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Crisis and Rebellion As Precursors of Mass Trade Unions and Political Parties in Jamaica

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Crisis and Rebellion As Precursors of Mass Trade Unions and Political Parties in Jamaica CRISIS AND REBELLION AS PRECURSORS OF MASS TRADE UNIONS AND POLITICAL PARTIES IN JAMAICA W. Marvin Will The University of Tulsa Tulsa, Oklahoma Paper Presented to the XIX Annual Conference of the Caribbean Studies Association Merida, Yucatan, Mexico 23-28 May 1994 Draft copy of work in progress. Material not to be cited or quoted without written permission of author. CRISIS AND REBELLION AS PRECURSORS OF MASS TRADE UNIONS AND POLITICAL PARTIES IN JAMAICA INTRODUCTION Institutional Survival and the Shocks of Indepe • once Per ,capita economic growth in Jamaica was truly phenomenal in the both the decade preceding and the decade following independence (1962) as Jamaica registered perhaps the highest per capita increase in productivity in the world (Kuper 1976, 5). Multinational and other foreign investment rushed in, tourism boomed, and although the have-have not gap was widening, a good deal of hope was generated that this prosperity would eventually reach the masses, that genuine people-level economic development would occur. But a substantial level of real development for Jamaica's numerous poor failed to occur either at this time or In the decades that followed. The largest of the newly independent insular Caribbean states (and the third largest island behind Cuba and Hispanola), Jamaica, ironically, has significant resources: bauxite; coffee; bananas; sugar; cattle; wonderful tourist sites, both for the sun-sea enthusiast and the culture-history buff; and two and one- half million energetic people. Despite these assets, Jamaica has spent an inordinate amount of time since the 1970s running only to stand still-or even to decline-on the down-escalator of underdevelopment. To add to this frustration, this stagnation was occurring despite the fact that Jamaica had become the point- country in the Caribbean for U.S. loans and positive investment attention in connection with the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) under a policy of generally favorable treatment by the Reagan administration. ) Had a similar magnitude of underdevelopment, economic downturns, and related disruptive events occurred in several other countries in the Caribbean Basin, one could justifiably have anticipated either open rebellion or military coups, especially in a country where one finds something of a culture of violence. 1 Prime Minister Edward Seaga was the first Head of Government invited to visit Washington after President Reagan assumed office. Since Seaga had impressed Reagan with his recent defeat of the largely democratic socialist government of Michael Manley, this visit blossomed into a special relationship that endured throughout the Reagan years and extended, to some degree, into the Bush Administration. Massive loans that were almost unpayabie were extended to Jamaica, making it the insular Caribbean complement to Costa Rica, Nicaragua's neighbor, in Central America (see WIN 1983, 90-100). Despite-or perhaps in spits of-this special relationship with the United States, Seaga would twice be defeated by Manley and only recently has there been a substantial scaling back of the island's run-away inflation plus a surfacing of hope for improved economic development. 2 Not only has the level of societal violence and crime in Jamaica Increased steadily since independence until it is now one of the highest in the region but Jamaica also has a past record of several riots and rebellions during and in the years following slavery (Hintzen and WM 1988; Headley 1982, 198-210; Eaton 1962, 43-45). Yet, in the late 1970s, and especially in the months preceding the November 1980 election, when Jamaica experienced its most serious post-independence crises In the form of mushrooming socio- economic and political divisions and an elevated level of crime and anomic violence, there was neither an institution-threatening rebellion nor a coup. During this period the government of Michael Manley was forced to accept ruinous "condltionalities" on domestic-social policy imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as Jamaica suffered falling commodity prices; loss of foreign exchange and vital imports, plus declines in many services and commodities; and unemployment levels that leaped to 27-50 percent. There was also an expected acceleration in gang- and political-related violence that led to 745 deaths during the ten months prior to the 1980 baiioting.2 The gravity of these crises led many specialists in both Washington and Jamaica, including the soon-to-be-elected Prime Minister Edward Seaga, to fear a breakdown of the island's political institutions, including those associated with security enforcement (Seaga 1982; U. S. Department of State 1981).3 Remarkably, Prime Minister Seaga stated, the Jamaican political institutions survived: parties, executive, legislative, judical, and administrative institutions, all. And, In a sense, 1980 with all its dislocations . made us stronger," Seaga proudly told the nation in his 1981 New Year's message following his and