Pubdate: Wed, 14 July 1999 Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA) Copyright: 1999 San Francisco Chronicle Page: C 10 Contact: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/ Forum: http://www.sfgate.com/conferences/ Author: Matthew Rosenberg, Associated Press POOR RESIDENTS OF JAMAICA TURN INTO PRISONERS OF GANG WARS KINGSTON, Jamaica - Inside the high walls of Admiral Town police station, tired women and children, refugees of Kingston's latest gang wars, begged for food from visitors and wondered when they could go home. "I came here last night," said Tanisha Vassel, 20, balancing her year-old son on her hip. "I'm afraid of gunmen out there, killing and burning and looting." Hundreds of people have fled escalating violence in poor neighborhoods of Jamaica's capital in recent weeks, taking refuge with friends and relatives and creating makeshift camps inside police stations. About 500 people have been killed in Jamaica so far this year, including 71 in the past three weeks - prompting Prime Minister P.J. Patterson to declare war on what he called "a spate of criminal madness." On Monday, Patterson gave the military wide authority to crack down on crime, saying soldiers would become a permanent fixture in the most troubled inner-city neighborhoods of Kingston. 'They are there to find the guns, those who carry the guns and those who control the guns," Patterson said, allowing the military to impose spot checks, cordons, searches and curfews. Last week, overnight curfews were imposed in the worst-hit areas, with soldiers patrolling the streets in armored personnel carriers while helicopters flew overhead. The gang violence rampant in the poor neighborhoods of Kingston has not yet affected tourism in Jamaica's tony beach resorts, located far from the capital. But the Private Sector organization of Jamaica, a group of business people, warned that the violence could hurt business, including the island's vital import and export industries, and called on the government to bring it under control. Most of the shootings stem from unrelated disputes. In Admiral Town, for example, fighting began after one man slapped the mother of the neighborhood's "don," as gang leaders are known. Another gang feud, in the Park Lane neighborhood, began with the theft of a video camera. But the roots of Kingston's violent gang culture can be traced back decades - - to the very political establishment now trying to stop it. In the 1970s, the two main political parties - Edward Seaga's Jamaica Labor Party and Patterson's People's National Party - helped organize and arm residents, producing rival "garrison communities" where armed gangs controlled the streets at the behest of local politicians and intimidated voters at election time. By the early 1980s, many gangs became involved in lucrative cocaine and marijuana smuggling. With money of their own, they no longer needed the patronage of politicians and began to operate independently. In the past decade, many of Jamaica's most notorious gang leaders were killed or sentenced to long prison terms, mainly in the United States, for drug trafficking. Last week, Vivian Blake, alleged leader of one of the United States' most notorious drug gangs, was extradited to Miami from Kingston to face numerous charges. Blake allegedly ran the Shower Posse, a Jamaican-dominated gang that prosecutors blame for 1,400 murders in several U.S. states during the 1980s. But the gangs still operate, fighting over turf and bolstered by a steady flow of guns from the United States and new recruits of poor young men who come from the countryside in search of work. Government officials contend that Jamaican convicts deported from the United States, Great Britain and Canada have aggravated the situation. Few of the deportees have roots on the island, but they are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime, officials say. Last year, a record 2,161 Jamaican criminals were sent back home - nearly 1,500 from the United States alone. For the violence to end, residents must dissociate themselves from the gangsters, Patterson said. "it is clear for all to see that the gunman who is your so-called protector or don ... becomes your worst terrorist tomorrow," he said. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake