Guntego Bay 2017 The Economics of Violence Guns and Murder

"Yuh nuh have no weh fi run, when mi rise up mi demons and shoot dung di sun"
~Tommy Lee Sparta

Welcome to Guntego Bay; city of luxury killings... We pull up in criss cars and slippers and shorts with criss guns, nonchalant and with blatant disregard for those around, we pull up at gas stations and execute, at Moscino or at the court house, or simply leaving a funeral... we are the murderous legends. Monsters unleashed!

In a crime climate like this I wonder how is it the police or government expect to end crime in Jamaica with a NEW LAW and rushed bills and special zones. They shrink away from their political responsibility to fix the economy the heart of our social lives. It takes cash to care and the people have no mney anywhere. Haven’t felt the increasing beg-xtortion in the communities. If the political leaders don’t fix the economy there will continue to be a void or zone or habitat where there is an economic imperative that says money at all costs (get rich or die trying) and a system that fostered a thinking that worked out this logic: I can buy rifles and the biggest and hottest guns in foreign fresh and crisp in a plastic for below $500 US as the real US Market prices are actually very cheap! An AK, Glock or Berretta, can all be bought for less than $500 US, yep that cheap for that much firepower. After which I can send this gun down to Jamaica disassembled and packed in hair gel, in computers, appliances etc and when they get to Jamaica I assemble the guns and sell them for upwards of $1200 US. With super profits on death dealing and selling and warmongering, what economic imperative or logic do people and the profiteers have to stop this new deathly economics? Fear and economics rule the day and the death dealer is now the economic master.

The arithmetics of criminal commerce is a better bet than Cashpot and Just Bet… Guns for drugs and Haiti are the least! Do you really think a man in Montego Bay is going to try to peddle guns for drugs everyday down in Clarendon and Vere and Portland for rusty gun from Haiti, when his filthy scamming lucor can buy him a visa and a ticket to fly out, buy guns throuh Scamazon and E-bay, or some dispossessed and down on his luck US citizen, then finally ship the weapons to Jamaica, then keep some and sell the rest. After that it’s just $$$$$$$$$$$$$$!

What I am trying to get you to understand is that crime can't be solved by a new law or bill to fix crime and our social circumstance we must fix the economy and reinvigorate our authentic Montegonian and Jamaican culture.

Now we hear of civic pride and social fabrics... Only when the killings get absurd! We mourn the death of community groups and civic activism... Only when there is an execution in front of the court house. Now Jamaica looks at us with the 9 day memory and  microscope, will zoom and then soon forget the disasterous epidemic of crime in Montego Bay. Where was the media while Zuggy died last year rifle shots middle road in Paradise by youth carrying rifles in umbrellas... After years of the efforts people put in Youth club, Residents Association, Senior citizens association, etc. The government puts honest everyday heroes and trying citizen them have to jump thru hurdle and loops to get anything done due to bureaucratic red tape, policies unfriendly to small business, to citizens cooperatives, community cooperatives.

Look at all that... Then consider the struggles of black businesses; extortion, taxes, thieves etc.. then we wonder about crime and scamming. The weakness of the black business community and crime are directly related. In MoBay it’s about a Freezone for foreigners, a Duty Free area for Indians, Chinese businesses get tax free breaks hence the out break of supermarkets, but what of black business… No Free Business Space for the Black community with robust support and help. Vendors are criminalized, bureaucracy and red tape stifle the poor man in business. When one considers the prospect that we are bound to slim incomes in MontegoBay FreeZone, in Supermarkets, in Inbond stores and Hotels in a world of inflating billls and expense. The rumour that crime doesn’t pay seems a myth as flashy scammers or gun traders and drug dealers pass you in flashy cars and captivate the women, and throw up impressive concrete castles. What is the resut we see today… a nation in chaos and havoc. A city beseiged by crime. How do we escape the economic algebra of crime with its lucrative commercial dimensions???

About the author: Yannick Nesta Pessoa B.A. is Jamaica’s first blogger, a Community Activist and Law Student at Utech Western Jamaica. Follow Yannick on Twitter at @yahnyk | yannickpessoa@yahoo.com

