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ISLANDS OF THE COMMONWEALTH CARIBBEAN
a regional study
Federal Research Division
Library of Congress
Edited by Sandra W. Meditz and Dennis M. Hanratty
Research Completed November 1987
Data as of November 1987
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Foreword
This volume is one in a continuing series of books prepared by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress under the Country Studies/Area Handbook Program sponsored by the Department of the Army. The last two pages of this book list the other published studies.
Most books in the series deal with a particular foreign country, describing and analyzing its political, economic, social, and national security systems and institutions, and examining the interrelationships of those systems and the ways they are shaped by cultural factors. The authors seek to provide a basic understanding of the observed society, striving for a dynamic rather than a static portrayal. Particular attention is devoted to the people who make up the society, their origins, dominant beliefs and values, their common interests and the issues on which they are divided, the nature and extent of their involvement with national institutions, and their attitudes toward each other and toward their social system and political order.
The books represent the analysis of the authors and should not be construed as an expression of an official United States government position, policy, or decision. The authors have sought to adhere to accepted standards of scholarly objectivity. Corrections, additions, and suggestions for changes from readers will be welcomed for use in future editions.
Louis R. Mortimer
Chief
Federal Research Division
Library of Congress
Washington, D.C. 20540-5220
Data as of November 1987
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors wish to acknowledge the contributions of Irving Kaplan, Howard I. Blutstein, Kathryn Therese Johnston, and David S. McMorris, who wrote the 1976 edition of the Area Handbook for Jamaica, and Jan Knippers Black, Howard I. Blutstein, Kathryn Therese Johnston, and David S. McMorris, who wrote the 1976 edition of the Area Handbook for Trinidad and Tobago. Their work provided a useful guide in organizing portions of chapters 2 and 3 of the present volume.
The authors are grateful to individuals in various agencies of the United States government and international and private institutions who gave of their time, research materials, and special knowledge to provide information and perspective. The staffs of various Commonwealth Caribbean embassies, the InterAmerican Development Bank, and the World Bank provided materials that were unavailable from other sources. Stephen F. Clarke, senior legal specialist at the American-British Law Division, Library of Congress, offered insights on the structure and functions of the Eastern Caribbean court system. None of these individuals is in any way responsible for the work of the authors, however.
The authors also wish to thank those who contributed directly to the preparation of the manuscript. These include Richard F. Nyrop, who reviewed all drafts and served as liaison with the sponsoring agency; Martha E. Hopkins, who edited portions of the manuscript and managed its production; Barbara Auerbach, Vincent Ercolano, and Marilyn L. Majeska, who also edited portions of the manuscript; Barbara Edgerton, Janie L. Gilchrist, Monica Shimmin, and Izella Watson who did the word processing; Andrea T. Merrill, who performed the final prepublication editorial review; Diann Johnson of the Printing and Processing Section, Library of Congress, who phototypeset the manuscript under the supervision of Peggy Pixley; and Editorial Experts, which compiled the index.
David P. Cabitto, Sandra K. Cotugno, and Kimberly A. Lord provided invaluable graphics support. Kimberly A. Lord also designed the cover and illustrations for the title page of each chapter. Harriett R. Blood and the firm of Greenhorne and O'Mara prepared the maps, which were reviewed by Susan Lender. Various individuals, libraries, and public agencies generously provided photographs.
Finally, the authors would like to thank several individuals who provided research support. Joan C. Barch, Susan Lender, Timothy L. Merrill, and Marjorie F. Thomas wrote the geography sections in chapters 2 through 6. Timothy L. Merrill also supplied the authors with data on telecommunications and transportation.
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Table of Contents
* ISLANDS OF THE COMMONWEALTH CARIBBEAN
* Foreword
* ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
* PREFACE
* INTRODUCTION
* Chapter 1. Regional Overview
o GEOGRAPHIC SETTING
o HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL SETTING
* The Pre-European Population
* The Impact of the Conquest
o THE EUROPEAN SETTLEMENTS
o THE COLONIAL PERIOD
* The Sugar Revolutions and Slavery
* The Post-Emancipation Societies
o POLITICAL TRADITIONS
o SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTS, 1800-1960
* Education
* Precursors of Independence
o POLITICAL INDEPENDENCE
* Changes in the Social Base of Political Power
* Labor Organizations
* The West Indies Federation, 1957-62
* Political Systems
o SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS
* Chapter 2. Jamaica
o COUNTRY PROFILE
o HISTORICAL SETTING
o GEOGRAPHY
o POPULATION
o EDUCATION
o HEALTH AND WELFARE
o ECONOMY
* Growth and Structure of the Economy
* Patterns of Development
* Role of Government
* National Income and Public Finance
* Expenditures
* Revenues
* Labor Force and Industrial Relations
* Industry
* Mining
* Manufacturing
* Construction
* Energy
* Services
* Tourism
* Banking, Financial Services, and Currency
* Transportation and Communications
* Agriculture
* Land Tenure and Use
* Crops
* Livestock, Fishing, and Forestry
* External Sector
* External Trade
* Balance of Payments and Debt
* Foreign Assistance
o GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
* The Governmental System
* Political Dynamics
o FOREIGN RELATIONS
* Relations with the United States, Britain, and Canada
* Relations with Communist Countries
* Relations with Latin American and Caribbean Countries
* Other Third World Relations
o NATIONAL SECURITY
* The Public Security Forces
* The Armed Forces
* The Police
* The Penal System
* Incidence of Crime
* Political Violence
* Narcotics Crime
* The Criminal Justice System
* CHAPTER 3. TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
o COUNTRY PROFILE
o HISTORICAL SETTING
* Colonial Heritage
* The Road to Independence
o GEOGRAPHY
o POPULATION
o EDUCATION
o HEALTH AND WELFARE
o ECONOMY
* Growth and Structure of the Economy
* Patterns of Development
* Role of Government
* National Income and Public Finance
* Labor Force and Industrial Relations
* Industry
* Petroleum and Asphalt
* Natural Gas
* Petrochemicals
* Iron and Steel
* Manufacturing
* Construction
* Services
* Banking, Financial Services, and Currency
* Tourism
* Transportation, Communications, and Electricity
* Agriculture
* Land Tenure and Use
* Crops
* Livestock, Fishing, and Forestry
* External Sector
* External Trade
* Balance of Payments and Debt
* Foreign Assistance
o GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
* The Governmental System
* Political Dynamics
* Consolidation and Economic Hardship, 1962-69
* Political Unrest and Economic Troubles, 1970-73
* Prosperity and Government Centralization, 1974-81
* The Post-Williams Era, 1981-86
* The Robinson Government
o FOREIGN RELATIONS
o NATIONAL SECURITY
* Chapter 4. The Windward Islands and Barbados
o DOMINICA
* COUNTRY PROFILE: Dominica
* Geography
* Population
* Education
* Health and Welfare
* Economy
* Macroeconomic Overview
* Banking and Finance
* Role of Government
* Sectoral Performance
* Foreign Trade and Balance of Payments
* Government and Politics
* The Governmental System
* Political Dynamics
* Foreign Relations
* National Security
o ST. LUCIA
* COUNTRY PROFILE: St. Lucia
* Geography
* Population
* Education
* Health and Welfare
* Economy
* Macroeconomic Overview
o GRENADA
* Country profile: Grenada
* Geography
* Population
* Education
* Health and Welfare
* Economy
* Macroeconomic Overview
* Banking and Finance
* Role of Government
* Sectoral Performance
* Foreign Trade and Balance of Payments
* Government and Politics
* The Governmental System
* Political Dynamics
* Foreign Relations
* Foreign Relations under the People's Revolutionary Government
* Relations with Latin American and Caribbean Countries
* Relations with the United States
* Relations with the Commonwealth and Others
* National Security
* The Royal Grenada Police Force
o BARBADOS
* COUNTRY PROFILE: Barbados
* Geography
* Population
* Education
* Health and Welfare
* Economy
* Macroeconomic Overview
* Banking and Finance
* Role of Government
* Sectoral Performance
* Foreign Trade and Balance of Payments
* Government and Politics
* The Governmental System
* Political Dynamics
* Foreign Relations
* Relations with Latin American and Caribbean Countries
* Relations with the United States
* Relations with the Commonwealth and Others
* National Security
* The Royal Barbados Police Force
* The Barbados Defence Force
* Chapter 5. The Leeward Islands
o ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA
* COUNTRY PROFILE: Antigua and Barbuda
* Geography
* Population
* Education
* Health and Welfare
* Economy
* Macroeconomic Overview
* Sectoral Performance
* Role of Government
* Trade and Finance
* Government and Politics
* The Governmental System
* Political Dynamics
* Foreign Relations
* National Security
o ST. CHRISTOPHER AND NEVIS
* COUNTRY PROFILE: St. Christopher and Nevis
* Geography
* Population
* Education
* Health and Welfare
* Economy
* Macroeconomic Overview
* Finance and Banking
* Role of Government
* Sectoral Performance
* Foreign Trade and Balance of Payments
* Government and Politics
* The Governmental System
* Political Dynamics
* Foreign Relations
* National Security
o BRITISH DEPENDENCIES: BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS, ANGUILLA, AND MONTSERRAT
* COUNTRY PROFILE: BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS
* COUNTRY PROFILE: ANGUILLA
* COUNTRY PROFILE: MONTSERRAT
* Geography
* Population
* Education
* Health and Welfare
* Economy
* Government and Politics
* The Governmental System
* Political Dynamics
* Foreign Relations
* National Security
* Chapter 6. The Northern Islands
o THE BAHAMAS
* COUNTRY PROFILE: The Bahamas
* Geography
* Population
* Education
* Health and Welfare
* Economy
* Tourism
* Banking and Finance
* Industrial Sector
* Agricultural Sector
* Economic Policy and Management
* Government and Politics
* The Governmental System
* Political Dynamics
* Foreign Relations
* National Security
o BRITISH DEPENDENCIES: THE CAYMAN ISLANDS AND THE TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS
* COUNTRY PROFILE: CAYMAN ISLANDS
* COUNTRY PROFILE: Turks and Caicos Islands
* Geography
* Population
* Education
* Health and Welfare
* Economy
* Government and Politics
* The Governmental System
* Political Dynamics
* Foreign Relations
* National Security
* Chapter 7. Strategic and Regional Security Perspectives
o THE STRATEGIC SETTING
* Historical Background
* Colonial Rivalry
* United States Preeminence
* World War II
* The Postwar Strategic Vacuum
* Current Strategic Considerations
* Britain's Withdrawal
* The Increased Role of the United States
* The Soviet Presence
* The Cuban Presence
o THE REGIONAL SECURITY SETTING
* Postwar Federation Efforts
* Regional Security Threats, 1970-81
* A Regional Security System
* Controversial Security Issues
* Appendices
o Appendix A. Tables
o Appendix B. The Commonwealth of Nations
o Appendix C. The Caribbean Community and Common Market
o Appendix D. Caribbean Basin Initiative
* Bibliography
* Glossary
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PREFACE
This study is an attempt to treat in a compact and objective manner the dominant social, political, economic, and military aspects of the contemporary islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean. Sources of information included scholarly books, journals, and monographs; official reports of governments and international organizations; numerous periodicals; and interviews with individuals having special competence in Caribbean affairs. Chapter bibliographies appear at the end of the book; brief comments on sources recommended for further reading appear at the end of each chapter or country section. Measurements are given in the metric system; a conversion table is provided to assist readers unfamiliar with metric measurements (see table 1, Appendix A). A glossary is also included.
