TIVOLI Gardens, the centrepiece of the life work of Edward Seaga, had, during his stewardship, taken on the role of not only the dominant, but domineering partner, always seeking to direct the affairs of other Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) strongholds.

And this has accounted for several intra-party conflicts. Seaga’s opponents in the People’s National Party (PNP) and elsewhere, criticised him for having spent, when he was prime minister, a disproportionate share of the country’s resources to develop Tivoli Gardens – schools, clinics, sporting and entertainment facilities – at the expense and to the neglect of other equally deserving areas.

Tivoli Gardens, always cited by Seaga as a model community, has for years been the envy of the residents of other garrisons, JLP and PNP alike. The police, from time to time, have been accused by inner-city residents of being partial to one political party or the other.

However, Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) soldiers used to be respected for their professionalism and impartiality. But over the years, that reputation has been eroded.

In 1995, for instance, soldiers operating in the west Kingston area were accused by both the JLP and the PNP of detaining young men and taking them from their neighbourhood and releasing them in politically hostile areas where those residents then attacked and killed them.

And reports of abuse of suspects and other citizens from Tivoli and other inner-city communities, by police and soldiers, have rivalled some incidents reported from Abu Ghraib Prison near Baghdad, Iraq. The police and military conducted a joint operation in Tivoli Gardens on May 6 and 7, 1997. They said they were shot at continually by gunmen from rooftops and other vantage points. They fired aimed shots in self defence.

During the operation, Tivoli residents Ivy Green, 39, Norman Martin, 34, Jennifer Johnson, 40, and six year-old Cruz Green were shot dead – the little boy, as he was jumping up and down in his bed.

A coroner’s jury found that nobody was criminally responsible for the deaths.

The security forces found neither gun nor ammunition and held none of the gunmen. It was reported that citizens were fired on during the operation from a JDF helicopter which was providing aerial surveillance for the security forces. Major General John Simmonds, then Chief of Staff of the JDF, denied that shots were fired from the helicopter. But he had to eat crow when evidence turned up later that a policeman had in fact fired at least four shots to the ground from the helicopter with an M16 assault rifle.

Several weeks later, then police commissioner Francis Forbes charged that tunnels were used as “escape routes” by gunmen in Tivoli Gardens during the operation on May 6. But on inspection by journalists on July 28, the “tunnels” turned out to be ordinary storm-water drains which had not been traversed by the police further than a few feet from the entrance.

On Saturday morning, July 7, 2001, the security forces began an operation in Tivoli Gardens to recover guns and cocaine.

According to Commissioner Forbes, testifying before the West Kingston Commission of Enquiry which probed the operation and its effects:

“Never before in our history have we ever encountered so many illegal weapons turned on the security forces. Police forces are not trained to fight war. Policemen and women are law enforcement officers. What obtained on that day can only be regarded as a declaration of war against the state…”

When that operation ended four days later, on the Tuesday, July 10, a total of 27 people, including a policeman and a soldier, were dead, many of the bodies rotting in the street.

The commission which sat for 89 days and called 124 witnesses, found that the security forces had “carried out their law enforcement functions satisfactorily in all the circumstances”.

The operation was launched based on intelligence indicating that a substantial quantity of guns from the United States, Colombia and countries of Central America, and close to 1,000 kilogrammes of cocaine from Colombia, were at the Golden Age Home in Denham Town (about a mile from Tivoli Gardens), or its environs, and that wanted men were likely to be found in the area where a cordon-and-search operation was established.

However, things seemed to have gone disastrously awry for the security forces as the cordon-and-search operation was abandoned after two hours, the search of the Golden Age Home yielded only a small pistol and a chillum pipe, and despite intelligence regarding the guns and ammunition, only seven guns and 160 assorted cartridges, wrapped in a chamois, were found by the security forces during four days of armed combat with civilians. The security forces maintain that Tivoli Gardens is the headquarters of the Shower Posse, which operates across the United States, dealing in cocaine, guns and murder.

Dozens of these gangsters were taken down by the Drug Enforcement Administration and other law enforcement agencies in the USA in the 1980s.

In proof of Tivoli’s involvement, the security forces cite the connections with Tivoli Gardens of Jim Brown, Richard ‘Storyteller’ Morrison and Vivian Blake, all indicted by federal grand juries in Florida as leaders of the Shower Posse in that state.

At the time of his death in a mystery fire at the General Penitentiary, Tower Street, central Kingston, on February 23, 1992, Jim Brown was awaiting extradition to Florida for trial on drug charges. Another crony of his, Morrison, was in February 1993, sentenced in Fort Myers in the Middle District of Florida, to 24 1/2 years in prison without parole, for selling cocaine.

He had been extradited to Miami in the Southern District of Florida in 1991 to face a murder charge. Vivian Blake, another Tivoli Gardens figure, was sentenced in 2000 in the US District Court, Southern District of Florida, to 28 years imprisonment for trafficking in cocaine.

Both Morrison and Blake were extradited from Jamaica. Morrison was extradited resulting from an administrative error in the Jamaican Court of Appeal – the misplacing of a document indicating his intention to appeal – causing him to be surrendered prematurely to the US authorities.

But Tivoli Gardens by no means monopolises the cocaine trade in Jamaica, if it is involved at all.

Crack cocaine is available throughout the inner cities. There is at least one former don (he has lost his status) from Arnett Gardens, and not connected to Tivoli Gardens or the JLP, who has been deported from the US after doing prison time there for drug trafficking.

And most of the other high-profile dons around would never dare take the risk of going to the US, lest files of cases pending against them there be re-opened and they be prevailed upon to remain for their trial.

So, if all the drug chiefs in Tivoli were to be thrown in jail tomorrow, the cocaine business in Jamaica would still be vigorous and profitable, depending on their ability, of course, to avoid the prying eyes and ears of the ongoing Operation Kingfish, the Police Narcotics Division and the intelligence agencies.

On March 19, 1974, then prime minister Michael Manley declared war, in Parliament, on criminal gunmen, “this small band of evil men”, and vowed to “eradicate this evil in our midst.”

Every prime minister and leader of the opposition and minister of national security, and all members of all Cabinets since, have supported that declaration.

But today, the small band is definitely much larger, more ubiquitous and more brazen, more vicious, and more likely not to be arrested, let alone tried and convicted.

They tote bigger, better guns. This even after a Gun Court was set up 31 years ago to try gun crimes speedily and put gunmen behind bars.

And however many of them are in Tivoli Gardens, they seem to be all over Jamaica as well, and not just in JLP areas either – killing and robbing and carjacking at will.

Today, citizens are calling for hanging to resume, the last executions on the gallows of the St Catherine District Prison, Spanish Town, having taken place in February 1988, more than 17 years ago.

But it is not the murder convicts who are committing the crimes. The police will have to first catch the gunmen, build strong cases against them, and get them convicted, before they can be hanged. For this they need more improved investigative skills and their ability to win the deep confidence and co-operation of the citizenry, especially the politicians who preside over garrison communities.

williamsl@jamaicaobserver.com