World View: We have been here before (2001)

From the September 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

A look at what lies behind the recent protest and police killings in Jamaica

Jamaica, with a population of just over 2.5 million, has witnessed 550 murders and 75 killings by the police between January and the end of June this year. At least 40 people have died in the last three months.

The recent spate of killings began on Saturday evening, 7 July, after police searched homes for guns in the Tivoli Gardens district of Kingston. The police said that their officers came under attack from snipers and people throwing homemade bombs. Initially, two policemen were said to have been killed. On Monday, the Prime Minister, PJ Patterson, the leader of the People’s National Party, announced that he was calling out the whole of the island’s army, adding that he might seek reinforcements from neighbouring countries.

Troops in trucks and armoured cars, backed by helicopter gunships overhead, patrolled the streets of mainly the Tivoli Gardens and Denham Town, impoverished areas of west Kingston, strongholds of the opposition Labour Party, led by Edward Seaga, the local MP for almost 40 years. Within three days at least 20 people had been killed and 30 injured. Protesters blocked the roads with burned-out cars, while gunmen strafed some streets with automatic weapons. The violence, however, also spread to other areas.

Politics of violence

Patterson said that “the government cannot stand by and allow criminal elements to hold the country to ransom”. He denied that the confrontations were politically motivated. But Seaga, the leader of the Labour Party, said that the trouble had been deliberately instigated by Patterson and the People’s National Party in advance of next year’s planned elections. “This is a ploy to turn popular opinion against us,” he said. The Labour Party currently has a large lead in the opinion polls.

The police commissioner, Francis Forbes, denied any political motivation for the raids in west Kingston. And he hinted that the attacks on the police has been centrally organised. “There’s someone there who can turn it off,” he said. That there are criminal gangs, and that drugs are involved, no one denies. But, as Julian Borger observed in the Guardian (11 July), “Jamaica’s political parties have fought a proxy civil war through street gangs” over the past 30 years, adding that “gang violence is epidemic in Kingston, now one of the most violent cities in the world”. The Times (11 July) commented that “Jamaica’s two main political parties are blamed for helping to set up and arm rival gangs 30 years ago in poor neighbourhoods of Kingston”. Indeed, Patterson’s predecessor, Michael Manley, turned the Jamaican political system during the 1980 election into a low-level civil war, in which more than 700 people were killed. But the People’s National Party and the Jamaica Labour Party have not been the only villains of the piece.

American involvement

During the 1972 election campaign the United States ambassador, Vincent de Roulet, warned Manley not to make the US-owned bauxite industry a nationalisation issue, otherwise he would “oblige” the opposition Labour Party to take up the issue. Manley kept quiet. He had, however, upset the American government by supporting the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), which the United States government was attempting to destroy, and had established diplomatic relations with Cuba and the Soviet Union.

In December 1975 US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, arrived in Jamaica to “suggest” that unless Manley change his policies Jamaica’s request for a $100 million trade credit “would be reviewed”. The Jamaican Prime Minister chose not to toe the Kissinger line, and continued to support the Cuban army presence in Angola. The Americans moved into action. By 1976, prior to the election in Jamaica, the CIA station chief in Kingston, Norman Descoteaux, drew up a destabilisation programme. Covert shipments of arms were sent to the Jamaica Labour Party. In one shipment alone, which was aborted by the Manley government, there were 500 submachine guns. Pro-Labour gangs began to use such tactics as arson, bombing and assassinations. And a wave of strikes in the transport, electrical and telephone industries hit the island, provoked largely by the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD), the CIA’s principle labour “front” in Latin America and the Caribbean. The AIFLD also provided covert financial support the Labour Party, as well as infiltrating the Jamaican government’s security service.

Propagandists also arrived from the United States, including evangelists and faith healers, preaching against the “evils of communism”. Locally, the Daily Gleaner poured out a stream of anti-Manley propaganda, who, in the October 1980 elections, was defeated mainly due to the continuing deterioration in the standard of living of the workers, but, in no short measure, due to the intervention by the United States.

Problems for the Jamaican working class did not, however, begin in 1980 or 1975. Writing in 1969 (World Socialism 69), George Dolphy, a member of the then Kingston socialist group, stated that while 20,000 kids leave school every year, it was estimated that there were 150,000 unemployed on the island. Factories were closing, and the sugar industry, one of the chief users of labour, was in decline. Moreover, an emerging Black Power movement was preaching violence, particularly against “Chinese and people of a fair complexion”. He concluded: “The situation in undeveloped countries like Jamaica is tense, changing, and difficult to forecast. One thing is certain: their development need not be a transition period as often believed, but can be a permanent state. Looking around, the task that faces a socialist seems overwhelming. With communication so advanced, however, who can tell how people will react to events throughout the developed world? The restriction and waste of capitalism will become obvious to them. Spreading socialist knowledge may not be so difficult after this.”