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INTRODUCTION
THE COMMONWEALTH CARIBBEAN is the term applied to the English- speaking islands in the Carribbean and the mainland nations of Belize (formerly British Honduras) and Guyana (formerly British Guiana) that once constituted the Caribbean portion of the British Empire. This volume examines only the islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean, which are Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, the Windward Islands (Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Grenada), Barbados, the Leeward Islands (Antigua and Barbuda, St. Christopher [hereafter, St. Kitts] and Nevis, the British Virgin Islands, Anguilla, and Montserrat), and the so-called Northern Islands (the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, and the Turks and Caicos Islands).
To the casual observer, these islands might appear to be too disparate to allow for a common discussion. Consider, for instance, the differences in population, size, income, ethnic composition, and political status among the various islands. Anguilla's 7,000 residents live on an island totaling 91 square kilometers, whereas Jamaica has a population of 2.3 million and a territory of nearly 11,000 square kilometers. The per capita gross domestic product (GDP--see Glossary) of the Cayman Islands is nearly fourteen times as large as that of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Trinidad and Tobago's population is evenly divided between blacks and East Indians, a pattern quite different from that on the other islands, on which blacks constitute an overwhelming majority. Although most of the islands are independent nations, five (the British Virgin Islands, Anguilla, Montserrat, the Cayman Islands, and the Turks and Caicos Islands) remain British dependencies.
These and other differences, however, should not obscure the extensive ties that bind the islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean. For instance, the islands' populations clearly regard themselves as distinct from their Latin American neighbors and identify more closely with the British Commonwealth of Nations than with Latin America (see Appendix B). All of the Commonwealth Caribbean islands except Grenada supported Britain's actions during the 1982 South Atlantic War in the Falkland/Malvinas Islands, in sharp contrast to the strong Latin American defense of the Argentine position.
This perceived distinctiveness emerged from the islands' shared historical experiences. Their transformation during the seventeenth century from a tobacco- to a sugar-based economy permanently changed life on the islands, as a plantation society employing African slave labor replaced the previous society of small landholders (see The Sugar Revolutions and Slavery, ch. 1). By the early nineteenth century, blacks constituted at least 80 percent of the population in all but one of the British Caribbean islands. The exception was Trinidad, which had begun bringing in large numbers of slaves only in the 1780s and 1790s. When the British abolished slavery in the Caribbean in the 1830s, Trinidadian planters imported indentured labor from India to work the sugarcane fields. Despite their numerical minority, whites continued to control political and economic affairs throughout the islands. Indeed, the all-white House of Assembly in Jamaica abolished itself in 1865 rather than share power with blacks. This abrogation of local assemblies and establishment of crown colony government (see Glossary) was the norm in the British Caribbean in the late 1800s and impeded the development of political parties and organizations.
Demands for political reform quickened after World War I with the appearance of a nascent middle class and the rise of trade unions. In the mid-1930s, the islands became engulfed by riots spawned by the region's difficult economic conditions (see Labor Organizations, ch. 1). The riots demonstrated the bankruptcy of the old sugar plantation system and sounded the death knell for colonial government. Beginning in the 1940s, the British allowed increasing levels of self-government and encouraged the emergence of moderate black political leaders. As a prelude to political independence for the region, the British established a federation in 1958 consisting of ten island groupings. The West Indies Federation succumbed, however, to the parochial concerns of the two largest members--Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago--both of which declared independence in 1962. Between 1966 and 1983, eight additional independent nations were carved out of the British Caribbean.
These ten island nations are located in a strategically significant area. Merchant or naval shipping from United States ports in the Gulf of Mexico--including resupply of North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in wartime--cross narrow Caribbean passages that constitute "choke points." The Caribbean Basin also links United States naval forces operating in the North Atlantic and South Atlantic areas and provides an important source of many raw materials imported by the United States (see Current Strategic Considerations, ch. 7).
Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, the United States asserted its interest in the Caribbean by frequently intervening in the affairs of the Hispanic islands. It did not involve itself, however, in the British colonies, a difference that may explain the relatively harmonious state of relations between the United States and the Commonwealth Caribbean islands when compared with the often contentious tone evident in United States- Latin American interactions. During World War II, and especially after 1960, the United States began to assume Britain's security and defense responsibilities for the Commonwealth Caribbean. Nonetheless, Britain continued to provide police training and remained an important trading partner with the region.
The political systems of the Commonwealth Caribbean nations paradoxically are both stable and fragile. All have inherited strong democratic traditions and parliamentary systems of government formed on the Westminster model. Political succession generally has been handled peacefully and democratically. For example, Barbados' Parliament deftly coped with the deaths in office of prime ministers J.M.G.M. "Tom" Adams in 1985 and Errol Barrow in 1987. At the same time, however, the multi-island character of many of these nations makes them particularly susceptible to fragmentation. The British had hoped to lessen the vulnerability of the smaller islands by making them part of larger, more viable states. This policy often was resented deeply by the unions' smaller partners, who charged that the larger islands were neglecting them. The most contentious case involved one of the former members of the West Indies Federation, St. Kitts-Nevis- Anguilla. In 1967 Anguillans evicted the Kittitian police force from the island and shortly thereafter declared independence. Despite the landing of British troops on the island two years later, Anguilla continued to resist union with St. Kitts and Nevis. Ultimately, the British bowed to Anguillan sentiments and administered the island as a separate dependency. Separatist attitudes also predominated in Nevis; the situation there was resolved, however, by granting Nevisians extensive local autonomy and a guaranteed constitutional right of secession.
The fragility of these systems also has been underscored in the 1980s by a reliance on violence for political ends. Grenada, Dominica, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines offered the most dramatic examples (see Regional Security Threats, 1970-81, ch. 7). Over a four-year span, Grenada experienced the overthrow of a democratically elected but corrupt administration, the establishment of the self-styled People's Revolutionary Government (PRG), the bloody collapse of the PRG and its replacement by the hard-line Revolutionary Military Council, and the intervention of United States troops and defense and police forces from six Commonwealth Caribbean nations (Jamaica, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines). In 1981 the Dominican government foiled a coup attempt involving a former prime minister, the country's defense force, the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, mercenaries, and underworld elements from the United States. Several months later, members of the then-disbanded defense force attacked Dominica's police headquarters and prison in an effort to free the coup participants. In 1979 Rastafarians (see Glossary) seized the airport, police station, and revenue office on Union Island in the Grenadines.
Most of the island governments were quite unprepared to deal with political violence; indeed, only five--Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago--have defense forces, the largest of which has only a little over 2,000 members. In response, the governments of Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines signed a regional security accord that allowed for the coordination of defense efforts and the establishment of paramilitary units drawn from the islands' police forces. Nonetheless, Commonwealth Caribbean leaders generally opposed creating a regional army and contended that such a force might eventually threaten democracy in the region (see A Regional Security System; Controversial Security Issues, ch. 7).
