Page 14 - 10th Annual International Charles Town Maroon Conference and Festival Magazine

June 2018 Charles Town Maroon International Conference Magazine

On August 21, 2017, JET uploaded a Save Cockpit not understand. This was of course absurd since the
Country petition and began the race to get the portal is designed in such a way that there are 3 steps
necessary signatures. The effort began slowly but that petitioners have to take before their signature is
gained steam as the coalition became broader and counted making it impossible to auto-sign or sign
more diverse, and especially accelerated when social against their will.
and broadcast media, civil society and the Jamaica If the petition had not been stopped by the government
Diaspora all got fully involved. it would have easily reached 15,000 on Save Cockpit
Country Day. Nonetheless, well before the deadline on
IRIE FM, Jamaica’s number one radio station, has September 22 the petition passed the required 15,000
been an avid supporter of previous Save Cockpit signatures. On September 30, 2017, when the petition
Country efforts, and again joined in with round the closed, it had garnered over 20,000 on line signatures.
clock information on Cockpit Country, promotion of In addition, on November 17, Diana McCaulay of
the online petition, and made all their offices available Jamaica Environment Trust delivered 16,647 paper
for people to sign the paper version of the petition. petitions from across Jamaica to the Prime Minister.
Over the years I have worked closely with Ka’bu
Ma’at Kheru, Program Director of IRIE FM and host On the afternoon of November 21, 2017, Prime
of the internationally popular radio show Running Minister Andrew Holness to great applause
African Forum, which she has consistently used to began his statement to Parliament with the
educate listeners on the importance of Cockpit following statement:
Country. Kabu and I came up with the idea of Mr. Speaker, for several years, the public
declaring September 22 Save Cockpit Country Day to has been actively engaged in a robust,
focus efforts and push the signature numbers over the constructive discourse on the delimitation of
finish line before the September 30 deadline. the boundary of the Cockpit Country.
Discussions have been ongoing for decades;
Other media houses, social media, civil society, transcending administrations but Mr. Speaker,
diaspora organizations, communities, churches and the wait is over, today; after extensive consul-
individuals all joined in and intensified their efforts. tations and deliberations we are announcing
But their efforts were disrupted when starting at about the areas to be designated as the boundary of
3:30PM on September 21, with the petition at over the Cockpit Country and of the Cockpit
12,000 signatures, the Office of the Prime Minister Country Protected Area.
stopped access to the petition for eighteen hours. They He went on to describe the importance of Cockpit
claimed that computers had been hacked and used for
auto-signing, and that people were being forced to sign Country:
against their will, or were signing something they did Mr. Speaker, the goal of defining the boundary

13