Peppapot.com, September 16, 2006
No one seems to know where the weapons came from. Some of them might have been from former U.S. stockpiles in Vietnam. Hundreds might have been smuggled into the country by Cuba's ambassador. Many of them were probably bought through the black market. Wherever they were from, the M16 assault rifles made the 1980 elections the bloodiest in the nation's history. Violence had long been a part of Jamaican politics, but in 1980 it reached unprecedented levels, with over 800 people killed. As former Prime Minister Michael Manley explained in his memoir, Jamaica: Struggle on the Periphery, "Up to 1976, the .365 Magnum was the deadliest weapon in common use in the political battle. It certainly was deadly enough! The 1980 campaign was to be dominated by the M16 rifle... Their rapid-fire chatter became like a theme song of the campaign. The whole period was an extended nightmare from which, it seemed, we would never awaken."
The election featured Manley and his incumbent, left-leaning People's National Party (PNP) squaring off against the rightwing Jamaican Labour Party (JLP) led by Edward Seaga. For years both parties had been linked to the gangs and armed thugs fighting turf battles in Kingston's yards. During election years, each party's gangs could be counted on to deliver votes and politicians rewarded gang leaders with jobs and favors. Seaga once responded to hecklers at a political rally by saying, "If they think they are bad, I can bring the crowds of West Kingston. It will be fire for fire, and blood for blood."
Leading up to the 1980 elections, the well-armed gangs brought those words to life. In April, five people were killed at a JLP function in central Kingston, in what became known as the Gold Street Massacre. Later in the year, five PNP supporters were murdered in a shack near the railway line out of Kingston. Days after that, five more were machine gunned to death at a PNP youth group clubhouse. The papers stopped giving labels to these tragedies, they happened so often.
As the October 30 election drew closer the violence intensified. Gunmen killed seven people on National Heroes Day in Kingston. Two children were killed in Top Hill, St. Elizabeth during a clash between PNP and JLP factions. On October 13, Roy McGann, the PNP s Junior Minister of National Security, and his bodyguard were shot to death in Gordon Town.
In addition to violence, Jamaica's economy was in terrible shape. The recession and oil crisis of the late 1970s hit Jamaica especially hard. Prices had tripled while wages fell. First World leaders, concerned over Manley's relationship with Cuba and other leftist governments, withdrew foreign aid and investments. Strapped for cash and facing enormous debt, the government agreed to accept emergency loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which then imposed severe restrictions, causing more layoffs and shortages. In January of 1980, Manley announced that 11,000 public sector jobs would have to be cut and within days 300 workers went on strike, leaving 70% of the country without electricity.
Many people felt that the PNP government was incapable of managing the economy or maintaining order. Manley believed that the CIA had helped to create much of the instability, in an effort to bring the pro-American JLP into power. Regardless, the JLP won in a landslide with 58% of the vote.
Violence still remains a problem in Jamaica, but future elections never saw as much killing as 1980. That year was the height of what Max Romeo and Lee "Scratch" Perry called "tribal war ina Babylon".
No comments:
Post a Comment