“The point is precisely because the dogs aren’t sleeping – their legacy is wide awake, shaping the present and threatening the future. Ignoring Edward Seaga’s actions and their consequences isn’t neutrality; it’s an active choice to perpetuate injustice. Here’s why confronting this past is essential now:

1. The Damage is CURRENT: The “Reagan-backed plantation-style economy” Seaga implemented – an exclusionary tourism model prioritizing foreign interests over Jamaican citizens – wasn’t just a 1980s policy. Its structural inequalities persist today, limiting opportunity and deepening social divides for ordinary Jamaicans. You cannot fix a broken system without understanding how and whyit was built.
2. The Pattern Repeats: Failing to hold powerful figures accountable for documented betrayal (like collaborating with a foreign intelligence agency to manufacture food shortages and violence) sets a dangerous precedent. It signals that such tactics – undermining democracy, exploiting crisis – can be used without consequence. Unaddressed past treachery invites future treachery.

1. Truth is Foundational for Justice & Healing: How can Jamaica build a truly inclusive, self-determined future if a foundational chapter – where an outsider leader conspired with a foreign power to cripple the nation and then imposed an exclusionary economic model – remains obscured or denied? Acknowledging the full truth, as revealed in files like those on JFK, MLK, Malcolm X, and as testified by Philip Agee regarding Seaga, is the first step towards genuine national healing and preventing recurrence.
   
   
2. “Saviors” Built on Lies Must Be Exposed: Seaga positioned himself as the solution to a crisis he helped create through CIA weapon smuggling and destabilization. Allowing such manipulative narratives to stand unchallenged in history corrupts our understanding of power and leadership. It teaches the wrong lesson: that creating chaos to then “solve” it is a viable path to power and praise.
3. The Files Demand It: The State Department’s release of files isn’t an academic exercise. It’s an implicit call to re-examine history with new evidence. Ignoring the revelations about Seaga’s role while demanding transparency for others like JFK or MLK is selective justice. Accountability must be consistent.

Confronting Seaga’s past – his CIA collaboration to destabilize Jamaica (1976-1980), the manufactured suffering, and the harmful economic legacy he imposed – isn’t about dwelling in the past. It’s a vital act of:

• Diagnosing the Present: Understanding the roots of current inequality and exclusion.
• Immunizing the Future: Ensuring such betrayals and manipulative power grabs are recognized and resisted.
• Affirming National Sovereignty: Rejecting the legacy of foreign interference and leaders who served external masters over their own people.
• Delivering Delayed Justice: For the victims of the violence and deprivation knowingly caused.

The past isn’t sleeping if its injustices still walk among us. To build a just future, we must finally adjust our understanding of this pivotal, painful failure. Silence perpetuates the plantation.”