Colourful parades in peaceful nomination day
(from an article by BALFORD HENRY, Observer writer on
Thursday, March 24, 2005 followed by a message from Astor Black)
The four candidates who were nominated yesterday to contest the West Kingston by-election. From left: Michael Elliott, NDM; Joseph 'Bunny' Witter, PNP; Bruce Golding, JLP; and Ras Astor Black, Jamaica Alliance Movement . (Photos: Bryan Cummings)
MARCHING bands and colourful parades characterised yesterday's nomination day in West Kingston as four candidates entered the race to fill the parliamentary seat left vacant in January by former Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) leader Edward Seaga.
The four - newly-elected leader of the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party, Bruce Golding; Joseph "Bunny" Witter, a 43 year-old technician, for the People's National Party (PNP); Michael Elliott, a businessman who is running for an alliance comprising the National Democratic Movement (NDM) and the Republican Party; and Rastafarian Astor Black, president of the Jamaica Alliance Movement (JAM) - will do battle for the more than 17,000 electors on the list for the April 13 poll.
Greetings from Ras Astor Black
Please contribute to the Love’N Jamaica Campaign, send or deposit some funds in the Rastafari Affinity Account number 10134860 (MoBay Branch) at any Jamaica National in Jamaica. It will help us with our radio and print marketing and for more information call I man, Ras Astor Black, President of the Jamaica Alliance Movement at 876-421-4189.
Now that they are going, going and gone, the Jamaica Alliance Movement will alien with good people for a new way of life for Jamaicans at home and abroad, a Jamaica where all of us will be free and equal in dignity and rights and act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood.
A Jamaica where everyone will be entitled to all the rights and freedoms without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, Rastafari, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
All Jamaican will have the right to life, liberty and security of person and will not be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade will be prohibited in all their forms. No one will be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Everyone will get the right to recognition as a person before the law.
All Jamaican will be equal before the law and will be given without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. Jamaicans will receive equal protection against all discrimination. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
Everyone will have full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.
Everyone charged with a penal offence will be given the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he or she has had all the guarantees necessary for his or her defense. No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, or to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
Jamaicans will have the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment and without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
Jamaicans who works will receive a just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself or herself and his or her family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
Jamaicans will be given the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his or her interests and will have the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.
Standards of living will be adequate for the health and well-being of the Jamaican family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond control. Motherhood and childhood will be entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
All Jamaicans will have the right to education. Education will be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education will be made generally available and higher education will be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
Education will be directed to the full development of the Jamaican personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace. Parents will have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.
Everyone will have the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits, and the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he or she is the author.
The soon to be post-governments did not set concrete aim for overseas investment and attach more importance to the quality and practical effects rather than just its quantity.
Rastafari, The Hon. Bob Marley promote Jamaica love to a world audience and today we all can just see the result, but our Jamaica can not be a part of the booming tourism industry that they enjoy.
Jamaicans, if Western Kingston is to be the next tourist attraction, let us all do the right thing on Election Day; allow the Rastafari, Ras Astor Black, to colt the BIG game by voting Jamaica Alliance Movement. Retire the Ps into the history book of the next generation.
JAM will FREE-UP the Trench Town experience so it start flowing again, from Back-a-wall to the world, I, Ras Astor Black respectfully ask to be the next Member of Parliament for West Kingston which will give Rastafari a voice in their parliament to continue the good work of our brother Bob Marley.
To contribute to the Love’N Jamaica Campaign, please send or deposit some funds in the Rastafari Coop Affinity Account number 10134860 (MoBay Branch) at any Jamaica National in Jamaica.
For more information call Ras Astor Black, President of the Jamaica Alliance Movement at 876-421-4189
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