Jamaica election brings wave of violence

Press, 1 September 1980, Page 18

Jamaica election brings wave of violence

By

STEPHEN COOK

in Kingston, Jamaica,

for the “Guardian,” London

The body of a young man, bound hand and foot with wire, and mutilated by knives and bullets, was found dumped on a street corner in a Kingston slum last month. A day later, a policeman was shot and killed and his gun stolen while he sat in a bar. As the elections approach in October, violence and terrorism have become the permanent preoccupation of the 70,000 citizens of this, hot and unruly city. Soldiers and police point their guns at crowded pavements from their Toyota land cruisers; helicopters rattle overhead at night, shining searchlights into dark- side streets; gunfire sometimes wakes you in the small hours. Night life has dwindled, with two cinemas closing this week for lack of business. Tourists, thinking mistakenly that the whole island is ablaze, have reduced bookings. The overnight death count on the morning radio can be as high as 10. When the crime was at its worst whole households were being wiped out by killers with machine guns and Molotov cocktails.

Michael Manley, the Prime Minister was shot at in his own constituency of Kingston East Central, and Mr Hugh Shearer, a former Prime Minister and now a prominent Opposition leader was injured by a fishing

harpoon fired through the windscreen of his car in a north coast town.

In July the Jamaican Council of Churches persuaded Mr Manley and the principal Opposition leader, Mr Edward Seaga, to make d joint declaration condemning the violence. They pledged to hand over to the security forces any of their supporters found taking part in it. A curfew was imposed on parts of Kingston and joint surveillance by the police and the Jamaican Defence Force was increased.

To begin with, there were fewer killings. More people were arrested and more guns were found. There was a definite lull when Hurricane Allen grazed the island and absorbed people’s attention. But now the burning and killing is rising again. Last month the security forces set up a confidential telephone system for people to inform on criminals, and the newspapers have given space for horrific advertisements picturing dead bodies. The violence could get worse when the three-week election period is formally announced.

For in Jamaica, “ortho-, dox” crime apd politically motivated violence is closely linked, with one feeding on the other. Poverty-stricken criminals acquire guns for organised political in-

timidation, and use them later on for straightforward armed robbery. There is a permanent shooting war in the slums between the gangs and the police — though the police are not necessarily identified with either political party. The sheer volume of circumstantial . evidence has forced the political leaders to admit that their supporters are involved, but they dodge responsibility by saying people at local level are getting carried away. This week a man arrested in a constituency office of Mr R. Seaga’s Right-wing -Jamaica Labour Party was found in possession of a gun stolen from a policeman killed on duty last year. The tales still linger of the- Government minister who was uncomfortably associated with the illegal import of a huge consignment of cartridges.

Violence in Jamaica is not new, but it has grown in intensity in the past decade. The sinister, barbed-wire-en-cased Gun Court, which gives out sentences up to life imprisonment in closed trials for the mere possession of guns and ammunition, was set up as long 1 ago as 1974. When politics. are in the air, especially in the four hothouse urban constituencies in and around Kingston, they mix with the endemic violence to give a tribal intensity to the. rivalry between supporters of Mr

Manley’s People’s National Party and those of Mr Seaga’s Jamaica Labour Party. • : '

This time . things look worse than in 1976, when the election was fought during a State of Emergency with many J.L.P. candidates detained. The last eight years have seen a. growing divergence between the two trade union-based, mass parties whose principal difference once lay in the personal mythologies of their leaders. The country now suffers great economic hardship, with a foreign exchange shortage restricting imports of esential goods. The ruling P.N.P., increasingly influenced by young radicals, has become a progressive socialist party, identified with Third World aspirations and black pride, willing to look to both Western . and ... Communist countries for help in Jamaica’s development. The J.L.P., though still a people’s party, is conservative, anti - Communist, and set. on trying to develop the country by co-operation with international Western capitalism. The nature of this party conflict is seen to be so vital in geopolitical- , terms that both the United States and Cuba are taking a pressing and de-stabilising interest in. current events in . Jamaica. . .

One man, who makes a living hustling and dealing in drugs in downtown Kingston, claims to know exactly

how the violence is organised. “They want the other side out of their patch. Right?,” he said to me. "They know who doesn’t mind, killing, they get them

along, give them an envelope with money and the names and where to get the gun, and they stay clean. Right? Smart fellows, them politicians.” •