Drug trafficking represents an additional threat to the islands' political systems. The Caribbean has become increasingly important as a transit point for the transshipment of narcotics from Latin America to the United States. Narcotics traffickers have offered payoffs to Caribbean officials to ensure safe passage of their product through the region. Numerous examples abound of officials prepared to enter into such arrangements. In 1985 a Miami jury convicted Chief Minister Norman Saunders of the Turks and Caicos Islands of traveling to the United States to engage in narcotics transactions. A year later, a Trinidadian and Tobagonian government report implicated cabinet members, customs officials, policemen, and bank executives in a conspiracy to ship cocaine to the United States. Bahamian prime minister Lynden O. Pindling frequently has been accused of personally profiting from drug transactions, charges that he vehemently denies. The most recent accusation came in January 1988, when a prosecution witness in the Jacksonville, Florida, trial of Colombian cocaine trafficker Carlos Lehder Rivas claimed that Lehder paid Pindling US$88,000 per month to protect the Colombian's drug operations.
Yet the greatest challenges facing the Commonwealth Caribbean in the 1980s were not political but economic. The once-dominant sugar industry was beset by inefficient production, falling yields, a steady erosion of world prices, and a substantial reduction in United States import quotas. The unemployment level on most of the islands hovered at around 20 percent, a figure that would have been much higher were it not for continued Caribbean emigration to Britain, the United States, and Canada. Ironically, however, because the islands' education systems failed to train workers for a technologically complex economy, many skilled and professional positions went unfilled. In addition, the islands were incapable of producing most capital goods required for economic growth and development; imports of such goods helped generate balance of payments deficits and increasing levels of external indebtedness.
In the early 1980s, regional leaders hoped that President Ronald Reagan's administration's Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) would produce a substantial rise in exports to the United States, thus alleviating economic problems (see Appendix D). The most important part of the CBI--the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act (CBERA) of 1983--allowed eligible Caribbean nations duty-free access to the United States for most exports until 1995. The CBERA, however, excluded some of the region's most important exports, including textiles, apparel, footwear, and sugar. Although nontraditional exports from the Caribbean to the United States increased during the first five years of the CBI, Caribbean governments expressed disappointment with the program's overall results. Legislation introduced in the United States Congress in 1987 called for an extension of the CBI until 2007, an expansion of products included under the duty-free access provision, and a restoration of sugar quotas to 1984 levels. Although the status of the bill remained uncertain in mid-1988, few analysts anticipated changes in sugar import quotas.
Despite the generally troubling economic picture, the tourist sector demonstrated considerable vitality in the 1980s. Commonwealth Caribbean nations successfully marketed the region's beauty, climate, and beaches to a receptive North American audience. As a result, many of the nations achieved dramatic increases in tourist arrivals and net earnings from tourism. For example, the number of foreign visitors to the Bahamas climbed from 1.7 million in 1982 to 3 million in 1986. The British Virgin Islands recorded 161,625 visitors in 1984, an increase of 91,338 as compared with 1976. Jamaica doubled its earnings over the 1980-86 period to stand at US$437 million in 1986. At the same time, however, the sector became quite susceptible to occasional slumps in the United States economy. Two months after the October 1987 stock market crash on Wall Street, tourist arrivals in Jamaica declined by 10 percent compared with the previous year.
In an effort to minimize their overall economic vulnerability, the independent nations of the Commonwealth Caribbean and the British crown colony of Montserrat established the Caribbean Community and Common Market (Caricom--see Appendix C) in 1973. Caricom had a number of goals, the most important of which were economic integration through the creation of a regional common market, diversification and specialization of production, and functional cooperation.
The organization's greatest success was in the area of functional cooperation; by the late 1980s, almost two dozen regional institutions had been created, including the University of the West Indies, the Caribbean Development Bank, the Caribbean Meteorological Council, the West Indies Shipping Corporation (WISCO), and the Caribbean Marketing Enterprise. Not all members of Caricom felt that they shared equitably in the services provided by these institutions, however. In 1987, for example, Dominica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Belize withdrew from WISCO, claiming that the corporation had provided them with few benefits.
Despite success in functional cooperation, Caricom has an uneven track record in achieving economic integration and diversification and specialization. Although members registered substantial increases in intraregional trade during the 1973-81 period, much duplication of production occurred. Over the next five years, intraregional trade declined by more than 50 percent, the result in part of the adoption of protectionist measures by the region's largest consumer, Trinidad and Tobago. In 1987 the cause of regional integration was revived somewhat by Trinidad and Tobago's decision to repeal the provisions in question and by the Caricom members' joint pledge to remove all barriers to intraregional trade by the end of the third quarter of 1988. Even if this commitment is honored, however, depressed demand in the region will inhibit exports.
The most extensive level of cooperation has occurred among seven small islands and island groupings of the Eastern Caribbean (see Glossary). The seven--Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines--have a long history of integration that includes a common market, shared currency, and joint supreme court. In 1981 they formed the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS--see Glossary) as a Caricom associate institution to provide for enhanced economic, foreign policy, and defense cooperation. In May 1987 OECS leaders announced an agreement in principle to form one nation and called for referenda to be held on each island to approve or reject the proposed union. The original plan actually envisaged two separate votes: the first, scheduled for mid-1988, to determine whether unification was desired, and a subsequent ballot the following year to specify the kind of government of the new state. If approved, the union would be established in late 1989 or early 1990.
The fate of the proposed OECS political union remained uncertain as of May 1988. Although Antigua and Barbuda's prime minister Vere Cornwall Bird, Sr., announced his opposition to the plan in July 1987, the other six heads of government continued to support unification. Nonetheless, these leaders resisted demands from ten opposition parties to provide specific details of the proposed venture prior to the first vote. This resistance perhaps stemmed from the leaders' perception that most islanders favored unification in some form; indeed, even the opposition parties-- under the banner of the Standing Committee of Popular Democratic Parties of the Eastern Caribbean (SCOPE)--felt compelled to endorse the idea of union. Still, SCOPE and others raised many issues that needed to be resolved. How much political authority would the six states retain under an OECS government? Would the states be granted equal representation in one of the houses of an OECS parliament? Would civil service employees be subject to transfer anywhere in the new state? Would a uniform wage structure be enacted for these employees? Would Nevisians continue to have local autonomy and a right of secession? Would Montserratians support independence? Thus, a positive vote in the first referenda might lead to contentious debates in the Eastern Caribbean in 1989.
Dynamic political activity was also in evidence in early 1988 in the Turks and Caicos Islands and Trinidad and Tobago. In March 1988 the People's Democratic Movement (PDM) crushed the Progressive National Party (PNP) in parliamentary elections in the Turks and Caicos, winning eleven of thirteen seats; PDM leader Oswald Skippings became the islands' chief minister. The elections were the first held in the Turks and Caicos since the British imposed direct British rule on the territory in July 1986 (see British Dependencies: The Cayman Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands, Government and Politics, ch. 6). That action was taken after a Royal Commission of Inquiry found the chief minister and PNP head, Nathaniel "Bops" Francis, guilty of unconstitutional behavior and ministerial malpractices. Interestingly, the commission also determined that then-PDM deputy leader Skippings was unfit for public office.
The continued decline in 1987 of the economy in Trinidad and Tobago placed considerable strains on the ruling National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR). Against a backdrop of sharp reductions in the gross domestic product and in public expenditures, Prime Minister A.N.R. Robinson openly feuded with the former leaders of the East Indian-based United Labour Front, one of four political parties that had merged to create the NAR--the others being the Democratic Action Congress (DAC), the Organization for National Reconstruction (ONR), and Tapia House (see Political Dynamics, ch. 3). In November 1987 Robinson fired the minister of works, John Humphrey, for criticizing the government's economic performance. In response, Humphrey accused the prime minister of failing to consult with cabinet members. In January 1988 external affairs minister and NAR deputy leader Basdeo Panday, public utilities minister Kelvin Ramnath, and junior finance minister Trevor Sudama participated in a meeting of over 100 NAR dissidents seeking Robinson's ouster; the prime minister dismissed the three from his cabinet the following month. Although each side accused the other of trying to divide the nation between blacks and East Indians, neither called for the breakup of NAR. All of the sacked ministers remained as NAR members of the House of Representatives; Panday also resumed his duties as president of the All Trinidad Sugar Estates and Factory Workers Trade Union.
Thus, the Commonwealth Caribbean islands offer a study in contrast, and sometimes conflict, within their individual boundaries and among themselves. A region gifted by abundant natural beauty and a pleasant climate, it looks to North America to generate increasing tourist dollars. Yet the islands also seek to maintain their independence from North American and West European dominance. Beset by internal bickering, the region nevertheless has seen economic interdependency blossom among some of its parts. Although distinct from Latin America, it suffers from some of the same ills, including the infiltration of the drug trade into its politics. It is a region that could be on the brink of true cooperation or on the path of further disunity.
