POLITICS-JAMAICA: Violence Persists Despite Peace Talks

By Zadie Neufville Reprint | | Print |

Zadie Neufville

KINGSTON, Aug 21 2001 (IPS) - Fifteen more people have been killed in violent incidents, some of them politically linked, despite an agreement between the ruling and opposition parties to work for peace.

Indeed, the country’s police commissioner and Edward Seaga, the main opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) chief, appear to have different recollections of what was agreed in talks between Seaga and Prime Minister PJ Patterson, of the People’s National Party (PNP).

Seaga said the sides had agreed to a police cordon in a small area, known as “no man’s land”, separating PNP and JLP factions in the ganglands of West Kingston. But Police Commissioner Francis Forbes said the deal was to step up police presence and joint patrols with the military, adding that there were no killings over the weekend in the area patrolled.

Despite the renewed violence and confusion about what has been agreed, both the government and opposition say they remain committed to the peace process brokered by the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ). This was affirmed in separate radio interviews by Seaga and Peter Phillips, a government minister and PNP vice president.

Seaga and Forbes agreed that the latest deaths took place outside the main trouble spots. Nevertheless, Seaga assailed the police for failing to establish a secure buffer between the warring factions in the Rema and Denham Town areas of Kingston. Forbes responded that Seaga’s request for a security post between the communities would endanger the lives of his officers.

“It is what we call no-man’s land. There are no buildings and we would have to use tents. The men in Rema have a vantage point from the high rise buildings there and (on) the other side are the houses from Denham Town”, Forbes said.

During Friday’s talks, both parties agreed to establish an anti- crime task force and to re-appoint an ombudsman with responsibility to oversee the conduct of political discourse.

In addition, the talks, which Seaga described as “frank discussions”, yielded agreement to set up bipartisan committees to deal with the economic and social development of West Kingston and to promote professionalism within the police force. The latter point was a make-or-break issue for Seaga.

“We agreed to a review of the role and composition of the Police Services Commission. To me this is at the heart of the question as to whether the force can be a professional one or not,” Seaga said after the meeting.

He contended that fairness and professionalism were impossible, particularly in investigating alleged police abuses, so long as the commission’s members are solely appointed by the prime minister.

Patterson and Seaga also vowed to support community-level talks between PNP area leader Paul Burke and his JLP counterpart, Desmond McKenzie. The two local politicians held talks with community leaders last week and, sources said, have begun efforts to bring local crime bosses, known as ‘Dons’, to the treaty table.

Few consider a durable peace possible unless it involves the Dons, who – with their command of local gangs and use of patronage – are widely acknowledged to have supplanted the police and politicians within their communities.

Peter Moses, the embattled PSOJ president who mediated Friday’s talks between Patterson and Seaga, said another meeting is planned in four weeks to follow up on the work of the appointed committees.

Moses defended a decision to exclude civic leaders from Friday’s talks, saying this had been necessary to keep the leaders talking to one another despite deep distrust between their parties.

Non-governmental groups including Jamaicans for Justice had expressed disappointment over their exclusion from the talks but civic groups are expected to form part of the seven-member commission charged with examining the role and composition of the police force. This commission will be co-chaired by Keith Knight, the national security and justice minister, and Derrick Smith, the JLP spokesman on national security.

Political and gang violence have claimed more than 71 lives since May. The year’s worst gun battles erupted in the West Kingston ganglands last month, killing 28 people in three days. Police said they had been sniped at while searching for illegal weapons in Seaga’s stronghold of Tivoli Gardens but the JLP leader accused them of precipitating the trouble by invading the neighbourhood under false pretexts.