Jamaica’s Gangs :

This is the sec­ond blog we have post­ed on the sub­ject of Gangs oper­at­ing in Jamaica.

Recently the Jamaica Gleaner wrote a series of Editorials titled (Gangs of Parliament) these Editorials evoked pas­sions on both sides of the issue, some felt the label was too harsh to be assigned to those charged with run­ning the affairs of our coun­try. They argue those char­ac­ter­i­za­tions are dis­re­spect­ful, and does noth­ing to enhance Jamaica’s stand­ing in the world.

Others on the oth­er side of the issue argue the labels are appro­pri­ate , as our politi­cians are less than scrupu­lous, to the point some are active­ly involved in crim­i­nal activ­i­ty. There are oth­ers who feel the Editorials were one-sided, slant­ed against the Governing Jamaica Labor Party of Prime Minister Bruce Golding. The Gleaner argued they were mere­ly report­ing on what was made pub­lic in the wiki leaks cables that were revealed for pub­lic con­sump­tion. I believe the truth lies some­where in the middle.

The cables revealed infor­ma­tion on goings on in both polit­i­cal par­ties. Understandably the JLP is in Government and as such has more to answer to. In the end it seem of lit­tle impor­tance whether the report­ing was fair, as there is more than ample dirt to be unerthed in both of the two polit­i­cal parties.

Jamaica’s polit­i­cal par­ties have been asso­ci­at­ed with crim­i­nal­i­ty since Independence. Scarce resources have been allo­cat­ed to patrons in all of the com­mu­ni­ties we now refer to as gar­risons, Wilton Gardens, Tavares Gardens, Arnett Gardens, Tivoli Gardens, Thawes Pen McIntyre vil­las, and the list goes on. All of those com­mu­ni­ties were cre­at­ed using ger­ry­man­der­ing, cit­i­zens loy­al to one par­ty were amassed into com­mu­ni­ties depend­ing on their polit­i­cal loy­al­ties , those on the fence forced out or killed. The result, exclu­sive zones with clear lines of demar­ca­tion, the breach­ing of which usu­al­ly result in instant death. It is a well know fact Jamaica’s politi­cians of both par­ties have sup­plied guns ammu­ni­tion and mon­ey to enforcers to main­tain con­trol of these zones of exclusion.

Tax pay­ing Jamaicans have long shoul­dered the bur­den of pay­ing back the monies suc­ces­sive Governments of both par­ties have bor­rowed from every source imag­in­able , only to squan­der those resources on pork bar­rel projects run by their crim­i­nal hench­men. Every young boy grow­ing up in Jamaica must be famil­iar with tales of the glo­ri­fied exploits of crim­i­nals like Burry boy, Claudie Massop, Bya Mitchell, Jim Brown, Chubby dread , a string of oth­ers and the lat­est, and prob­a­bly the most influ­en­tial Christopher (dudus) Coke.

These men did not cre­ate them­selves, despite how we feel about them, they were very much vic­tims of the polit­i­cal Serengeti that was cre­at­ed by Norman Manley and Bustamante, broth­ers against broth­ers if they dared to have dif­fer­ing polit­i­cal views. This trend was con­tin­ued and esca­lat­ed into seri­ous blood­bath with the likes of DK Duncan, Anthony Spalding, Edward Seaga,Ferdie Yap Sam, Carl Thompson, Trevor Munroe, Bruce Golding, Roy McGann, Leslie Lloyd and a long line of others.

The peri­od of the sev­en­ties saw one of the dark­est peri­ods of polit­i­cal trib­al­ism in the his­to­ry of Jamaica, under the stew­ard­ship of the late Michael Manley. This cul­mi­nat­ed with the death of a report­ed 800 peo­ple in the elec­tions held that year between the PNP led by Michael Manley, and the JLP’s Edward Seaga. Manley was uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly boot­ed from office tak­ing with him his brand of demo­c­ra­t­ic social­ism, some refer to as a soft form of communism.

The truth is, peo­ple vot­ed for their stom­achs, super­mar­ket shelves had become bare, basic sta­ples were either unavail­able or mar­ried to oth­er goods poor con­sumers did not want and cer­tain­ly could not afford.Richer Jamaicans had long opt­ed for one of the five flights a day Manley ref­ered them to on Air Jamaica. When the final votes were count­ed the PNP were left with 9 seats out of a pos­si­ble 60 in the House of Parliament. Many argue vehe­ment­ly that Seaga and the American cen­tral Intelligence Agency col­lud­ed to desta­bi­lize the Manley régime. True though that may have been, Manley had set a course that was a sure crash and burn for him and the country.

I dust around the edges with a view to giv­ing you a brief syn­op­sis of the rea­son we are where we are. 

When we vis­it the sub­ject of crim­i­nal gangs in Jamaica we see there is hard­ly any dif­fer­ence between those in Parliament and those who run the gar­risons with an iron fist, dis­pens­ing jun­gle jus­tice, han­dling scarce resources, and deliv­er­ing the votes.

That is called main­tain­ing the order.