May 26, 1988
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Significant developments occurred in a number of Commonwealth Caribbean islands in the months following completion of research and writing of this book. Jamaica experienced a devastating hurricane and also held a general election that resulted in a change in government. Voters also cast their ballots in general elections in three other island groupings: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, and St. Kitts and Nevis. Finally, Trinidad and Tobago was beset by continued economic problems and a fragmentation of its ruling party.
On September 12, 1988, Hurricane Gilbert roared through Jamaica with winds gusting at up to 280 kilometers per hour, thus qualifying it as the strongest storm ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere. The hurricane, described by Prime Minister Edward Seaga as the worst disaster in Jamaica's modern history, resulted in the deaths of over 30 people and the displacement of 20 percent of the population. Analysts estimated damage to the economy at US$1.3 billion. Agriculture was particularly hard hit; for example, the hurricane destroyed virtually all of the country's banana plantations.
As the nation grappled with the impact of Hurricane Gilbert, Jamaica's most famous politicians--Seaga and Michael Manley-- prepared to face the voters in the first contested general election since 1980. Both Seaga and Manley carried heavy baggage into the electoral campaign. Although credited with attracting foreign aid and investment and strengthening tourism, Seaga was also attacked for slashing government spending on education, health, and housing. Many analysts contended that the quality of life for Jamaica's poor majority had declined during Seaga's eight years in office. In addition, polls indicated that Jamaicans generally viewed Seaga as an aloof leader. Manley, in turn, had to defend his own controversial record of leadership. As prime minister during the 1970s, Manley abrogated agreements with international aluminum companies, feuded with the International Monetary Fund (IMF--see Glossary), promoted a "new international economic order," and developed close relations with cuba (see Role of Government; Foreign Relations, ch. 2). Critics asserted that the election of Manley would chill Jamaica's strong relations with the United States.
Responding to these criticisms, Manley sought during the campaign to present himself as a moderate leader who had learned much from the celebrated battles of the 1970s. Manley stressed the importance of close relations with the United States, pledged community, and promised to continue payments on the nation's estimated US$4-billion debt. By the close of the campaign, Manley had assuaged fears that he was too radical to lead Jamaica into the 1990s. On February 9, 1989, Manley's People's National Party scored a landslide victory, claiming almost 57 percent of the popular vote and 44 of the 60 seats in the House of Representatives. After assuming the prime ministership, Manley indicated that he would give top priority to an expansion of education and social services. However, with almost half of all foreign exchange earnings committed to debt servicing, many analysts contended that Jamaica lacked the resources to fund an ambitious social agenda.
In contrast to Jamaica, incumbents won elections in Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, and St. Kitts and Nevis. Emile Gumbs retained his post as Anguilla's chief minister, although he needed the support of an independent candidate. Gumbs's Anguilla National Alliance captured three of the seven seats in the House of Assembly elections of February 27, 1989. The Anguilla United Party won two seats and the Anguilla Democratic Party, one. Gumbs's control of the government was assured, however, by the election of independent candidate Osbourne Fleming to the remaining House seat. Fleming, who served as finance and education minister in the previous government, again supported Gumbs's bid for the chief ministership. On March 9, 1989, voters in Antigua and Barbuda gave an overwhelming victory to Prime Ministers Bird and his Antigua Labour Party (ALP). The ALP captured fifteen of the sixteen House of Representatives seats contested in Antigua; the remaining seat went to the United National Democratic Party. The Barbuda People's Movement claimed the seventeenth House seat, which is reserved for the residents of Barbuda. On March 21, 1989, Prime Minister Kennedy Dennis Simmonds led his People's Action Movement (PAM) to victory in the St. Kitts and Nevis National Assembly elections. PAM won six of the eight seats contested in St. Kitts, the remainder going to the Labour Party. PAM's coalition partner, the Nevis Reformation Party, claimed two of the three Assembly seats from Nevis. A new party, Concerned Citizens Movement, won the other Nevis seat.
Although general elections in Trinidad and Tobago were not expected until late 1991, the nation's economic woes helped erode support for the Robinson government. In July 1988, the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago announced the exhaustion of its international reserves--a stunning development for a nation whose reserves totalled US$3.3 billion in 1981. Faced with the need to finance an estimated US$1.8-billion foreign debt, Robinson submitted a request to the IMF in November 1988 for a 14-month Standby Arrangement totaling US$547 million. In exchange for assistance, Robinson pledged to reduce public spending form 7 percent to 4 percent of GDP, to trim the size of the public sector workforce by 15 percent over the next 2 years, to seek a delay in a court-ordered cost of living allowance (COLA), to enact a total liberalization of imports by 1990, and to eliminate price controls on all products except those deemed critical to low-income residents. One month after the January 1989 IMF approval of the Standby Arrangement, Robinson received legislative support for a 10-percent pay cut for public employees and a 2-year suspension of the COLA payments.
The economic crisis proved too large a stumbling block for continued unity within the NAR. In September 1988, the NAR National Council expelled Panday, Ramnath, and Sudama from the party after the three established their own movement--the Caucus of Love, Unity, and Brotherhood (more commonly known as Club '88)--and persisted in their criticisms of government policies. Following the expulsions, Tapia House withdrew from the NAR, leaving the ruling party with only the former members of the DAC and the ONR. In early 1989, Panday announced that Club '88 supporters would meet on April 30, 1989 to create a new political party, the United National Congresses. Trinidadians and Tobagonians anticipated a bitter political struggle over the next two years.
April 10, 1989
Dennis M. Hanratty
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Chapter 1. Regional Overview
THE COMMONWEALTH CARIBBEAN ISLANDS have a distinctive history. Permanently influenced by the experiences of colonialism and slavery, the Caribbean has produced a collection of societies that are markedly different in population composition from those in any other region of the world.
Lying on the sparsely settled periphery of an irregularly populated continent, the region was "discovered" by Christopher Columbus in 1492. Thereafter, it became the springboard for the European invasion and domination of the Americas, a transformation that historian D. W. Meinig has aptly described as the "radical reshaping of America." Beginning with the Spanish and Portuguese and continuing with the arrival more than a century later of other Europeans, the indigenous peoples of the Americas experienced a series of upheavals. The European intrusion abruptly interrupted the pattern of their historical development and linked them inextricably with the world beyond the Atlantic Ocean. It also severely altered their physical environment, introducing both new foods and new epidemic diseases. As a result, the native Indian populations rapidly declined and virtually disappeared from the Caribbean, although they bequeathed to the region a distinct cultural heritage that is still seen and felt.
During the sixteenth century, the Caribbean region was significant to the Spanish empire. In the seventeenth century, the English, Dutch, and French established colonies. By the eighteenth century, the region contained colonies that were vitally important for all of the European powers because the colonies generated great wealth from the production and sale of sugar.
The early English colonies, peopled and controlled by white settlers, were microcosms of English society, with small yeoman farming economies based mainly on tobacco and cotton. A major transformation occurred, however, with the establishment of the sugar plantation system. To meet the system's enormous manpower requirements, vast numbers of black African slaves were imported throughout the eighteenth century, thereby reshaping the region's demographic, social, and cultural profile. Although the white populations maintained their social and political preeminence, they became a numerical minority in all of the islands. Following the abolition of slavery in the mid-nineteenth century, the colonies turned to imported indentured labor from India, China, and the East Indies, further diversifying the region's culture and society. The result of all these immigrations is a remarkable cultural heterogeneity in contemporary Caribbean society.
The abolition of slavery was also a major watershed in Caribbean history in that it initiated the long, slow process of enfranchisement and political control by the nonwhite majorities in the islands. The early colonies enjoyed a relatively great amount of autonomy through the operations of their local representative assemblies. Later, however, for ease of administration and to facilitate control of increasingly assertive colonial representative bodies, the British adopted a system of direct administration known as crown colony government in which Britishappointed governors wielded nearly autocratic power. The history of the colonies from then until 1962 when the first colonies became independent is marked by the rise of popular movements and labor organizations and the emergence of a generation of politicians who assumed positions of leadership when the colonial system in the British Caribbean was dismantled.
Despite shared historical and cultural experiences and geographic, demographic, and economic similarities, the islands of the former British Caribbean empire remain diverse, and attempts at political federation and economic integration both prior to and following independence have foundered. Thus, the region today is characterized by a proliferation of mini-states, all with strong democratic traditions and political systems cast in the Westminster parliamentary mold, but all also with forceful individual identities and interests.
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GEOGRAPHIC SETTING
The Commonwealth Caribbean islands make up a large subcomponent of the hundreds of islands in the Caribbean Sea, forming a wide arc between Florida in the north and Venezuela in the south, as well as a barrier between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean (see fig. ___, Regional Map). Varying considerably in size, the islands, which are the isolated upper parts of a submerged chain of volcanic mountains, are scattered over thousands of square kilometers of sea. The entire region lies well within the northern tropics.
