Don Robotham, Contributor
THE GOVERNMENT has declared a "war on gangs". No such "war" can be waged without strong support from civil society, especially in a divided society such as Jamaica. Such support can only be secure if it rests on deep public understanding that can then lead to the public's confidence in the "war strategy". As a means of ensuring that this renewed effort is well thought-out by both Government and civil society, I raise a few points for public consideration below.
My main point can be summed up in this statement: we must pursue this "war" forcefully but intelligently. We must also pursue it in the framework of the rule of law. Despite the large number of eminent legal minds in and out of politics in Jamaica, one of the features of our situation that has puzzled me for some time is our complete failure to use the law as an instrument to suppress criminality and to powerfully re-assert the "prerogatives" of the state. Have Hobbes, Locke, Blackstone and Dicey been abandoned by our esteemed legal fraternity?
To wage any "war" effectively, one must know one's enemy. The number of criminal gangs in Jamaica can be loosely estimated to be between 40 and 60, with an average membership of around 50 to 100. In other words, we are talking about 4,000 to 6,000 persons living mainly in poor communities in various parts of Kingston, St. Andrew and Spanish Town, although the really big fish also have houses uptown, in well-known bourgeois communities and may be your neighbour.
SMALL GROUP
They are usually in the age group 10 to 39, are 90 per cent male, with about two to three years of all age-secondary schooling, but no certification. This small group who are holding the entire society to ransom are not fools. In fact, these young males often dropped out of the school system because their own high intelligence far exceeded the meagre fare on offer in some of those beleaguered institutions.
A very important point to grasp and to use as a cardinal tactical principle in this "war," is that the gangs fall into two categories: there are the "corner" groups who are fairly small and usually involved in sports and music (football, basketball, "deejaying"). They also possess guns and commit crimes, sometimes quite horrendous ones. However, this group is not primarily a criminal one and they are not the source of our present problems. They cannot be ignored, but they also cannot be the targets in any "war." Failure to recognise this has been one of the principal weaknesses of all special squad operations in the past and in the present as well. These "corner" gangs are weak and present easy pickings in police and military sweeps. But we deceive ourselves if we imagine that attacking this group is the issue before us.
No, the real problem is much larger and more sinister. Our real target is the other kind of gang, which is not a gang at all but a criminal organisation. These differ in several respects from the corner gangs. They are much larger. They control the cocaine transshipment trade through Jamaica, especially to Brixton. They thus have international connections with Colombian and other non-Jamaican traffickers, and they therefore also get involved in competitive disputes abroad that sometimes feed back to Jamaica and vice versa. They control the extortion rackets in Kingston and other towns. They command multimillion US dollar resources and use a small fraction of these to engage in a Robin Hood re-distribution strategy within inner-city communities. They are heavily armed with military-style hardware, including grenade launchers. They also enforce law and order in inner-city communities and administer, sometimes quite formally, their own deadly brand of judicial proceedings.
These warlords are affiliated to the two major political parties and play a central role not only in their electoral operations but, more to the point, in all their mass mobilisations-demonstrations, marches, public meetings, tours and so forth. They (including the opposition ones!) also benefit from Government contracts, especially through the construction industry. In all they may number about 500 to 1,000 persons, depending on whether you adopt a tight or loose definition of membership. They have tacit understandings with each other not to intrude on the other's turf and to unite in resistance to any serious police-military effort against them. That they have "contacts" to some in the police and in journalism is hardly news. Live and let live.
It should be clear that in any serious "war" on crime and violence, these loosely organised but powerful criminal groups, primarily their leadership, must be our real targets.
What we must not do under any circumstances is to focus with great fanfare on the corner gangs really the "fryers" in this situation and let the big fish off the hook. This would be a fatal but real temptation, given the formidable resources of the big fish and the vulnerability of the "fryers". Attacking the "fryers" would merely provide more sensational headlines a media war but not a real one.
However, making this distinction is easier in theory than in practice. This is because there is no rigid wall separating the corner gang from the criminal organisations they in fact provide a recruiting ground for such organisations. Also, specific jobs may be contracted out to particular individuals "on the corner" especially those eager to establish their "bona fides" or to prove their "dog-heartedness." In addition, some corner gangs evolve into criminal organisations, usually when they come under the leadership of an ambitious and ruthless personality with political connections, for whom the corner provides too petty a stage for the realisation of his ambitions. Such a personality then learns how to provide political services to the major parties as a means to "grow" his corner gang into a criminal organisation. Nonetheless, an intelligent approach to this "war" requires that the distinction between corner gang and criminal organisation be observed as a cornerstone of operations and of the "rules of engagement," in order to isolate the real criminals from community support.
WARLORDS
This last point should give us pause. These warlords, on both sides of the political fence, have demonstrated on more than one occasion that they have powerful capacities to mobilise mass popular support. For consider this: the mass mobilisations, which led to the recent shameful but all too predictable "fracas" at the opening of Parliament, could not have taken place if the leadership of these criminal organisations on both sides of the political fence had opposed them.
They also control strategic sections of Kingston and have demonstrated that they have the capacity to lock down the city and even cut off access to the international airport, if they wish. These are formidable powers which we underestimate at our peril. For of one thing we can be sure: in any genuine "war" on the leadership of this group, they are going to use every resource at their command to resist, and even up the ante with new forms of criminal activity. A major weapon in their armoury will be the social-political one: they will try to mobilise "downtown" against "uptown" and to portray the "war" against their criminal activities as one being waged by a "PNP Government" against "the JLP;" or even as a class or race war: of '"white man, brown man, Syrian and Chinee" against "poor black people;" and so on and so forth. Any port in a storm.