The Epidemic that is Violence in Jamaica

Jamaica is violent let us not get antsy and make up clever story like Anansi just true a white woman said it on CNN... Also is violence defined strictly by murder and or violent crimes.... isn't violence broad and we meet it in many scopes and spheres... Yow mi live fi see man chop off man hand, people tripe spill on ground after abdomen stab, man march through Paradise with rifle in a umbrella and kill Zuggy, I have a host of friends that I grew up playing basketball with in Albion n Glendevon, a portion of them dead, so many dead friends from Gulf inna Norwood, around 2004 mi usually go dead yard weekly, and funeral like a social event... man did usually all a ask a who fah dead yard dis week, who fah funeral we a roll out pon yah now, mi all go a mi breddrin yard an look on his mirror an haffi ask "don a only funeral u an yuh ooman go" since 2004 mi see Gully dead a Paradise, Radeeka, Froggy, Delano, Buju, Jobe, Jucky, Shorty, Baboo, Kerry-Gaye... And that is just down the road, mi nah talk bout mi wider circles... We say as part of our religion spare not the rod or spoil the child... Didn't we have the 3rd highest murder rate with the most churches per square mile... Violence is inculcated here, men glorify gun an equate it with their penis, Kartel a major icon is in jail for perpetuating violence, many popular songs are violence Fyah 105, play "a bwoy shoulda dead but di Berretta jam, scheme hot today mi a di weather man," no amount of euphemism can not make not feel the evil chill when he says that so many time mi live fi see man come fi man an gun stick, 9 milli jam.. Man get way an ppl a scatter, mi feel robbed of normalcy in Jamaica... Carla Moore said in a long a go article seh we are victims of an unsaid Civil war in Jamaica, a shell shocked citizenry, we live with a numbness to violence, some time we n'even can see how violent we are. Which country you know man hail dem one another as dawg, johncrow, pussy hole, batty man, how ugly man come yah, come yah yuh ole bombo ole a long time mi nuh see a dutty raas like you. We hail in deep gutteral basal voices. Camara Brown and Thura once schooled me on the theory of "culpability" and Jamaica's penchant for violence. Yuh fuck with me I beat u up, mi fuck around police beat mi up, mi beat mi gal if shi slip, mi beat yute if him chat, slave master beat mi fi work Bible seh mi fi beat, So as Kartel said... Beaten beaten dats why mi doah bow or go prayer meeting... So now tell mi why we Vex over the violent speech, we deh pon spike TV splendidly for our women's use crates to beat each other, we on vice TV fi crime, we name shower posse abroad fi deh kill ppl in showers. I have grown immune to callous expressions like suck yuh ma... If so if so... How are we not vile? How we find cause to pretend... We have great qualities but we must come to terms with the dark aspects of our collective Jamaican personality! If Jamaica's violence is in pockets as Fae Ellington proposes in her defense of Jamaica and violence, those that think in such way best know then that it is then literally in every one of our collective pockets, pants pockets and all!

The Maddening Season...

Welcome to the Maddening Season... X-Mas... eXecute-the-Masses...

This year is the year I watched the world go mad and I watched the people of Paradise unravel as the economy plummets... hearts break and minds shatter... aaah I am but the Lion in Daniel's den...

Here are a few poems I wrote in X-mases past...

CHRIST'S MAS

I had a dream where Jesus turned in his grave,
Christmas consumes the souls he came to save,
Money is master while many are slave,
Forgetting the cross and all he gave,
Gideon signs on the road of the future we pave,
Vanity is what we crave.

The cock crows thrice on Christmas eve,
Many celebrate not knowing what they believe,
Happy with the pitiful bonus they receive,
Merchants peddle using fat red saints to deceive,
All the while forgetting how the King shall grieve.

Yannick Nesta Pessoa...

ahhhmm the other poems aren't X-mas poems, just poems written during that season...

THE WANDERING JEW


I wash the dried salt and saliva from face,
I hope the scent of sin will wash away too,
I look out the window and see the world by night,
Pastel designed in mellow moods and tragedies,
And stars singing of memories in melodies and malodies,
I search the sky for a north star,
And wonder...
if the stories are true,
Is there really a wondering Jew?



ODE TO IDLE THINKERS

For all those...
Who stare out the window,
Beyond the mountain and beyond the tree,
This poem connects all those...
Who think like me.

Holding on to all those,
Though...
Shackled by people and their alleged reality,
Still manage...
To look pass the ocean and far into the sea.



___________________________________
WELL THAZ IT FOR POEMS FOR NOW...

lyrics - the freshman

The Grand '07 has begun...

the first song on my 2007 playlist is Khriz Y Angel's Ven Bailalo (Trace TV introduced me to this song)

lyrics - ven bailalo

The Never Ending Battle: 2007 & Beyond (My article for the Mirror: A new year look)


“You must abolish your slavery yourselves. Do not depend for its abolition upon god or a superman. Remember that it is not enough that a people are numerically in the majority. They must be always watchful, strong and self-respecting to attain and maintain success. We must shape our course ourselves and by ourselves.”
~ David Bowie

“I'm not a prophet or a stone aged man, just a mortal with potential of a superman. I'm living on.”
~ BenDon

Superman: Listen, what do you hear?
Lois Lane: I don't hear anything.
Superman: I hear everything. You wrote that the world doesn't need a savior, but everyday I hear people crying for one.
~Supeman Returns: The Movie