The three principal geological formations found throughout the Caribbean are igneous and metamorphic rocks, limestone hills or karst, and coastal, sedimentary plains of varying depths, resulting in three prevailing types of topography, found either separately or in combination. The first consists of high (over 1,200 meters), rugged, sharply dissected mountains--such as the Blue Mountains in eastern Jamaica, the Morne Diablotins in central Dominica, the Pitons in St. Lucia, and the Northern Range in Trinidad--all covered with dense, evergreen rain forests and cut by swiftly flowing rivers. The second typography consists of very hilly countryside, such as the high plateau of central Jamaica, or the islands of St. Kitts, Antigua, and Barbados. There the hills seldom rise above 600 meters and are more gently sloped than the high mountains, but karst areas are still rugged. Finally, the coastal plains skirt the hills and mountains, with their greatest extensions usually on the southern or western sides of the mountains. Active volcanoes exist in Dominica, St. Vincent, and St. Lucia, and there are crater lakes formed by older activity in Grenada. All the islands have rugged coastlines with innumerable inlets fringed by white or dark sands (depending on the rock substratum ) of varying texture. The beaches of Negril, Jamaica, and Grand Anse, Grenada, have fine-textured white sands that extend for nearly eleven kilometers each.
The Caribbean climate is tropical, moderated to a certain extent by the prevailing northeast trade winds. Individual climatic conditions are strongly dependent on elevation. At sea level there is little variation in temperature, regardless of the time of the day or the season of the year. Temperatures range between 24°C and 32°C. In Kingston, Jamaica, the mean temperature is 26°C, whereas Mandeville, at a little over 600 meters high in the Carpenters Mountains of Manchester Parish, has recorded temperatures as low as 10°C. Daylight hours tend to be shorter during summer and slightly longer during winter than in the higher latitudes. The conventional division, rather than the four seasons, is between the long rainy season from May through October and the dry season, corresponding to winter in the northern hemisphere.
Even during the rainy period, however, the precipitation range fluctuates greatly. Windward sides of islands with mountains receive much rain, whereas leeward sides can have very dry conditions. Flat islands receive slightly less rainfall, but its pattern is more consistent. For example, the Blue Mountains of eastern Jamaica record around 558 centimeters of rainfall per year, whereas Kingston, on the southeastern coast, receives only 399 centimeters. Bridgetown, the capital of Barbados, has an average annual rainfall of 127 centimeters, while Bathsheba on the central east coast receives 254 centimeters--despite the fact that Bathsheba is only about 27 kilometers away by road. Recording stations in the Northern Range in Trinidad measure some 302 centimeters of rainfall per year, while at Piarco Airport on the Caroni Plains the measurement is only 140 centimeters. Most of the rainfall occurs during short heavy outbursts during daylight hours. In Jamaica, about 80 percent of the rainfall occurs during the day. The period of heaviest rainfall usually occurs after the sun has passed directly overhead, which in the Caribbean islands would be sometime around the middle of May and again in early August. The rainy season also coincides with the disastrous summer hurricane season, although Barbados, too far east, and Trinidad and Tobago, too far south, seldom experience hurricanes.
Hurricanes are a constant feature of most of the Caribbean, with a "season" of their own lasting from June to November. Hurricanes develop over the ocean (usually in the eastern Caribbean) during the summer months when the sea surface temperature is high (over 27°C) and the air pressure falls below 950 millibars. These conditions create an "eye" about 20 kilometers wide, around which a steep pressure gradient forms that generates wind speeds of 110 to 280 kilometers per hour. The diameter of hurricanes can extend as far as 500 to 800 kilometers and produce extremely heavy rainfalls as well as considerable destruction of property. The recent history of the Caribbean echoes with the names of destructive hurricanes: Janet (1955), Donna (1960), Hattie (1961), Flora (1963), Beulah (1967), Celia and Dorothy (1970), Eloise (1975), David (1979), and Allen (1980).
The natural resources of the Commonwealth Caribbean islands are extremely limited. Jamaica has extensive deposits of bauxite, some of which is mined and processed locally into alumina, with the United States being the largest market for the bauxite and alumina. In addition, Jamaica has large quantities of gypsum. Trinidad and Tobago has petroleum, pitch, and natural gas. Small, noncommercially viable deposits of manganese, lead, copper, and zinc are found throughout most of the islands. Nevertheless, most of the territories possess nothing more valuable than beautiful beaches, marvelously variegated seas, and a pleasant climate conducive to the promotion of international tourism.
Industrialization varies from territory to territory, but agriculture is generally declining on all the islands. The sugar industry, once the mainstay of the Caribbean economies, has faltered. Although the labor force employed in sugar production (and in agriculture in general) still forms the major sector of the employed labor force in Barbados and Jamaica, the contribution that sugar makes to the gross domestic product (GDP--see Glossary) has steadily dropped. Barbados has kept its sugar industry going, but it has steadily reduced dependence on sugar exports and diversified its economy. For example, in 1946 Barbados had 52 sugar factories producing nearly 100,000 tons of sugar and employing more than 25,000 persons during crop-time. Although production had increased by 1980, the number of factories had declined to eight, and the number employed was slightly less than 9,000. Furthermore, the proportion of GDP contributed by sugar and sugar products had declined from 37.8 percent to 10.9 percent over the same period.
Since the 1950s, light manufacturing, mining, and processing of foods and other commodities have been used to bolster employment and increase the local economies. Although these sectors have been important contributors to the GDP of the individual states, in no case does this contribution exceed 20 percent of the total. Moreover, industrialization has provided neither sufficient jobs nor sufficient wealth for the state to offset the decline in agricultural production and labor absorption.
The Commonwealth Caribbean islands, like the rest of the region (except Cuba), find themselves in a difficult trading situation with the United States. From the regional perspective, the United States accounts for between 20 and 50 percent of all imports and exports. On the other hand, the Commonwealth states account for less than 1 percent of all United States imports and exports and less than 5 percent of the more than US$38 billion of overseas private investment in the Western hemisphere. But the interest in the Commonwealth Caribbean islands cannot be measured in economic terms only. The Caribbean is clearly within the American sphere of interest for political and strategic considerations that defy economic valuation.
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HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL SETTING
The Pre-European Population
Before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492, most of the Caribbean was peopled by three types, or groups, of inhabitants: the Ciboney or Guanahuatebey, the Taino or Arawak, and the Caribs. The cultural distinctions among the three groups are not great; the single greatest differentiating factor appears to be their respective dates of arrival in the region. The Ciboney seem to have arrived first and were found in parts of Cuba and the Bahamas. They also seem to have had the most elementary forms of social organization. The most numerous groups were the Arawaks, who resided in most of the Greater Antilles--Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola (presently, Haiti and the Dominican Republic), and Puerto Rico. The smaller eastern island chain was the home of the Caribs, a tropical forest group related to most of the indigenous Indians found in Central and South America. Barbados and a number of smaller islands were not permanently inhabited.
Estimates of the size of the pre-Hispanic population of the Americas vary considerably. Both Columbus and Father Bartolomé de Las Casas (who wrote the first history of the Spanish conquest and treatment of the Indians) produced estimates that appear to defy credibility. Las Casas thought the population of the Caribbean might have been in the vicinity of several million, and by virtue of his having lived in both Hispaniola and Cuba where he held encomiendas, or the right to tribute from Indians, he is as close as we get to an eye-witness account. Las Casas had a penchant for hyperbole, and it is doubtful that he could have produced reliable estimates for areas where he did not travel. Nevertheless, some more recent scholars have tended to agree with Las Casas, estimating as many as 4 million inhabitants for the island of Hispaniola in 1492. Although the dispute continues, a consensus seems to be developing for far lower figures than previously accepted.
An indigenous population of less than a million for all of the Caribbean would still be a relatively dense population, given the technology and resources of the region in the late fifteenth century. Probably one-half of these inhabitants would have been on the large island of Hispaniola, about 50,000 in Cuba, and far fewer than that in Jamaica. Puerto Rico, Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and Trinidad all had fairly concentrated, if not large, populations.
The pre-European populations of the territories that later formed the Commonwealth Caribbean belonged to the groups designated as Caribs and Arawaks. Both were tropical forest people, who probably originated in the vast expanse of forests of the northern regions of South America and were related linguistically and ethnically to such present-day tropical forest peoples as the Chibcha, the Warao, the Yanomamo, the Caracas, the Caquetío, or the Jirajara--in short, the peoples found anywhere from Panama to Brazil.
The Arawaks lived in theocratic kingdoms, with a hierarchically arranged pantheon of gods, called zemis, and village chiefs, or caciques. The zemis were represented by icons of wood, stone, bones, and human remains. Arawaks believed that being in the good graces of their zemis protected them from disease, hurricanes, or disaster in war. They therefore served cassava (manioc) bread as well as beverages and tobacco to their zemis as propitiatory offerings.
The size of the community and the number of zemis he owned were directly related to the chief's importance. Chiefs lived in rectangular huts, called bohios, while the regular members of the community lived in round huts, called caneyes. The construction of both types of building was the same: wooden frames, topped by straw, with earthen floor, and scant interior furnishing. But the buildings were strong enough to resist hurricanes.
From the European perspective, the wealth of the indigenous Indians was modest indeed. While Columbus and his successors sought gold and other trading commodities of value on the European market, the native Antilleans were not interested in trade and used gold only ornamentally. Their personal possessions consisted of wooden stools with four legs and carved backs, approximately two-meter- long hammocks of cotton cloth or strings for sleeping, clay and wooden bowls for mixing and serving food, calabashes or gourds for drinking water and bailing out boats, and their most prized possession, large dugout canoes for transportation, fishing, and water sports. One such canoe found in Jamaica could transport about seventy-five persons.