his party's election, for we now know that we can face [an] awesome confrontation of forces and deliberately and maturely make a strong decision without suffering the collapse of [our] instftutions."4 2 Former Prime Minister Michael Manley must also shoulder some of the responsibility since he responded to protesting upper- and middle-class Jamaicans by angrily telling them to leave on any of the out-bound flights if they did not like his policies. Many did leave, taking capital with them and leaving behind dosed homes, closed businesses, and an eroding tax base. Many island businessmen made arrangements for double Invoicing with sizable amounts paid or siphoned off for deposit in the United States and other metropolitan countries. This practice not only helped circumvent the Jamaican restrictions on currency flows but, as one Miami-based trader told this writer In an off-the-record statement, Is a time-honored sign of a failing political economy." 3 In May 1982, Prime Minister Seaga told this author that he had feared Cuban involvement in a possible rebellion that would threaten Jamaican institutions. Surprisingly, Seaga added that he personally hoped to bring down one Jamaican institution: the opposition PNP, then led by Manley, "so it will never again pose a threat"! 4 Quoted inas Ascag;slic,1f Aunt% 1981, italics added. Economic conditions worsened under Seaga in the early 1980s, and this decline continued into the early 1990s following Manley's re-election. National integration and the legitimacy of 3 Other crises would follow during both the 19808 and the 19908. Would the party and electoral institutions developed some fifty years earlier in Jamaica be able to survive the onslaught? The short projection Is yes–although such a reality for the long term definitely requires informed institutional adaptation and major support building if this island is to avoid the coup or rebellion attempts that since the late 1970s have besieged Commonwealth Caribbean states such as Grenada, Dominica, and Trinidad and Tobago, as well as regional intermediate powers such as Venezuela, a four-decade democracy, and Mexico, which until the Chiapas rebellion of 1994 had appeared to be stable for an even longer period.5 Jamaica was, after all, the leader in the development of party and related linkages and governmental institutions in the Commonwealth Caribbean. This positive legacy of Institutional development, it is hypothesized, Is a direct result of the combination of people-powered rebellions and other labor actions during the late 19308 and early 1940s; y policy responses by the colonial metr , — charismatic leadership that is often generated by and associated with crisis6–although it appears the benefits from this phenomenon in Jamaica were mix: The result was a legacy of mass-based party and related institutions that form one of the best countervailing forces against the military coup and present an important antidote against insurrection and the praetorian governments which, according to Gary Wynia, are concomitant to these alternate political 'games' (Wynia 1990, 24-44, 81-87; also Huntington 1968, and 1991)7 A closer examination of the governance in Jamaica again seemed questioned. At one point Jamaica's inflation level was so severe that CARICOM members refused to accept Jamaican dollars. The run on national reserves reached epidemic levels. Troubled times were indeed at hand. In early February 1902 Jamaica continued to lead the insular Commonwealth Caribbean countries in incidences of gang violence as eight to twelve persons were struck down in gun battles. During Summer 1992, on-duty police were also gunned down. (See Caribbean Insioht 1992, 1-2). 5 The Grenadian coup in 1979, of course, quickly became a social revolution. In Spring and Summer 1992 (while this author was conducting research in Jamaica), Jamaica experienced a major run on its national exchange that threatened to topple the nation's fiscal and monetary order. But a genuine people-powered adaptation occurred, led ironically by a local hotel owner (Butch Stewart), that resulted in a massive return of currency to Jamaican banks and other financial institutions. ff March, to quote Dsnkwart Ruslow (1987, 153), political charisma is one part gift of personality and "three parts setting,' or being there at the right time. Charismatic leadership is extremely important where structures are new or not widely accepted for, to qua* PAontesqleu, "at the birth of societies, it is the leaders ... who create the institutions; afterwards it is the institutions that shape the leaders". 7 I use Wynia's "game" metaphor although he treats the military, corporatist democracy, etc. as players in the alternate political games of Latin America. Still, it is worth noting that the negative and positive impacts of the colonial legacy of Jamaica and many of Jamaica's close neighbors (she is but 90 miles south of Cuba and not much further north of Central America) account 4 process by which Jamaican linkgage institutions emergened Is now in order. But first, some words on the debilitating legacy of class division and violence which very much impacts the development process both in the pre World War period and also in the contemporary period.
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