Caribbean paradise Jamaica, which has become the country with the highest murder rate in the world

Measures taken by local governments were criticized by human rights organizations for not reducing violence in the country.

Located in the heart of the Caribbean Sea, famous for its Olympic athletes and idyllic beaches, Jamaica had another reason in the news this month: the murders.

Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holmes took the decision on December 7 to extend the state of emergency declared in October due to the increase in murders on the island in 2022.

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According to the data, 1,374 homicides have been recorded so far this year, placing Jamaica among the countries with the highest homicide rates in the world.

According to the government itself, four people are killed every day in a country of just 2.9 million people.

The Insight Crime portal claims that in 2021, Jamaica has the highest murder rate in the world.

In fact, the capital, Kingston, is sometimes referred to as the “crime capital of the world”.

Although many analysts say that the main perpetrators of crimes are supposedly assets or gangs is a deep-rooted problem since the founding of the country.

Jermaine Young, a political analyst specializing in Caribbean issues, told BBC News Mundo, the Spanish-language news service of the BBC, “Jamaica has these problems of violence for many reasons, mixed with the unresolved historical conflicts that led to what we went through.”

Both Young and other analysts agree that the measures taken by local governments, particularly the declaration of a state of emergency, have not helped resolve the problems.

So what’s going on in Jamaica and why is the government’s control measures being criticized?

How did the gangs come about?

For Young and other analysts, the current problem of violence has its origins in the country’s independence from the United Kingdom in 1962.

“Historically, especially during the Cold War era and between the centre-right Jamaica Labor Party (JLP) and the centre-left People’s National Party (PNP) in the 1970s and 1980s,” says Young.

This deep political divide is the result of gangs, or as they are known in the country. assetsoperates mainly in Kingston.

They even have satellites in cities like London, Toronto, and New York.

-also assets they control a large part of the capital and their territory is related to the party they are associated with.

Several recent reports from the United Nations (UN) and local media show that PNP-linked gangs control the area west and south of the capital, while JLP-linked gangs control the east.

“In some communities, gangs operate (particularly in what is considered an election hotbed; a party controls votes and looting) with impunity,” Young says.

However, he adds that these gangs have made a living with political agreements to ensure peace in the areas under their control, but this has changed in recent years.

“They’ve become more independent with the advent of guns, drugs, and other illegal businesses,” he explains.

And this gave way to a war for territories.

US Drugs and Weapons

With the establishment of gangs in Kingston in the 1980s, two events occurred that shook internal security in Jamaica.

The first was illegal drug trafficking from South America to the United States? Another, as well as domestic cannabis production, was the arrival of weapons.

Many guns sold freely in the American country ended up on the Caribbean island.

Regarding the drug, the State Department has stated in its reports that Jamaica is the main supplier of illegal marijuana to the United States.

While recreational use of marijuana has been legalized in about 14 American states, the truth is that widespread use of marijuana was illegal for many years, so its trade helped strengthen Jamaican gangs.

In addition, with the rise of drug trafficking from South America to the United States in the 1980s, Jamaica became one of the main Caribbean ports on the cocaine route.

An investigation by the U.S. federal agency for drug enforcement and control (DEA) shows that although Jamaica has been a major transit point for decades, the bulk of drugs crossing from the Caribbean to the United States and even Europe in 2014 passed through it. Kingston harbor.

“Jamaica is a transit point for cocaine leaving Central America bound for the United States, and some drug trafficking organizations trade Jamaican marijuana for cocaine,” the report states.

A situation that has persisted in recent years and has also helped fund gangs and their violent strategies for territorial control.

What does it take to fight this battle for control of the highly lucrative drug trade? Weaponry.

And the gangs had no trouble acquiring them, mainly because of access to the weapons that existed in the US.

A 2019 study by the American newspaper The New York Times showed that thousands of free and unregulated guns sold in the US ended up being involved in dozens of murders on the streets of Kingston thanks to this lack of control.

Anthony Clayton, author of several official US reports on Jamaica, said, “Many people in the US view gun control as a purely internal matter. But neighbors like Jamaica, whose citizens are killed by US guns, have a very different perspective.”

emergency

The combination of these factors has led Jamaica to become the leader in the world’s main violence rankings in recent years.

According to Freedom House’s report on Jamaica, the murder rate was the highest in the region in 2021, while data from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), whose last global report was in 2017, highlights the country. fourth in the world.

Local governments have not been indifferent to this situation and have tried to control violence with measures such as the state of emergency for years.

The last of these was announced two weeks ago by the Prime Minister of Jamaica, Andrew Holness.

“We have really serious criminal threats ahead of us and we have to use all the powers at our disposal,” he said. said.

These states of emergency give the Jamaican government more power to fight gangs.

For many on the island these measures ? Even extending to tourist areas like Montego Bay ? serves to increase security.

“Homicides have decreased by 64% since the state of emergency was declared. This is a measure that works,” Jamaica police commander Anthony Johnson told the AP news agency.

Others, however, do not see it as possible for Jamaican governments to rely solely on these decrees to address a much deeper problem.

“The problem is that this state of emergency, which seems to be the only remedy for governments, does not solve the root of the crime, but profoundly restricts the constitutional rights of Jamaicans,” says analyst Young.

Human rights groups have condemned the arbitrary arrests and excessive use of force against dozens of people by local police over the years during these states of emergency.

In fact, the Jamaica Supreme Court ruled last June that it is unconstitutional to detain Jamaicans for months without trial, even in the midst of an emergency.

“And the decrease in cases is not as true as it sounds. There are large areas in Jamaica where this measure has taken more than two years and rates continue to get worse. It’s a non-rooted measure. The issue,” Young says.

“Many believe that there will be no progress without first reducing corruption and, above all, removing existing links between political parties and gangs so that they can then work to reduce their level of violence,” concludes the analyst.

– This text was published at https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/internacional-64093991.