The Indians painted their bodies in bright colors, and some wore small ornaments of gold and shells in their noses, around their necks, or hanging from their ears. Body-painting was also employed to intimidate opponents in warfare.
Arawak villagers produced about two crops per year of manioc, maize, potatoes, peanuts, peppers, beans, and arrowroot. Cultivation was by the slash-and-burn method common throughout the Middle Americas, with the cultivated area's being abandoned after the harvest. The Indians worked the soil with sticks, called coas, and built earthen mounds in which they planted their crops. They might also have used fertilizers of ash, composted material, and feces to boost productivity. There is even evidence of simple irrigation in parts of southwestern Hispaniola.
Hunting and fishing were major activities. Arawaks hunted ducks, geese, parrots, iguanas, small rodents, and giant tree sloths. Parrots and a species of mute dog were domesticated. Most fishing, done by hand along the coast and in rivers, was for molluscs, lobsters, and turtles. Bigger fish were caught with baskets, spears, hooks, and nets. In some cases, fish were caught by attaching the hooks of sharpened sticks to a small sucking fish, called a remora, which fastened itself to larger fish such as sharks and turtles.
Food was prepared by baking on stones or barbecuing over an open fire, using peppers, herbs, and spices lavishly for both flavor and preservation. In some places, beer was brewed from maize. The descriptions of the first Europeans indicated that the food supply was sufficient and in general the inhabitants were well fed--until the increased demand of the new immigrants and the dislocation created by their imported animals created famine.
The Caribs of the eastern islands were a highly mobile group; they possessed canoes similar to those of the Arawaks, but they employed them for more warlike pursuits. Their social organization appeared to be simpler than that of the Arawaks. They had no elaborate ceremonial ball courts like those found on the larger islands, but their small, wooden, frame houses surrounded a central fireplace that might have served as a ceremonial center. Many of their cultural artifacts--especially those recovered in Trinidad-- resemble those of the Arawaks. This might be explained in part by the Carib practice of capturing Arawak women as brides, who then could have socialized the children along Arawak lines.
The social and political organization of Carib society reflected both their military inclination and their mobile status. Villages were small, often consisting of members of an extended family. The leader of the village, most often the head of the family, supervised the food-gathering activities, principally fishing, done by the men, and cultivation, a task for the women. In addition, the leader settled internal disputes and led raids against neighboring groups. The purpose of these raids was to obtain wives for the younger males of the village.
Warfare was an important activity for Carib males, and before the arrival of the Spanish they had a justified reputation as the most feared warriors of the Caribbean. Using bows, poisoned arrows, javelins and clubs, the Caribs attacked in long canoes, capturing Arawak women and, according to Arawak informants, ritualistically cooking and eating some male captives. There are, however, no records of Caribs eating humans after the advent of the Europeans, thus casting doubts on the Arawak tales.
When the Spanish arrived in the Caribbean at the end of the fifteenth century, the Caribs and Arawaks, like all other frontier peoples, were undergoing mutual adaptations. The generally more peaceful Arawaks were becoming more adept at fighting; and, away from the contested frontier, the Caribs, like those in Trinidad, were spending more time on agriculture than warfare.
The Caribs and the Arawaks were progressively wiped out by the after-effects of the conquest, with the peaceful Arawaks suffering the greater catastrophe. The concentrated populations on Hispaniola, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica declined rapidly, victims of enslavement, social dislocation, and unfamiliar epidemic diseases. The smaller, more scattered populations of the smaller eastern Caribbean islands survived much better physically and epidemiologically. In the seventeenth century, the Caribs resisted European settlements on Dominica, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent, destroying the first English colony on St. Lucia in 1641 and delaying the effective occupation of Dominica and St. Vincent until the middle of the eighteenth century. Some Caribs resisted assimilation or acculturation by the Europeans, and a few of their descendants still live on a reservation in Dominica. Both the Caribs and Arawaks left indelible influences on the languages, diet, and ways of life of the twentieth century people who live in the region. Caribbean food crops, such as peanuts, cashew nuts, potatoes, tomatoes, pineapples, pumpkins, manioc, and maize, have spread around the world. The Indians' habit of smoking tobacco has become widespread, and tobacco has become an important commercial commodity. Arawakan and Cariban words have permeated the languages of the region: words such as agouti, avocado, barbecue, bohio (a peasant hut), buccaneer, calpulli (an urban zone), caney (a thatched hut), canoe, cannibal, cassava, cay, conuco (a cultivated area), quaqua (a bus or truck), quajiro (a peasant), guava, hammock, hurricane, iguana, maize, manatee, and zemi (an icon).
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The Impact of the Conquest
The Europeans who invaded and conquered the Caribbean terminated the internally cohesive world of the native peoples and subordinated the region and the peoples to the events of a wider world in which their fortunes were linked with those of Africa, Europe, and the Americas. The Caribbean peoples were devastated by new epidemic diseases, such as measles, smallpox, malaria, and dysentery, introduced by the Europeans and the Africans imported as slaves. Their social and political organizations were restructured in the name of Christianity. Their simple lives were regimented by slavery and the demands of profit-oriented, commercial-minded Europeans. Above all, they were slowly inundated culturally and demographically by the stream of new immigrants in the years immediately after the conquest.
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THE EUROPEAN SETTLEMENTS
European settlements in the Caribbean began with Christopher Columbus. Carrying an elaborate feudal commission that made him perpetual governor of all lands discovered and gave him a percentage of all trade conducted, Columbus set sail in September 1492, determined to find a faster, shorter way to China and Japan. He planned to set up a trading-post empire, modeled after the successful Portuguese venture along the West African coast. His aim was to establish direct commercial relations with the producers of spices and other luxuries of the fabled East, thereby cutting out the Arab middlemen who had monopolized trade since capturing Constantinople in 1453. He also planned to link up with the lost Christians of Abyssinia, who were reputed to have great quantities of gold--a commodity in great demand in Europe. Finally, as a good Christian, Columbus wanted to spread Christianity to new peoples. Columbus, of course, did not find the East. Nevertheless, he called the peoples he met "Indians," and, because he had sailed west, referred to the region he found as the "West Indies."
However, dreams of a trading-post empire collapsed in the face of real Caribbean life. The Indians, although initially hospitable in most cases, simply did not have gold and trade commodities for the European market. In all, Columbus made four voyages of exploration between 1492 and 1502, failing to find great quantities of gold, Christians, or the courts of the fabled khans described by Marco Polo. After 1499, small amounts of tracer gold were discovered on Hispaniola, but by that time local challenges to his governorship were mounting, and his demonstrated lack of administrative skills made matters worse. Even more disappointing, he returned to Spain in 1502 to find that his extensive feudal authority in the New World was rapidly being taken away by his monarchs.
Columbus inadvertently started a small settlement on the north coast of Hispaniola when his flagship, the Santa Maria, wrecked off the Môle St-Nicolas on his first voyage. When he returned a year later, no trace of the settlement appeared--and the former welcome and hospitality of the Indians had changed to suspicion and fear.
The first proper European settlement in the Caribbean began when Nicolás de Ovando, a faithful soldier from western Spain, settled about 2,500 Spanish colonists in eastern Hispaniola in 1502. Unlike Columbus' earlier settlements, this group was an organized cross-section of Spanish society brought with the intention of developing the Indies economically and expanding Spanish political, religious, and administrative influence. In its religious and military motivation, it continued the reconquista (reconquest), which had expelled the Moors from Grenada and the rest of southern Spain.
From this base in Santo Domingo, as the new colony was called, the Spanish quickly fanned out throughout the Caribbean and onto the mainland. Jamaica was settled in 1509 and Trinidad the following year. By 1511 Spanish explorers had established themselves as far as Florida. However, in the eastern Caribbean, the Caribs resisted the penetration of Europeans until well into the seventeenth century and succumbed only in the eighteenth century.
With the conquest of Mexico in 1519 and the subsequent discovery of gold there, interest in working the gold deposits of the islands decreased. Moreover, by that time the Indian population of the Caribbean had dwindled considerably, creating a scarcity of workers for the mines and pearl fisheries. In 1518 the first African slaves, called ladinos because they had lived in Spain and spoke the Castilian language, were introduced to the Caribbean to help mitigate the labor shortage.
The Spanish administrative structure that prevailed for the 132 years of Spanish monopoly in the Caribbean was simple. At the imperial level were two central agencies, the Casa de Contratación, or House of Trade, which licensed all ships sailing to or returning from the Indies and supervised commerce, and the Consejo de Indias, the royal Advisory Council, which attended to imperial legislation. At the local level in the Caribbean were the governors, appointed by the monarchs of Castile, who supervised local municipal councils. The governors were regulated by audiencias, or appellate courts. A parallel structure regulated the religious organizations. Despite the theoretical hierarchy and clear divisions of authority, in practice each agency reported directly to the monarch. As set out in the original instructions to Ovando in 1502, the Spanish New World was to be orthodox and unified under the Roman Catholic religion and Castilian and Spanish in culture and nationality. Moors, Jews, recent converts to Roman Catholicism, Protestants, and gypsies were legally excluded from sailing to the Indies, although this exclusiveness could not be maintained and was frequently violated.
