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wars in Western Kingston which, in the decade 2000-2010, have left many dead,
injured or rendered homeless. Warring gang members caused interventions by
the security forces.
2.28.
Over time, there has been a discernible pattern of lengthy, high
intensity, violent confrontations, some of which have had major national, political
and economic impact. There have been significant numbers of casualties beyond
what may be expected of normal law enforcement operations. And there have
been complaints of serious and wide-ranging abuses of power and violations of
citizens’ rights by the security forces. The pattern of confrontations is a serious
problem for the people of West Kingston and the whole of Jamaica. It is a
problem that is impatient of a solution that will dissipate the pattern.
2.29.
For many years prior to May 2010, there was no police station
within the Tivoli Gardens community itself. However, after 24 May 2010, the JCF
established a police post within Tivoli Gardens at the premises which formerly
housed the Presidential Click.
2.30.
Paras.3.1 to 3.5 of the
Interim Report of the Office of the
Public Defender
, dated 29 April 2013, adequately describe the origins and
development of Tivoli Gardens for the purposes of this Report and we
respectfully reproduce those paragraphs below:
“3.1. The historic Jamaican inner-city community of Tivoli
Gardens rose from the rubble of the slum called “Back o’
Wall” which was demolished in the mid-1960s. Back o’ Wall
was a dehumanising, dirt poor, labyrinthine squatter
settlement of dirt-poor, zinc and board or walthe-and-daub
shanties and hovels, criss-crossed by a maze of narrow
earthen footpaths; densely populated; bereft of plumbing
and electricity; with distinctly poor sanitation.
3.2. The locality (now characterised by modest but tidily
kept concrete tower block dwellings) derives from a social
construct: a modular concept of comprehensive urban
transformation developed by the Most Hon. Edward Seaga,