PEOPLE’S National Party (PNP) chairman for region three, Paul Burke, yesterday told the West Kingston commission of inquiry that the use of illegal guns in West Kingston started in the 1960s and had a direct relationship politics.

Reminding the commission that he was not involved in politics in the 1960s, Burke said he has been told that “guns in the 1960s started in West Kingston”.

“In the 70s, the main thing would have been handguns and at that time, known gangs would have had their directives, were armed and had a relationship with their members of parliament or key political people from both sides,” he said.

“However, in the 1980s, he continued, “a lot of people left Jamaica, and for the first time independent persons started to smuggle in their own weapons. They came through televisions, cars, in fridge doors, in soap powder, in all manner of ways,” he told the commission.

Burke, who has been Region Three chairman since 1995, has been a PNP activist since the late 1960s and has come up the ranks as vice-chairman and chairman of the PNP Youth Organisation, as well as secretary of the PNP Human Rights Council.

“When the government campaign in 1985 against ganja closed down the business, persons sought to go into cocaine importation because it was much easier,” Burke testified. “Cocaine came in many ways, first in planes and then in boats. I have heard from many sources about illegal weapons, especially high-powered rifles coming in through the cocaine trade. These guns came in, not necessarily to protect turf,” he said, “but used to protect themselves (drug dealers).”

Burke said that the people who get the guns used them for other agendas. “A lot of it is gang warfare, robberies and other criminal acts,” he said.

Burke also charged that vendors were peddling illegal weapons. “They wouldn’t sell it like red peas in the market, but they would make it known discreetly that they had guns selling,” he said. “They are not politically motivated, as they sell to any and everyone. The motive is commercial.”