MARCH FOR PEACE

Residents in sev­er­al vio­lence rav­aged com­mu­ni­ties in West and East Kingston have marched recent­ly demand­ing a halt to the con­tin­ued vio­lence in their com­mu­ni­ties. Some crit­ics have been quick to dis­miss the march­es as incon­se­quen­tial and mean­ing­less. For decades res­i­dents in mul­ti­ple com­mu­ni­ties with­in the greater Kingston met­ro­pol­i­tan area, as well as Spanish Town and a few oth­er com­mu­ni­ties in Clarendon, have been vir­tu­al pris­on­ers in their com­mu­ni­ties. Communities like Arnett Gardens, Wilton Gardens, Tivoli Gardens, Dunkirk , Nannyville , and a host of oth­er com­mu­ni­ties built by both polit­i­cal par­ties and packed with their sup­port­ers have had to deal with cer­tain codes of con­duct ben­e­fi­cial to the Politician and the” Don”( local criminal-enforcer).

Over the years politi­cians who ini­tial­ly deliv­ered guns to under­priv­i­leged young men to ensure their hold on con­stituen­cy seats , have seen that con­trol evap­o­rate as monies from the drug-trade, extor­tion , the Lotto-scam, mur­der for hire and oth­er crimes super­seded what lit­tle monies they could dole out. Eventually rifts emerged between those crim­i­nal fac­tions. Empowered with semi-auto­mat­ic and auto­mat­ic weapons and a seem­ing­ly unend­ing sup­ply of ammu­ni­tion, com­mu­ni­ties found them­selves at war. War broke out between dif­fer­ent fac­tions on dif­fer­ent streets fight­ing over turf. That turf is gen­er­al­ly Extortion turf out­side their depressed com­mu­ni­ties. With politi­cians and antag­o­nist crim­i­nal sup­port­ing groups pro­vid­ing cov­er, the secu­ri­ty forces find them­selves fight­ing a los­ing bat­tle , stuck between gangs and their pro­tec­tors in Gordon House. After thou­sands of com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers killed over the last 30 years some res­i­dents are find­ing their voic­es and call­ing for a change. I say it is a step in the right direc­tion, march­ing is not a panacea, it is a beginning.

Residents have the pow­er to put a stop to the vio­lence by stand­ing up just as they allowed it to metas­ta­size by remain­ing silent. It will be a long slow plod back to tak­ing back some com­mu­ni­ties which have not oper­at­ed as parts of the greater Jamaican com­mu­ni­ty for decades. Some com­mu­ni­ties have been unof­fi­cial­ly dean­nexed ‚tak­ing their orders from local crim­i­nal enforcers.Generations have grown up with­in these com­mu­ni­ties hav­ing no con­cept of wrong or right, only cater­ing to their base instincts of sur­vival and loy­al acqui­esc­ing and obe­di­ence to the dic­tates of the Don and their polit­i­cal leaders.

Recently the Jamaica Public ser­vice com­pa­ny (JPS )dis­con­nect­ed elec­tri­cal con­nec­tions from their pow­er-lines in Arnett Gardens. These con­nec­tions facil­i­tat­ed the theft of elec­tri­cal pow­er from the com­pa­ny. Invariably that cost is passed on to the cap­tive pay­ing cus­tomers of the com­pa­ny. Residents of Arnett Gardens blocked the roads , dis­rupt­ing vehic­u­lar traf­fic to and from their com­mu­ni­ty , demand­ing that the com­pa­ny recon­nect the wires so they may con­tin­ue steal­ing elec­tric­i­ty. Marching will not solve Jamaica’s crime prob­lem , no more than the police beg­ging crim­i­nals not to com­mit crimes will. If how­ev­er, it sig­nals a reori­ent­ing and realign­ing of the peo­ple’s atten­tion , I am all for it . Jamaica is a beau­ti­ful coun­try made hor­ri­ble by it’s peo­ple. At some stage we will have to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for what we have done with that cov­et­ed lit­tle Island. From all appear­ances we have demon­strat­ed we are unable to prop­er­ly gov­ern ourselves.