Events in Tivoli gar­dens last May must have left some peo­ple befud­dled at the behav­ior of the cit­i­zens of that com­mu­ni­ty. After all most of us are law abid­ing peo­ple who call the police when we have a prob­lem, we look to the gov­ern­ment to admin­is­ter to our needs vis a vis deliv­ery of ser­vice, police, edu­ca­tion, health, fire etc these ser­vices we expect because we pay tax­es. We find res­i­dents of Tivoli strange, and even repug­nant, how­ev­er how many of us stop to think that they have nev­er known any oth­er way but the con­densed order under which they live their lives . A coun­try with­in a coun­try. Where every­thing is han­dled with­in a struc­ture , a Governmental struc­ture, one that is bet­ter and more effi­cient than the one we pay tax­es for but nev­er recieves. Is it any won­der that res­i­dents of those com­mu­ni­ty who have nev­er known any oth­er way, fight to main­tain the order they know, and swear on their lives that they would die for the man that main­tained that order?

There are some who are some­how put off when their politi­cians are clas­si­fied as gang­sters. We all know they were the first to intro­duce guns into our polit­i­cal dis­course. We know they are the ones that built, pop­u­lat­ed, and main­tained the zones of polit­i­cal exclu­sions known as Garrisons. We are aware they paid young impres­sion­able young men to steal and stuff bal­lot box­es, intim­i­date vot­ers to vote for them and burn the homes and kill those who do not abide by the order.

We see them on polit­i­cal plat­forms with alleged mur­der­ers, we hear them con­fess to hav­ing done things they were not proud of.( Political speak for issu­ing guns and ammu­ni­tion). If we know that they do these things to main­tain con­trol of con­stituen­cies, irre­spec­tive of the wish­es of the elec­tors with­in those con­stituen­cies, how then can we main­tain they are not gangs?

The answer lies in our post colo­nial men­tal­i­ty. As slaves we looked up to the slave mas­ter, even though he rep­re­sent­ed every­thing that was detri­men­tal to our well being. we admired his hair , col­or, clothes, women, we even believed when he told us we are infe­ri­or to him because of the col­or of our skin . Today our peo­ple are still bleach­ing to look like.…. Well who knows what they are try­ing to look like.

I recall the time P J Patterson was up for ascen­den­cy to the Prime Minister’s job, an elder­ly lady said to me “look pan im wan tun prime min­is­ter, an dont even hav likkle col­or”,. That elder­ly lady’s views rep­re­sent­ed what we are still grap­pling with today.

Black guys wear­ing suits, with huge homes in upper St. Andrew and a lit­tle edu­ca­tion has replaced the wealthy whites that owned all the lands and were the great grand sons of slave hold­ers. Education , drugs, and pol­i­tics have made a small group of reg­u­lar blacks very rich and powerful.

With all of the afore­men­tioned said, if the hap­less Police are to elim­i­nate gangs, how do they pro­pose to do so? The police Chief Owen Ellington ear­li­er demand­ed that his com­man­ders present him with plans to elim­i­nate gangs in their sphere of com­mand in a mat­ter of months.

What Ellington in his naiveté’ demand­ed from those men, most of whom for the most part have no clue how to break up a fight, is tan­ta­mount to giv­ing them bas­kets to emp­ty the Rio Cobre.

Great cops, like Cornwall (Bigga) Ford, tough street cops, who know crim­i­nals, where they hide, and how to rout them, still can­not win this fight.

Despite the exper­tise of peo­ple like Ford and a cou­ple oth­ers, most have no clue how to do this. However that is not the rea­son they can­not win. If Gangs like One Order, Clans man and oth­ers are to be effec­tive­ly erad­i­cat­ed police actions must be pre­ced­ed by leg­isla­tive action. How can we expect effec­tive leg­isla­tive action when the Legislators are them­selves part of the gangs, or are influ­enced by anti police forces in the country?

Unless Gangs are pros­e­cut­ed as an enti­ty, and all of the par­tic­i­pants sent away for life as a unit , there can be no real dent in their activities.

Arresting one mem­ber, whether he is the leader or oth­er­wise, does absolute­ly noth­ing to deter , or stop their activ­i­ties. If any­thing what it does is show the gap­ing hole in politi­cians abil­i­ty to do any­thing mean­ing­ful to stop them, as if they want­ed to.

In most cas­es they are able to car­ry out their roles as lead­ers from behind bars with the help of dirty prison officials.

One of the polit­i­cal par­ties has nev­er seen a piece of pro-police leg­is­la­tion the entire par­ty did not oppose. Claiming it abus­es human rights. After all their entire sup­port seem to come from gar­risons and the most depressed com­mu­ni­ties in the coun­try, essen­tial­ly the peo­ple who drink the cool-aid about their right to receive gov­ern­ment hand­outs. People who put their stock in Government giv­ing them hand-outs can­not achieve their true poten­tial. That suits that par­ty just fine.

So as the blood runs, make no mis­take about the true nature of the pol­i­tics . If they want to stop the blood let­ting they can do so over a peri­od of 2 years. That means putting in place mean­ing­ful leg­is­la­tion that will put crim­i­nals where they belong. no one thing is a panacea , this one how­ev­er, is a damn good place to start. Do not give the peo­ple false hopes about quick police fix­es, that has as much of a chance as a snow-ball in hell of succeeding.

mike beck­les:

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