By the early seventeenth century, Spain's European enemies, no longer disunited and internally weak, were beginning to breach the perimeters of Spain's American empire. The French and the English established trading forts along the St. Lawrence and the Hudson Rivers in North America. These were followed by permanent settlements on the mid-Atlantic coast (Jamestown) and in New England (Massachusetts Bay colony).
Between 1595 and 1620, the English, French, and Dutch made many unsuccessful attempts to settle along the Guiana coastlands of South America. The Dutch finally prevailed, with one permanent colony along the Essequibo River in 1616, and another, in 1624, along the neighboring Berbice River. As in North America, initial loss of life in the colonies was discouragingly high. In 1624 the English and French gave up in the Guianas and jointly created a colony on St. Kitts in the northern Leeward Islands. At that time, St. Kitts was occupied only by Caribs. With the Spanish deeply involved in the Thirty Years War in Europe, conditions were propitious for colonial exploits in what until then had been reluctantly conceded to be a Spanish domain.
In 1621, the Dutch began to move aggressively against Spanish territory in the Americas--including Brazil, temporarily under Spanish control between 1580 and 1640. In the Caribbean, they joined the English in settling St. Croix in 1625 and then seized the minuscule, unoccupied islands of Curaçao, St. Eustatius, St. Martin, and Saba, thereby expanding their former holdings in the Guianas, as well as those at Araya and Cumana on the Venezuelan coast.
The English and the French also moved rapidly to take advantage of Spanish weakness in the Americas and overcommitment in Europe. In 1625, the English settled Barbados and tried an unsuccessful settlement on Tobago. They took possession of Nevis in 1628 and Antigua and Montserrat in 1632. They planted a colony on St. Lucia in 1638, but it was destroyed within four years by the Caribs. The French, under the auspices of the Compagnie des Iles d'Amerique, chartered by Cardinal Richelieu in 1635, successfully settled Martinique and Guadeloupe, laying the base for later expansion to St. Bartholomé, St. Martin, Grenada, St. Lucia, and western Hispaniola, which was formally ceded by Spain in 1697 at the Treaty of Ryswick (signed between France and the alliance of Spain, the Netherlands, and England, and ending the War of the Grand Alliance). Meanwhile, an expedition sent out by Oliver Cromwell (Protector of the English Commonwealth, 1649-58) under Admiral William Penn (the father of the founder of Pennsylvania) and General Robert Venables in 1655 seized Jamaica, the first territory captured from the Spanish. (Trinidad, the only other British colony taken from the Spanish, fell in 1797 and was ceded in 1802.) At that time Jamaica had a population of about 3,000, equally divided between Spaniards and their slaves--the Indian population having been eliminated. Although Jamaica was a disappointing consolation for the failure to capture either of the major colonies of Hispaniola or Cuba, the island was retained at the Treaty of Madrid in 1670, thereby more than doubling the land area for potential British colonization in the Caribbean. By 1750 Jamaica was the most important of Britian's Caribbean colonies, having eclipsed Barbados in economic significane.
The first colonists in the Caribbean were trying to recreate their metropolitan European societies in the region. In this respect, the goals and the world view of the early colonists in the Caribbean did not vary significantly from those of the colonists on the North American mainland. "The Caribbee planters," wrote the historian Richard Dunn, "began as peasant farmers not unlike the peasant farmers of Wigston Magna, Leicestershire, or Sudbury, Massachusetts. They cultivated the same staple crop--tobacco--as their cousins in Virginia and Maryland. They brought to the tropics the English common law, English political institutions, the English parish [local administrative unit], and the English church." These institutions survived for a very long time, but the social context in which they were introduced was rapidly altered by time and circumstances. Attempts to recreate microcosms of Europe were slowly abandoned in favor of a series of plantation societies using slave labor to produce large quantities of tropical staples for the European market. In the process of this transformation, complicated by war and trade, much was changed in the Caribbean.
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THE COLONIAL PERIOD
Evolution around the middle of the seventeenth century of a sugar plantation society based on slave labor was an important watershed in Caribbean history. Introduced by the Dutch when they were expelled from Brazil in 1640, the sugar plantation system arrived at an opportune time for the fledgling non-Spanish colonists with their precarious economies. The English yeoman farming economy based mainly on cultivation of tobacco was facing a severe crisis. Caribbean tobacco could compete neither in quality nor in quantity with that produced in the mid-Atlantic colonies. Because tobacco farming had been basis of the economy, its end threatened the economic viability of the islands. As a result, the colonies were losing population to the mainland. Economic salvation came from what has been called in historical literature the Caribbean "sugar revolutions," a series of interrelated changes that altered the entire agriculture, demography, society, and culture of the Caribbean, thereby transforming the political and economic importance of the region.
In terms of agriculture, the islands changed from small farms producing cash crops of tobacco and cotton with the labor of a few servants and slaves--often indistinguishable--to large plantations requiring vast expanses of land and enormous capital outlays to create sugarcane fields and factories. Sugar, which had become increasingly popular on the European market throughout the seventeenth century, provided an efficacious balance between bulk and value--a relationship of great importance in the days of relatively small sailing ships and distant sea voyages. Hence, the conversion to sugar transformed the landholding pattern of the islands.
The case of Barbados illustrates the point. In 1640 this island of 430 square kilometers had about 10,000 settlers, predominantly white; 764 of them owned 4 or more hectares of land, and virtually every white was a landholder. By 1680, when the sugar revolution was underway, the wealthiest 175 planters owned 54 percent of the land and an equal proportion of the servants and slaves. More important, Barbados had a population of about 38,000 African slaves and more than 2,000 English servants who owned no land. Fortunes, however, depended on access to land and slaves. Thomas Rous, who arrived in Barbados in 1638, had a farm of 24 hectares in 1645. By 1680 the Rous family owned 3 sugar works, 266 hectares of land, and 310 slaves and were counted among the great planters of the island.
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The Sugar Revolutions and Slavery
The sugar revolutions were both cause and consequence of the demographic revolution. Sugar production required a greater labor supply than was available through the importation of European servants and irregularly supplied African slaves. At first the Dutch supplied the slaves, as well as the credit, capital, technological expertise, and marketing arrangements. After the restoration of the English monarch following the Commonwealth (1642-60), the King and other members of the royal family invested in the Company of Royal Adventurers, chartered in 1663, to pursue of the lucrative African slave trade. That company was succeeded by the Royal Africa Company in 1672, but the supply still failed to meet the demand, and all types of private traders entered the transatlantic commerce.
Between 1518 and 1870, the transatlantic slave trade supplied the greatest proportion of the Caribbean population. As sugarcane cultivation increased and spread from island to island--and to the neighboring mainland as well--more Africans were brought to replace those who died rapidly and easily under the rigorous demands of labor on the plantations, in the sugar factories, and in the mines. Acquiring and transporting Africans to the New World became a big and extremely lucrative business. From a modest trickle in the early sixteenth century, the trade increased to an annual import rate of about 2,000 in 1600, 13,000 in 1700, and 55,000 in 1810. Between 1811 and 1870, about 32,000 slaves per year were imported. As with all trade, the operation fluctuated widely, affected by regular market factors of supply and demand as well as the irregular and often unexpected interruptions of international war.
The eighteenth century represented the apogee of the system, and before the century had ended, the signs of its demise were clear. About 60 percent of all the Africans who arrived as slaves in the New World came between 1700 and 1810, the time period during which Jamaica, Barbados, and the Leeward Islands peaked as sugar producers. Antislavery societies sprang up in Britain and France, using the secular, rationalist arguments of the Enlightenment--the intellectual movement centered in France in the eighteenth century- -to challenge the moral and legal basis for slavery. A significant moral victory was achieved when the British Chief Justice, Lord Mansfield, ruled in 1772 that slavery was illegal in Britain, thereby freeing about 15,000 slaves who had accompanied their masters there--and abruptly terminating the practice of black slaves ostentatiously escorting their masters about the kingdom. In the British Parliament, antislavery voices grew stronger until eventually a bill to abolish the slave trade passed both houses in 1807. The British, being the major carriers of slaves and having abolished the trade themselves, energetically set about discouraging other states from continuing. The abolition of the slave trade was a blow from which the slave system in the Caribbean could not recover.
Before the slave trade ended, the Caribbean had taken approximately 47 percent of the 10 million African slaves brought to the Americas. Of this number, about 17 percent came to the British Caribbean. Although the white populations maintained their superior social positions, they became a numerical minority in all the islands. In the early nineteenth century, fewer than 5 percent of the total population of Jamaica, Grenada, Nevis, St. Vincent, and Tobago was white, fewer than 10 percent of the population of Anguilla, Montserrat, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, and the Virgin Islands. Only in the Bahamas, Barbados, and Trinidad was more than 10 percent of the total population white. By sharp contrast, Trinidad was the only colony in the British Caribbean to have fewer than 80 percent of its population enslaved. Sugar and slavery gave to the region a predominantly African population.
