it. Now they must come together and have it fixed, so I am raising my voice because some serious situations are affecting the nation. I want all of us to come together as law-enforcement officers and come to a common understanding that God wants this country back.”
Bishop Rowan Edwards