Bam bam bam bloiy bloiy bloiy chk chk thoom thoom pieee pieee blam blam bookam bookam bakkam… no amount of onomatopoeia could convey to you the grand gun orchestra that played in Norwood, Gulf, Glendevon, Canterbury, Albion and Gulley to commence the new year. Literally the year in St. James started with a BANG! At the stroke of midnight December 31, 2006 or the morn of January 1, 2007, I was at the yellow night owl’s outpost in Paradise, Glen Skeng’s shop, only to see the whole Paradise pull to halt, and I watched as multitude of people stopped what they were doing to come outside and listen to a barrage of 1001 bullets in what seemed like Gangsters sing their own anthem. I watched people listen and listened as well to gunshots on rapid from 12pm/am to 12:30am, I counted somewhere into the region of near 500 rounds, and can only imagine what I missed. “Mi never tell unnu last week she gun man a go toast to their most high profile year, unnu see it deh now?!? Mi a prophet!” The year has begun, the garrison has spoken.

Well as I told you this year is the year things change, well see! More icons have gone with Neville Willoboughy, Charles Hyatt and Saddam. Looks like I can be a prophet for real, or maybe just a Futurologist as they call the art of prediction and forecasting these days. As I write this article the national body count is already at the unlucky number 13, and as coincidence number 13 is police, who have also been some of the first to go this year. “Anywhich way” for the new year 2007, Jamaica is officially a badman place. The air is thick with a humid kind of tension, but otherwise I have some homework for you, I’d like you all to go listen to the Mavado and Busy Signal song, “Badman Place.” I’d like you to listen to the arrangement of the song, with the ominous violin in the background, it sounds like one of those climactic high strung tense sort of movie arrangements, and the lyrics… “Hell bruk loooooooose again, gun a go riiiiise, anyway, anywaaaaaaaaay, INNA badman place, place, fools get kick inna face, weed pon board while challis a blaze, yuh nuh see it inna hand, it insure inna waist, no time fi trace, Guinness we a beat, Redbull a chase, inna the place violate, get erase we nuh quarrel, inna bwoy head lead (led) a rest… inna badman place real McCoy and gangsta, police ask question, nuh get no answer, inna night, inna day, Mr. 9 (9mm), Mr. K (SK or AK), Mr. Smith and Wesson a we sponsor… shot brush off yuh face like napkins, thugs dem ready fi go rise the Gatling(s)… see and nuh see it, tings weh talk yuh cyaaan repeat or yuh get delete…” For real, that’s the Jamaican national anthem as of this year, Jamaica in no uncertain terms, is Badman Place.

So on to the matter of New Year’s resolutions. Well for all those who can’t manage the crime, I advise that you run away, very, very far away or as the new politically correct term for it in the dancehall is “tek weh yuh self.” I can’t make any resolutions on crime when no one else is making any thing more than mouth talk and yet no serious political commitment or will and no signs of real genuine or sustained effort on the part of the business sector and just general apathy and no serious activism on the part of individuals and communities. But if you still have an ear for some suggestions then they are as follows: First resolution and solution needs to be commitment to youth and employment. Most of us have failed to notice the demographic explosion we are facing, the population of Montego Bay is expanding, through birth rates and the movement of people, yet nothing has been done to address where these generation next children and teenagers will be gainfully employed, much less outfitting them with real life skills to make them an effective and labour force. Hence the response is that they have opted for careers in crime which affects us very negatively. The second resolution ought to be social investment on the part of government and the business sector. The city needs to see incentives and initiatives that encourage people to work, not just a feeble minimum wage but initiatives like profit sharing, businesses need to let employees feel apart of the system and yield benefit from the business excelling, because at the end of the day, no matter who owns the business there is no work or progress without the worker. The local government can also offer citizen awards and such that acknowledge citizen who excel in sports, academics, politics, journalism, etc. And to stem the brain drain the local government needs to pay for overachieving students that seek tertiary education and then bind them to commit at least five years of service to the city or parish in fields that can offer sustainable development.

What I would really see follow up from these suggestions is research, think tanks, public forum, dialogue, letters to editors, parish council public sessions, town meetings, civic pride, private/business sector investments, citizen activism, more radio and spy tv public announcements from the council on what is happening to address all this hell hole in which we have found ourselves.

Now sometime ago I wrote of secret wars: wars with our skin, wars on poverty, economic wars, gender wars or war of the sexes, religious wars, and shade/color wars in Jamaica and MoBay, to be very blunt and honest, this year I see those wars intensifying and am reminded of a claim Superman professes (Yes, I read comics), the claim is that he fights a “Never Ending Battle,” well ladies and gentlemen, this is what life and existence in Jamaica has become a Never Ending Battle, yup 365 days of it, so I suggest everyone take up the role and mantle of Superman and start fighting in this never ending battle or face the real possibility that you will be swept aside, in these battles, by bullets and ballots. Just before year end I was parading Paradise and Downtown in my brother’s Superman T-Shirt for about a week. So if you spot the Ras in the Superman shirt, know that the battle is raging in you neck of the woods.

Yannick Nesta Pessoa
yannickpessoa@yahoo.com