Soldiers for inner cities
JAMAICA Defence Force (JDF) soldiers are to be deployed in inner-city communities to face down what Security Minister Peter Phillips calls “para-military terrorist groups” who engage in gang warfare and commit crime with impunity.
Phillips made it clear that the government now intended to carry the fight directly to criminal gunmen, and defeat them, rather than use containment.
“Essentially, it is redefining the role of the Jamaica Defence Force because what we are dealing with, essentially, are paramilitary terrorist groups who will stop at nothing to achieve their criminal ends,” Phillips told the Observer last night. “These groups are well armed with high-powered weaponry … hence, the need to confront them, basically, at their own game.”
“The aim now is not containment but to aggressively deal with the issue directly,” the minister said.
He declined, however, to say to which communities the soldiers would be sent, but recent hot spots such as East St Andrew, Kingston West and South St Andrew belts were likely targets.
The JDF was already busy with training and other activities necessary for the new initiative, which is expected to be fully operational within a fortnight.
Already, soldiers provide support for police in some patrols and other areas of law enforce, but the new initiative appeared to be a harder and more direct approach in crime- fighting for the military.
Phillips’ remarks about this strategy came after yesterday’s meeting between Prime Minister P J Patterson and relevant members of his administration and members of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ), headed by their president, Oliver Clarke.
Clarke, after the meeting, told the Observer that the need for policies to generate economic growth and jobs apart, his group also highlighted “the need to have a more effective programme to reduce to level of crime”.
Jamaica has one of the world’s highest murder rates, with more than 43 murders per 100,000 of the population. Up to Monday, according to the police, 857 persons have been murdered here this year, and Clarke said yesterday that by PSOJ estimates 60 have died in a rash of violence since the October 16 general elections.
But it is the brutishness of some of the recent killings, including the apparent targeting of children, that has particularly outraged some people. In one case in Rema, South St Andrew, three children, including two infants, were shot dead in their beds while they slept.
Those killings were apparently in retaliation for the burning of homes and the killing of one man in nearby Denham Town, on the night of the elections. A 12 year-old boy was then shot dead while sitting in a barber’s chair — a seeming reprisal for the Rema murders.
In the community of Goldsmith Villa, in August Town, St Andrew a cocktail of gang disagrees, post-election political tensions and basic criminality boiled over into a series of reprisal killings that culminated in the execution of four men who were bungled out of a house in the pre-dawn of Sunday.
Developments such as these formed the backdrop of the PSOJ’s urging of the government yesterday to speedily implement the programmes of the National Crime Plan, agreed to in the summer by the government, Opposition and civil society.
In a post-meeting statement, Jamaica House quoted Prime Minister Patterson of promising the private sector leaders “strong new measures” to confront violent crime.
According to Jamaica House, Phillips had said that the security forces had been told to review their tactics, moving from containment to “dismantling the criminal networks”.
This tough talking by the administration is characteristic of Patterson’s declarations in post-election speeches of his will to stamp out criminal violence.
Phillips said that political consideration would form no part of decisions on where they deploy soldiers, insisting that they will be sent where needed.
“The central objective of the move to deploy more soldiers in the inner-city areas is to dismantle paramilitary gangs and bring about law and order in these communities,” Phillips said. “We recognise that these gangs are well armed with powerful weaponry and information.”