By Zadie Neufville
KINGSTON, Jul 17 2001 (IPS)

The guns have been silenced but the questions are deafening.

Prime Minister PJ Patterson is launching an investigation into last week’s civil violence, which left 25 people dead. His commission of enquiry is expected to delve into the causes and circumstances of the gun battle between security forces and gunmen in this city’s troubled west and come up with ways of dealing with criminal gangs.

“Jamaica and the whole world must know exactly what transpired,” Patterson says.

However, the questions now emerging in political circles, civil society and the media go far beyond the specifics of last week’s events. They strike at the heart of Jamaica’s political system and reveal a shared conviction that the country’s political leaders hold the key to change in communities where poverty, politics, and crime have long combined to wreak devastating violence.

“Politicians can’t deny their connection with criminals,” says Anthony Johnson, a former Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) parliamentarian turned radio talk-show host. “Now they have a last chance in history to deal with the inter-connection between political parties and the gangs.”

Hyacinth Bennet, leader of the National Democratic Movement, a breakaway faction of the JLP, accuses both that party, which leads the opposition, and the governing People’s National Party (PNP) of using violence to hold onto or win power without regard for the consequences. “The police has been expected to clean up the mess (that political parties) created in their desperation to hold on to power,” she says.

And sociologist Lechim Semaj says politicians have exploited “cracks” in the Jamaican social psyche, adding: “It’s the nature of Jamaicans to follow, regardless of where it leads.”

Civic groups are anxious that political leaders now lead their followers away from sectarian street fighting. Business leaders, for example are brokering meetings between Patterson and Edward Seaga, the opposition leader and JLP chief. Only dialogue betweent the two can stop the flight of private sector talent, says Clarence Clarke, president of the Jamaica Manufacturers Association.

Neither side, however, has relented in accusing the other of political motives in last week’s violence, which began in Seaga’s stronghold of Tivoli Gardens.

Seaga, some 20 points ahead of Patterson in public opinion polls and free of the infighting that has plagued the JLP in the past, kicked off his election campaign at the beginning of the year and is pushing for an early vote. His party recently picked up two additional parliamentary seats, one by winning a by-election and the other by successfully challenging in court a disputed election result, but fears losing its lead in the polls if Patterson manages to sustain a nascent economic recovery.

The elections are due by December 2002. Police officials say they entered Tivoli Gardens Jul 7 to search for and seize illegal weapons and were fired upon by snipers. Seaga accused them of invading his stronghold and firing indiscriminately in pursuit of a government “hidden agenda”. Media commentators mused that Seaga may have instigated the fighting in a bid to force a snap election.

Whatever the specific circumstances this time around, JLP parliamentarian Mike Henry says, the underlying problem is rooted in history. After independence from Britain in 1962, the major political parties emerged from violent confrontation between labour unions and eventually forged close ties to criminal gangs even as they perpetuated their historical ties to the rival workers’ organisations.

In some respects, the gangs are clear-cut examples of criminal enterprise: they run guns and drugs and operate prostitution rings, for example. But they also have become community establishments, distributing patronage and mobilising blocs of voters in support of one political party or another.

Politicians are seen at the funerals of gang leaders, or “Dons”, often reviled as criminals by the well-to-do but deified as providers of jobs and welfare in the inner-city communities over which they preside.

Political leaders will admit to the presence of gunmen in their constituencies but deny any affiliation between gangs and their parties.

The latest politicians to offer such disavowals include Patterson, Security and Justice Minister KD Knight, Foreign Minister Paul Robertson, Finance Minister Omar Davies, Information Minister Maxine Henry-Wilson, JLP health spokesman Kenneth Baugh – and even Henry, despite his references to political history.

Many politicians as well as religious and business leaders say peace will only come with improvements in inner-city living conditions. That will be no easy task. For one thing, the communities are largely a mystery to official planners. Each neighbourhood is guarded jealously by gangs and politicians accustomed to monopolising local votes. Henry notes that few in the inner city even take part in national censuses and says he believes that, as a result, as many as half a million Jamaicans may be unaccounted for.

While new initiatives to tackle poverty and squalor remain to be launched, officials are intent on quashing further violence. Knight, the security and justice minister, is seeking help from British police and counter-terrorism experts and police have drawn up a shopping list of equipment they say they need to fight back against the better-armed gangs.

“We recover about 500 guns a year and we are finding guns we don’t know the names of,” says Inspector Neville Knight.

Commissioner Francis Forbes, with backing from Patterson, says security forces will continue to gather intelligence on, and seek to seize, illegal weapons wherever they may be.

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