In Jamaica, as elsewhere? We hope so.

Peter E. Newell

Jamaica: Politics, race, and unemployment (1969)

From World Socialism '69

With the retirement of Norman Manley as leader of the People's National Party (PNP) Jamaica is now entering a new era in political activity. Both founding leaders, Bustamente and Manley, are now out of the way. The arena is dominated by Hugh Shearer, the present Prime Minister, for the Labour Party and Michael Manley, Manley's son, for the PNP.

The PNP have in the past expressed their support for 'Socialism' in the form of nationalisation of all the major essential services, electricity, and transport. Young Manley however made no reference to Socialism in his acceptance speech. In fact he gave no clear indication as to how the party stood, preferring to build his speech around popular phrases like 'social justice' and 'human rights'. Mindful perhaps of constant comment that the very word 'Socialism' is outdated in today's world, the new leader never mentioned it once—quite in contrast to his father's acceptance address 25 years ago. False Socialism has lost its vote appeal. Real socialists will not be displeased with this.

The motto of Jamaica is 'Out of Many One People'. Our leaders never cease telling the world that we are a model country for racial tolerance. All this has been taking a beating lately, as one of the first things a tourist is told on landing here is: "Don't leave your hotel at night, it is not safe." Early in October of last year a university lecturer from Guyana was barred from re-entering the country after attending a black writers' conference in Canada. He was accused of preaching violence and therefore being a security risk. A protest march organised by students was broken up forcibly by the police. That same night various buildings were burnt and looted. Over ten buses were also destroyed by fire. These violent acts are said to be an expression of Black Power. Chinese and people of fair complexion are the chief target. Not only American and English societies can give rise to Black Power. Here is an independent country with 90 per cent black population, under black leadership, calling for Black Power!

The misrepresentation of what independence meant has now given rise to widespread frustration. Over 20,000 kids leave school every year and enter the labour market and the last estimate put the unemployment figure at 150,000. The hopes expressed that industry would absorb the unemployment have not materialised. Factory after factory has been built employing only a menial amount of labour. The sugar industry, one of the chief users of labour, is now pressuring the government to mechanise. The decline of sugar prices on the world market makes a ton of sugar cost more to produce than it will fetch. Without the preferential agreement with Britain the industry would have folded up already. Some of the smaller factories have ceased operating. The government's dilemma is the putting out of work of thousands of unskilled workers or the slow death of the industry.

The situation in undeveloped countries like Jamaica is tense, changing, and difficult to forecast. One thing is certain: their undevelopment need not be a transition period as often believed, but can be a permanent state. Looking around, the task that faces a socialist seems overwhelming. With communication and waste of capitalism will become obvious to them. Spreading socialist knowledge may not be so difficult after this.

George Dolphy

Kingston, Jamaica.

Letter from Jamaica (1979)

From the January 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

Jamaica is at a cross road in political development. Just two years after since Manley's massive victory at the polls, the political atmosphere here is tense. Can his government last out its allocated five years? This is the kind of question many people are asking; the majority who ask don't think they can.

In 1974 Manley declared himself and his party 'democratic socialist.' Overnight socialism became a household word, particularly it became the language of the suffering poor. The speeches poured out from government ministers on their "socialist" policies. land distribution, setting up of cooperatives, establishment of food farms, passing a minimum wage law, ownership of the Bauxite industry, and various other reforms.

Since 1976 there have been widespread layoffs, swelling the ranks of the unemployed to something approaching 40 per cent of the work force. There has also been an increased exodus of skilled people, and capital, although the Government have set up an elaborate intelligence unit to prevent this. Foreign exchange is scare, resulting in constant shortages of essential items and a flourishing black market. To speak of "high" prices in Jamaica today is a polite understatement.

On the political front the main opposition party, the Jamaican Labour Party, has been very active. They have to be, seeing that there are so many issues. Their main contention however is their consistent stand for Electoral Reform. They have boycotted all by-elections since local government elections in early 1977, and have recently threatened to start a campaign of civil disobedience to dramatise their position. The JLP claim that they were robbed of victory in the 1976 general election by a massive, island wide, campaign of bogus voting. At present a commission is investigating government corruption, and the opposition is hoping to prove that the government used the state of emergency they imposed in June 1976 to lock up key opposition members thus causing their election defeat.

Violence, and violent crime, is very much a part of the Jamaican scene now. There is a dangerous army of gunmen who carry out daring heists anywhere that money is handled. Shoot-outs between cops and robbers have sent scores of youth on both sides to an early grave. Young people have learned their lesson well in this Caribbean paradise. If you don't have anything you are nothing. They are out to get something whatever the price, one way or another.

Jamaicans, like workers all over the world, take politicians too seriously and pay little interest to politics itself.

George Dolphy