Jamaica looks forward after violence

A street vendor who says he was caught in the crossfire during recent clashes shows his wounds

By Susan Candiotti
CNN Correspondent

KINGSTON, Jamaica (CNN) -- More than a week after bullets flew in and around Kingston, Jamaicans were wondering if the deadly violence could spark true reforms in a political system some say has been plagued with problems for decades.

At least 22 people were killed and 40 wounded in the violence that began July 8 during a police weapons sweep in a neighborhood considered a stronghold of government opposition groups.

Police said snipers fired first, launching the battle, but residents claimed it was the other way around and accused authorities of shooting indiscriminately into crowded residential areas. The Jamaican military moved in on July 10 to quell the disturbance.

Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson took to the national airwaves and announced -- under pressure from the opposition -- the formation of a commission of inquiry to look into the causes of the gun battles.

But many Jamaicans on both sides of the political fence are becoming increasingly weary of a situation that appears to be worsening.

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The latest trouble on the Caribbean island had been brewing for months -- the opposition Jamaica Labor Party was calling for an early election and gaining in the polls, ongoing investigations were going on too slowly for some and rival gang members had been gunned down in separate incidents.

Gang violence has plagued Jamaica for years. In the 1970s and 1980s, politicians used gangs as a powerful tool to drum up votes. When Jamaica became a trans-shipment point for drugs, gangs became linked to that lucrative trade.

Trampling tourism

Jamaica's long battle with political violence has complicated its effort to improve a struggling economy built, in part, on a lucrative tourism industry. Drawn to the island's inviting beaches and lush landscape, tourists bring in more than $2.5 billion per year.

But news of sniper attacks and the military patrolling the streets -- although confined mostly to the capital, Kingston, far from popular tourist attractions -- has image-makers worried.

"There are so many other things that Jamaica does well," said Patterson, "so many other positive facets of Jamaican life -- our music, our culture, our sports."

But the opposition charges that Patterson's ruling People's National Party government has failed to provide answers for poverty, unemployment and alleged police abuses -- according to Amnesty International, Jamaica has one of the world's highest rates of civilians killed by police.

Former Prime Minister Edward Seaga of the opposition Jamaica Labor Party, charges that Patterson's government incited the recent violence in order to flex its muscle and show it is still in command.

"It is a political device in the circumstances that the government has no other answers to put before the people for the forthcoming general elections," Seaga said.

Patterson, who has held the prime minister's office since 1992, categorically denies that the government fomented the recent gun battles, limited mainly to Kingston.

"It is my view that the police was reacting to the fire which they encountered from hostile forces and nothing less," he said.

No turning back

But long-standing hostility between government party loyalists and the opposition is palpable, particularly in well-defined neighborhoods around Kingston.

Bishop Herro Blair helped lead a recent prayer vigil to bring the warring factions together.

"I don't know how we have gotten to the place where we have divided our people to this end, where a mother can cross the road and her son can be on the other side and she cannot come down and talk to him," Blair said.

After touring the hardest-hit areas, private sector business leaders met with the prime minister amid talk of renewed efforts to work together.

"We'll be able to further develop a forum within which both political parties, the government party and the opposition party, can sit together and look at the fundamental issues ... to see if we can really develop a fundamental plan that deals with the infrastructural problems," said business leader Peter Moses.

Patterson has promised to carry out an ambitious urban renewal plan. He said he remains willing to work with the opposition despite increasing pressure for early elections that could put his leadership on the line.

"We have established levels of dialogue and contacts which have worked very well in the past," he told CNN.

The Jamaica Labor Party leader said that to him, the outlook for Jamaica is good -- despite the problems.

"This country has every reason to have a glowing future," he said.

Bishop Blair said there is no turning back.

"Civil society has said they can take it no more, the private sector has said we can take it no more, the tourism industry has said we can take it no more," he said. "I guarantee you that political leaders will have to listen this time."

Changes, many say, are long overdue.