Clearly rattled by the weekend murders of eight youngsters and critical injuries to nine others, Jamaican authorities have ordered the island’s forces to immediately wipe out heavily armed gangsters responsible for the attacks, contending that such a reprehensible mass murder should not be allowed to occur again.
The order followed an early Monday emergency meeting of the security council that was held hours after the eight were slaughtered in the depressed southern central district of Clarendon following on other incidents of serious gun crimes in various communities in recent months.
“The security forces have now been given a directive, after our national security council meeting. Go after every single gang and erode them. There is no way that eight persons can be killed in one incident in Jamaica and the state stands as if nothing happened. Every gang member will feel the full force of the state today. This must never happen in Jamaica again. Everyone involved in this incident will be brought to justice in whatever form the justice is visited upon them,” an angry Prime Minister Andrew Holness said. There will be “a total assault on gangs.”
Authorities have already enlisted the Jamaican military to work alongside the police to target the gangs in Clarendon and nearby St. Catherine.
Along with The Bahamas, Trinidad, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Barbados and a few other Caribbean Community member states, Jamaica has been beset by decades of violent crimes and murders at the hands of heavily armed gangsters with the murder toll averaging nearly 1,300 per year.
Successive governments have tried to counter these outbreaks by imposing curfews limited to specific areas including the northern districts that include tourism headquarters Montego Bay but the killings have continued nevertheless.
Participants at the emergency meeting said inmates at various state facilities and cohorts in foreign lands have been giving execution orders to those on the ground. Inmates use smuggled mobile phones from behind prison walls to pass out kill orders. Security Minister Horace Change said that new cameras and other systems will be installed in prisons to monitor activities in a bid to minimize the murders.
“Jamaica has “played with gangs for far too long. We will not treat this as another criminal act. We will treat this as an act of terror. Therefore, we have given directions to the security forces to launch an all-out assault on the gangs that are involved,” PM Holness said, speaking alongside Chang, chief of defense staff of Jamaica Defense Force (JDF) Vice-Admiral Antonette Wemyss Gorman and Deputy Commissioner of Police Fitz Bailey among others.
As an indication of what the government is up against, 24 people were killed in a single week last month as islanders were either preparing for Hurricane Beryl or were struggling to recover after the storm had made landfall.
“I urge the police to utilize every available resource and power to apprehend the perpetrators swiftly. To the people of Clarendon and Jamaica, please remain vigilant and cooperate with law enforcement as we work together to ensure the safety and security of our communities,” Minister Chang said.
Trying to respond to the increase in gun violence in teh Caribbean, regional leaders say they plan to hold a special security, crime and violence summit in Barbados in the coming weeks to follow on one held in Trinidad early last year.
The Jamaica murders have occurred as authorities battle to maintain a 17 percent reduction in violent crime this year.
