“…thirst and blood…”

I hope and pray that he also appreciates it as fact that, the death penalty is the premeditated and cold-blooded killing of a human being by the state; that this cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment is done in the name of justice; and that it violates the right to life as proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Now this prayer for yinna: Lord, fill us anew with your Spirit that we might bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, let the oppressed go free, and proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. Let us be your hands and your feet in the work of establishing your kingdom on earth.

I also pray daily for the Minister of National Security as he ponders putting pen to paper in order to have someone killed.

I also pray for the Rt. Hon. Hubert Alexander Ingraham.

Take note for what it is worth that I am fairly certain that this good brother is – like me – quite opposed to killing people.

Yet I pray.

As fate would have it, this Thursday past I had the good fortune of stumbling into this nation’s current Minister of National Security.

It happened this wise; I found myself as he did at Holy Trinity in Stapledon Gardens because I had a scheduled event at that facility and so did he.

In other words, our schedules collided and then I knew that this is precisely the kind of risk you run in a small nasty place like this – you can run into a Minister of National Security as he smiles for the ten thousandth time with unknown x-person after the other.

And for sure, little do some of the x-people know that they are nothing but x’s in a nasty little place like this.

I saw the wonderful Minister with the smile and as he turned my way, his smile turned into a scowl most sublime.

Thank God, I am not an ‘x’ in that man’s world.

But as night follows day, I am today convinced that Minister Turnquest is dead-set on seeing to it that some doomed man on death is killed.

Once the dude in question is duly packaged and told some platitudes by another blood-thirsty dude, the deed would have been done.

And once the bloody deed would have been done, no one in the bloody media will have the gumption to report that the murder count has risen.

The murder count will rise if only by that one.

As it does, some of my high society friends would be left with blood on their dirty hands.

Lord have mercy on them now and at the hour of their one after the other deaths.

Christ have mercy on yinna.

And for sure, to be fair to those who are currently busying themselves with plans to kill, I am convinced that most of these people are troubled beyond measure.

I also believe that some of these people are themselves victims of god-awful abuse – and thus they have become exemplars of the abuse and scorn they once experienced; thus the frothing call for more abuse.

In other words, they know violence and so they preach violence. And so, some of those folk whose ancestors were once lynched, now call out for more lynching.

This is the paradox.

I can also tell you that, this Monday past I walked about some of the streets in this town, doing so to catch – as it were – some gap-seed concerning this business about hanging.

I was not disappointed.

About two to three hundred sad and angry people were out there, with some of them hopping and jumping to the music, letting everyone know that they wanted justice.

Some of them were quite clear as to what they wanted – they wanted the taste of blood.

As I watched the spectacle, I imagined what some of them would have said had they been given the right dose of encouragement:

What do they want? We want blood, they cried.

When do you want it, the Bethel-man asked? As if they were one being knitted and knotted together in hate, the mob bleated, Yes Mr. Bethel, we want blood and we want it now!

And then the man with the question about the blood inquired, how much blood do you need?

In unison – as if they were but one being – the angry crowd bellowed brayed out the scorn-filled words, we need a river of blood/ and for sure, the blood should be hot and then preferably shed in the coldest of blood?

A river, the man begged to know?

And the crowd roared, yes sir! Send us a river full of the red, red stuff!

And as he strained to know why this Bahamian crew needed so much of that stuff, one of the youngest confessed the truth, "Yes Sir, we need a river of blood, because – as you can see and hear – we is Bahamians: the more the merrier and just for that, let it be known that, "We need so much because we is thirsty."

And so, it came to be that I heard with my own two big eyes the dread words: we need blood!

I suspect that these people will get their chance to swill and chill on the blood of one dude or the other, soon and very soon!

But please believe me when I say that, I hope and pray that those high ones in the state apparatus appreciate there can and might well come a day when all who kill would be obliged – by force of law – to answer for their crimes.

As for me and Amnesty International and hundreds of millions of other people around the world, let it be known that we oppose the death penalty in all cases without exception regardless of the nature of the crime, the characteristics of the offender, or the method used by the state to kill the prisoner.

Take note of the fact that, "Today, among Western democratic nations, only the United States imposes the death penalty. The rest of the world continues to move toward abolition, with more than three countries a year abolishing the death penalty for all crimes during the past decade. Out of 195 nations, 111 have abolished the death penalty in law or practice…"

Amnesty International tells me that, "…Capital punishment is retained in 87 countries and territories (2001), including the USA (38 states), China, and Islamic countries. Methods of execution include electrocution, lethal gas, hanging, shooting, lethal injection, garrotting, and decapitation. It was abolished in the UK in 1965 for all crimes except treason and piracy, and in 1998 it was entirely abolished in the UK.

Amnesty International tells me that," Capital punishment is a hotly contested issue. Those opposed to it argue that it constitutes a cruel and unusual punishment, is inconsistent with fundamental democratic and civilized values, is as immoral as murder, is discriminatory because most of those executed, at least in the USA, are black and poor, that it is expensive, since it burdens the criminal justice system with lengthy appeals, that it does not deter crime, and that innocent people will be put to death."

None of this resonates with the high and mighty ones who are today dead-set on killing some dude or the other on death-row.

This is sad.

This is so dreadfully regrettable and for sure, it is also so very wrong.

But even now in this dread hour when Death gets set to take its seat on the backs of some who lead – I pray.