The Arrival of the Garrison: Partisan Political Violence in the 1960s

• Author: Amanda Sives
• Profession: Lecturer in Politics at the University of Liverpool
• Pages: 52-77

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52 ELECTIONS, VIOLENCE AND THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS IN JAMAICA

The Arrival of the

Garrison:

Partisan Political Violence in the 1960s

CHAPTER

three

IntroductionIntroduction

IntroductionIntroduction

Introduction

The 1950s had ended with serious concerns about the intensification of

political violence during the 1959 election campaign. While the violence appeared

to decline during the early 1960s, by the 1966–67 election campaign it had

escalated within specific areas of the city to the point where a state of emergency

was introduced in an attempt to quell it. The development of partisan violence

was neither linear nor inevitable, particularly given the context of a new political

dynamic in the postcolonial environment. Indeed, the place of violence within

the political process altered as the political environment took shape. Whilst the

violence on the streets of Kingston had been primarily connected with the struggle

for representational rights and survival in the 1940s and 1950s, in the postcolonial

context it became more closely tied to patronage-based politics with consequent

repercussions on political identity and community.

It has been recognised in a number of studies of political violence in Jamaica

that the 1960s witnessed a definitive change in the level and impact of partisan

violence on the electoral process. This was manifested most obviously in the

increasing use of guns and bombs in the western section of the corporate area.

This chapter examines the development of the violence concentrating on three

electoral campaigns: the 1961 referendum, the 1962 and 1967 general elections.

In order to understand why political violence increased, the political, social and

economic context within which it developed is discussed. Focusing on the period

between the 1962 election, which was relatively peaceful, and the 1967 election

which was the most violent up until that point in Jamaican history, the chapter

examines the impact of a number of key developments. Specifically, it explores

the factors which had a direct influence on urban political culture. Occurring

within a context of growing income inequality, a burgeoning drug trade and the

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rise of ‘rude bwoy’ gangs, the violence between rival supporters in the constituency

of West Kingston exhibited the lengths to which political parties, or elements

within them, would go in order to win and consolidate control over a constituency.

Aside from the distribution of weapons to supporters and the encouragement of

political gang formation and consolidation, there was also a growth in the

significance of clientelist relationships between political representatives and their

supporters. This became most evident from the mid-1960s onwards when the

creation of a housing estate solely for the supporters of one political party

inexorably changed the practice of politics in marginalised urban communities.

While the underlying rationale of distributing state benefits to one’s own

supporters had been a feature of the political landscape since the 1940s the

specific attempt to create a geographical political stronghold via housing was a

new departure. The deliberate construction of a politically homogenous

community in the heart of the corporate area was to have a profound impact on

urban political culture as it both reinforced the depth of political loyalty of those

who received benefits from the state and heightened the levels of expectations

of opposition supporters.

Added to the constitutional and leadership changes of the 1960s, the decade

was marked by challenges to the authority of the newly independent state. In

particular radical external movements had an influential impact on internal

political dynamics. These external articulations reinforced those voices within

Jamaica demanding an alternative political dynamic. Two were particularly

important. First, was the rise of Black Power and the radicalisation of the

politics of race which had specific resonance in Jamaica, with its long tradition

of Africanist-based movements. Second, was the hemispheric response to the

consolidation of a Marxist regime in Cuba following the 1959 revolution. External

developments, a growing dissatisfaction about the direction of the newly

independent state coupled with a strong tradition of resistance, led a group of

young radicalised Jamaicans to further question the political and economic

basis of their postcolonial society. At specific moments during the decade these

challenges to the hegemony of the two political parties erupted in the form of

radical, at times violent, protest. Most notable was the 1968 Rodney Riots

which were a response to the refusal to grant re-entry to Guyanese academic

and political activist, Dr Walter Rodney.1 While the actions of non-partisan

political movements challenged the carefully constructed concept of the Jamaican

nation state which the elites had negotiated on the eve of independence, they