Reporting from Kingston, Jamaica
Former Prime Minister Edward Seaga fears Jamaica could fall under indefinite martial law in the aftermath of a week of violence during which, he says, soldiers and police indiscriminately killed dozens of innocent people.
In a telephone interview, Seaga, who was prime minister from 1980 to '89, said Prime Minister Bruce Golding has lost control of the nation's security forces seeking to capture alleged gang leader and drug trafficker Christopher "Dudus" Coke. The suspect, who has been indicted in New York federal court on drug and arms-trafficking charges, is still at large.
Much of the violence has occurred in and around Coke's power base in Kingston's Tivoli Gardens neighborhood. Since May 23, the Jamaican police force and army have conducted several sweeps in which at least 73 people have been killed and 700 arrested. Two police officers and one solider have also been killed in shootouts.
Repeating his call for Golding to resign, Seaga, who represented Tivoli Gardens in Parliament before Golding took over the district, said the prime minister is "vacillating, bumbling and heads a corrupt government."
"I don't want to be guilty of spreading the bad news, but it's time that what is happening is opened up before the world," said Seaga, 80, who has been active in Jamaican politics since independence in 1962. He and Golding are longtime political rivals within the Jamaica Labor Party.
Seaga said at least 100 people had died in the sweeps, and none of them were gangsters.
"The criminals are not the people who have been killed, just innocent people leaving their houses. The armed forces shot every man they could find. This has made me very distraught," said Seaga, adding that Tivoli Gardens is a "crime-free area."
The government said Saturday that all but six of hundreds being held at the National Arena have been released.
Asked to respond to Seaga's charges, officials at a government information center referred to a news conference conducted Friday by Jamaica Police Commissioner Owen Ellington. The commissioner had said that the operations were mounted in response to gangs' "coordinated criminal attacks against security forces" after the government served notice that it was going to arrest Coke.