The purpose of these demonstrations and the social demagoguery which always accompanies them should be clear by now: to disunify and further demoralise civil society; to play upon the in-bred opportunism and empty-headed ambitions of our tribalistic politicians (especially the power-starved ones on both sides); to manipulate the real divisions in Jamaican society, especially the deep sense of social guilt of many in the middle and upper sections of Jamaican society; to throw the society into soul-searching debate, consternation and panic; to intimidate civil society with a show of strength and thus to stop any "war" in its tracks. These buttons have been pressed cunningly and effectively in the past, especially with the unwitting assistance of the media, and we can be certain that they will be pressed again.
There are three ways to counter these stratagems. First, to anticipate them: we must harden our hearts from now against the appeal of mass demonstrations and social demagoguery that are sure to come. But we must go further. Mass mobilisations of any kind by any individual or group for any purpose must be banned forthwith, even if it requires new legislation to achieve this. This is particularly important in connection with the upcoming Local Government elections. If such measures prove ineffective, the suspension of Local Government elections may well become necessary.
This is because it is now quite obvious that some are intent on approaching them as a "second general election". This they hope to win (especially in Kingston) and thereafter to operate as a "second Government". In other words, they are into "flexing" and "permanent electioneering," right into the next general election. In the thinking behind this truly insane strategy, which some seem to find captivating, general elections will be sooner rather than later since "they" are only "giving" the PNP "three years at the most!"
Such persons are playing with fire. For, whether "they" care to admit it or not, "they" cannot pursue their "flexing" strategy without the active participation of their warlords. Further, the PNP is bound to resist, to go on a counter-offensive or even to strike pre-emptively-itself to "flex." The PNP cannot do this effectively without the active assistance of its warlords. In other words, this "permanent electioneering" strategy will guarantee that Jamaican politics and politicians will be even more firmly beholden to the leadership of these criminal organisations than they are now. "Flexing" is the speciality of warlords - their "work". We face certain ruin if we allow ourselves to be taken down this suicidal road, yet again.
LOGICAL STEPS
Rushing headlong down that road, we can forget about any "war" on crime, any tourist industry or economic growth. But, as the events at the opening of Parliament make clear, we have already set out on that journey. We therefore need to act firmly now, by banning all mass demonstrations, whether political or not, as a first step. We must lower the temperature in the society immediately, even if it requires special legal instruments to do so. We also need to be prepared to take the next logical steps against Local Government elections as they become necessary. Who in Jamaica would not gladly support such a ban, as a means of avoiding conflicts likely to lead to civil unrest, which politicians and criminals on both sides will ruthlessly exploit? Is it not obvious that it would make far more sense to join hands across social and political divisions in a united effort to deal with our real crisis?
Second, there will indeed be a media war, but one of a different kind. For the media have to consider carefully their role. For how these mass demonstrations against police-military operations are presented and analysed, especially on television and radio talk shows, is crucial. These events cannot have the intimidation-guilt effects, dividing and paralysing the will of civil society, unless they are vividly and dramatically portrayed. Major events have to be reported on, but how? How will our media decide to carry out their role?
In normal times, this is a no-brainer: "All the News that's Fit to Print" as the famous maxim of the New York Times pompously proclaims. But these are not normal times so real hard thought is needed. Journalists, editors and media managers are human and are rightly outraged at what they see as dreadful encroachments on human rights, especially when this has a clear class and racial bias against poor people in the inner city. Which Jamaican with a conscience would not feel the same? Besides, they have journalistic ethics, professionalism and their bottom lines to consider. Competitive zeal in the media is a real issue.
IMPULSES
Their first impulse is to do all in their power to publicise such events, especially when they come "from below". Yet to give in to these impulses and to present well-known warlords sympathetically as victims is fatal. The media must see through and be able to help the public to ward off the manipulations by these artists of social demagoguery. Otherwise, they will hand the criminal organisations propaganda victories on a platter, as has occurred in the past. So, there is a real dilemma here. The leaders and workers in our media should not wait on events to overtake and overwhelm them. They need to think through, discuss and agree on a common solution to this very serious dilemma before the rubber hits the road. Continuation of the present laissez-faire policy is not a viable option.
But there is a final point worth thinking about and acting on from now, bearing in mind our intention to wage war intelligently. One of the reasons we need good research and good analysis (but very much behind the scenes) is because we need to understand and use the fact that not all the big criminal gang leaders are the same. Not all deportees are the same. Not all cocaine-traffickers are the same. Nor are all ganja traffickers.
Some have given unmistakable hints that they now wish to "retire" and to seek some sort of respectability, if not for themselves, at least for their family. They would certainly not be the first to travel this route in the history of modern Jamaica! In return for carefully calibrated and individually-targeted am-nesties-plea bargains, it is possible that some of these persons who have priceless information and understanding of the workings of these criminal organisations, would be willing to join in the efforts of civil society against their former colleagues. It would be a foolish society indeed which, on moralistic or legalistic grounds, declined to avail itself of what could well turn out to be the decisive weapon in this war.
Don Robotham is Professor of Anthropology at the City University of New York.
