A policeman yesterday holds a 9mm Luger submachine gun which, with a .38 calibre revolver, were seized by security forces during operations in Denham Town and Hannah Town, west Kingston. - Rudolph BrownEFFORTS BY political leaders to broker a truce between gun-toting factions in Kingston's west end fizzled yesterday after proposed talks were cancelled and sporadic shooting continued throughout the day.
At the same time, the police killed two men who, they said, had engaged them in an early morning shoot-out on Blount Street, Hannah Town and seized two guns in the area.
Classes at the St. Anne's Infant, Primary and Secondary Schools were also cancelled while only 40 of the 210 students enrolled at the Chetolah Park Primary School on upper Oxford Street in Hannah Town, turned up. By mid-morning several parents returned for those children, a teacher told The Gleaner.
"It's terrible. We are right in the heart of it," the teacher said.
For more than two weeks there have been outbreaks of gun violence and this escalated on Saturday as warring factions in Denham Town and Hannah Town in Kingston traded shots.
The root of the latest fighting is yet to be determined by the police but Desmond McKenzie, Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Councillor for the Tivoli Gardens Division, said a month ago, he'd met Paul Burke, chairman of the PNP's Region Three, the party's vice-president Portia Simpson Miller and General Secretary Maxine Henry-Wilson, amid rumours of an impending outbreak of war.
He said the rumours were fuelled by charges that men from Tivoli Gardens and other sections of West Kingston had killed Arnett Gardens community leader William "Willie Haggart" Moore and two other colleagues on Lincoln Crescent last month.
He said while the negotiators around the table were sincere, the PNP faction in Hannah Town had not honoured the talks.
"I think there's a genuineness among those who sit around the table but I don't believe there is that level of control in leadership in Hannah Town to make the effort work," he said.
Three meetings have been held so far, Mr. McKenzie said, but the fourth, scheduled for yesterday, was cancelled.
"Based on what was happening in the area, a meeting under these circumstances was not appropriate. I had to be on the ground from as early as 5:00 a.m.," he said.
Mr. Burke acknowledged several meetings had taken place with the JLP's top and middle leadership and agreed not much had been achieved.
"They (talks) have not been as successful as both sides would have hoped," he said yesterday.
But despite the earlier shootings, the police reported that by late afternoon a tense calm prevailed in the area.
One of the men killed was later identified by the police as Andrew Barrett of Nelson Street, Kingston 14, while the other's name was not known at press time.
