More police for Jamaica resorts
KINGSTON, Jamaica — The government will dispatch additional troops and police to Jamaica’s key tourist area and several other communities in an attack on violent crime, a Cabinet minister said.Most of the security forces will be sent to St. James parish, where the world-renowned resort of Montego Bay is located and where nearly 30 slayings have occurred since January 1, Security Minister Peter Phillips said Monday in a speech.
“They have been sent there with the aim of ensuring the immediate control of crime and the suppression of criminal activity in targeted communities,” Phillips said.
Police have also imposed curfews in three violence-wracked communities in St. James that are located about 2.5 miles from Montego Bay, said Superintendent Worrell Clarke, who would not disclose further details.
Police blame much of the island’s gun violence on street gangs vying for control of lucrative drug and extortion rings.
The tourism industry is concerned that tourists could be affected by the crime surge, although no visitors have been killed this year and most of the violence is on the outskirts of Montego Bay.
St. James parish was one of the most violent areas in Jamaica during 2006, with a record 178 people killed, including the unsolved murder of an Australian man who was found slain in his hotel room in Montego Bay.
Montego Bay resorts are traditionally Jamaica’s most popular tourist destination with more than one million visitors a year, according to the Jamaica Tourist Board. Montego Bay is located about 140 miles west of Kingston, the Caribbean island’s capital.
Phillips also said joint military and police squads will be sent to other trouble spots, including Kingston and Clarendon parish in the south.
About 131 people, including four police officers, have been killed in Jamaica since the beginning of the year, police said. More than 1,300 people were slain in the island in 2006.