This demographic revolution had important social consequences. Rather than being a relatively homogeneous ethnic group divided into categories based on economic criteria, Caribbean society had complex overlapping divisions of class and caste. The three basic divisions were free white persons, free nonwhite persons, and slaves.
Whites were divided along status lines based on wealth. In the British colonies these were called "principal whites" and "poor whites." In reality they formed three ranks. At the top, forming an elite, were families who owned slaves and successful plantations. Some of their names became important in the history of one or more islands, names such as Guy, Modyford, Drax, Sutton, Price, Bannington, Needham, Tharp, and Beckford in Jamaica; Drax, Hallet, Littleton, Codrington, and Middleton in Barbados; and Warner, Winthrop, Pinney, and Jeaffreson in the Leeward Islands. Next in rank came the merchants, officials, and such professionals as doctors and clergymen, who were just a shade below the big planters.
At the bottom of the white ranks came the so-called "poor whites," often given such pejorative names as "red legs" in Barbados, or "walking buckras" in Jamaica. This group included small independent farmers, servants, day laborers, and all the service individuals from policemen to smiths, as well as the various hangers-on required by the curious "Deficiency Laws." These were laws designed to retain a minimum number of whites on each plantation to safeguard against slave revolts. A Jamaica law of 1703 stipulated that there must be one white person for each ten slaves up to the first twenty slaves and one for each twenty slaves thereafter as well as one white person for the first sixty head of cattle and one for each one hundred head after the first sixty head. The law was modified in 1720, raising the ratios and lowering the fines for noncompliance, but the planters seemed more prepared to pay the fines for noncompliance than to recruit and maintain white servants, so the law degenerated to another simple revenue measure for the state. This was true throughout the British islands during the eighteenth century.
Regardless of rank, skin color gave each person of European descent a privileged position within plantation society. The importance of race and color was a significant variation from the norms of typical European society and accentuated the divergence between the society "at home" and that overseas.
Each slave society in the colonies had an intermediate group, called the "free persons of color," an ambiguous position. Governor Francis Seaforth of Barbados colorfully expressed this dilemma in 1802: "There is, however, a third description of people from whom I am more suspicious of evil than from either the whites or the slaves: these are the Black and Colored people who are not slaves, and yet whom I cannot bring myself to call free. I think unappropriated people would be a more proper denomination for them, for though not the property of other individuals they do not enjoy the shadow of any civil right." This group originated in the miscegenation of European masters and their African slaves. By the nineteenth century, the group could be divided into blacks who had gained their freedom or were the descendants of slaves, and the mixed, or mulatto, descendants of the associations between Europeans and non-Europeans. By the time of the abolition of slavery in the 1830s, the heterogeneous free nonwhite population represented about 10 percent of the population of Jamaica, 12 percent of the population of Barbados, and about 20 percent of the population of Trinidad. A number of these free nonwhites had been free for generations, if not centuries, and had carved a niche in the local societies as successful merchants, planters, professionals, and slave owners.
Throughout the British Caribbean the free nonwhites manifested a number of common traits. They were predominantly female, largely urban, and clearly differentiated from the slaves both by law and by custom. Although adult females outnumbered males, the free nonwhite population tended to be the most sexually balanced overall and was the only group that consistently reproduced itself in the British colonies during the era of the slave trade. Moreover, with the exception of Trinidad, where, as Bridget Brereton indicates, just as many free nonwhites lived in the rural parishes as in the towns of Port of Spain, San Fernando, and St. Joseph, the free nonwhites were strongly urban. After 1809, about 61 percent of all the free nonwhites in Barbados lived in the parish of St. Michael in the capital city, Bridgetown. More free nonwhites lived in Kingston, Jamaica, than in all the other parishes combined.
The free nonwhite population faced competition from both ends of the spectrum. At the lower end of the economic scale they had to compete with jobbing slaves, who were often working arduously to get enough money to purchase their freedom and so join the free group. At the upper end they competed with the artisan, commercial, and semi-skilled service sector of the lower orders of whites. The whites often used their political power--or in some cases their access to political power in Britain--to circumscribe the free nonwhites as much as possible. Laws distinguishing comportment, dress, and residence, denying nonwhites the right to practice certain professions, or limiting the material legacy of individual free nonwhites were common throughout the Caribbean. But at the time of the abolition of slavery, nonwhites were aggressively challenging the political hegemony of the whites, and their successes were very important in the subsequent development of British Caribbean society.
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The Post-Emancipation Societies
The second great watershed in Caribbean history resulted from the abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century. In the British Caribbean this came between 1834, when a law was passed by the British Parliament to abolish slavery throughout the empire, and 1838, when the apprenticeship system collapsed prematurely. The apprenticeship system was designed to ease the transition from slavery to freedom by forcing the ex-slaves to remain on their plantations for a period of six years. Its main purpose was to prevent the immediate large-scale abandonment of estates by the workers, although, with cruel irony, it was the masters and not the slaves who were awarded compensation for the loss of their "property." The system proved too cumbersome to administer and was prematurely terminated in 1838. Barbados and Antigua abolished slavery without an apprenticeship system in 1834.
Abolition of slavery was difficult for the colonies, which had to adjust to having a majority of new citizens who could not be denied the civil rights already grudgingly extended to the few. Extending those civil rights, then as now, was neither easily nor gracefully achieved because the political systems had existed for centuries as the narrow instruments of the small, white, landed elite, largely absentee, whose members were threatened by the removal of their special trade preferences. Above all, there were economic difficulties. Sugar prices were falling, and West Indian producers were facing severe competition not only from other producers in the British empire--such as India, South Africa, and Australia--and nonimperial cane sugar producers--such as Cuba and Brazil--but also from beet sugar producers in Europe and the United States. Falling prices coincided with rising labor costs, complicated by the urgent need to regard the ex-slaves as wage laborers able and willing to bargain for their pay.
To mitigate labor difficulties, the local assemblies were encouraged to import nominally free laborers from India, China, and Africa under contracts of indenture. Apart from the condition that they had a legally defined term of service and were guaranteed a set wage, these Asian indentured laborers were treated like the African slaves they partially replaced in the fields and factories. Between 1838 and 1917, nearly half a million East Indians (from British India) came to work on the British West Indian sugar plantations, the majority going to the new sugar producers with fertile lands. Trinidad imported 145,000; Jamaica, 21,500; Grenada, 2,570; St. Vincent, 1,820; and St. Lucia, 1,550. Between 1853 and 1879, British Guiana imported more than 14,000 Chinese workers, with a few going to some of the other colonies. Between 1841 and 1867, about 32,000 indentured Africans arrived in the British West Indies, with the greater number going to Jamaica and British Guiana. With important British politicians such as Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone (1809-98) owning sugar estates in British Guiana, that colony, directly administered by the crown, assumed great importance in the Caribbean.
Indentured labor did not resolve the problems of the plantations and the local governments in the Caribbean during the nineteenth century, but it enabled the sugar plantations to weather the difficulties of the transition from slave labor. The new immigrants further pluralized the culture, the economy, and the societies. The East Indians introduced rice and boosted the local production of cacao (the bean from which cocoa is derived) and ground provisions (tubers, fruits, and vegetables). Although some East Indians eventually converted to Christianity and intermarried with other ethnic groups, the majority remained faithful to their original Hindu and Muslim beliefs, adding temples and mosques to the religious architecture of the territories. The Chinese moved into local commerce, and, by the beginning of the twentieth century, the corner Chinese grocery store and the Chinese restaurant had become commonplace in all the colonies.
Emancipation of the slaves provided the catalyst for the rise of an energetic, dynamic peasantry throughout the Caribbean. A large proportion of the ex-slaves settled in free villages, often forming cooperatives to buy bankrupt or abandoned sugar estates. Where they lacked the capital, they simply squatted on vacant lands and continued the cultivation of many of the food crops that the planters and the colonial government had exported during the days of slavery.
The villages, although largely independent, provided a potential labor pool that could be attracted to the plantations. The growth of these free villages immediately after the emancipation of the slaves was astonishing. In Jamaica, black freeholders increased from 2,014 in 1838 to more than 7,800 in 1840 and more than 50,000 in 1859. In Barbados, where land was scarcer and prices higher, freeholders of less than 2 hectares each increased from 1,110 in 1844 to 3,537 in 1859. In St. Vincent, about 8,209 persons built their own homes and bought and brought under cultivation over 5,000 hectares between 1838 and 1857. In Antigua, 67 free villages with 5,187 houses and 15,644 inhabitants were established between 1833 and 1858. The free villages produced new crops such as coconuts, rice, bananas, arrowroot, honey, and beeswax, as well as the familiar plantation crops of sugarcane, tobacco, coffee, cacao, citrus limes, and ground provisions.
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POLITICAL TRADITIONS
The political traditions of the Commonwealth Caribbean islands reflect the diverse ways in which they were brought into the British Empire and administered, as well as the dominant political views in London at the time of their incorporation. Some of these traditions can still be observed in the operation of contemporary politics in the region. Three patterns emerged: one for colonies settled or acquired before the eighteenth century; another for colonies taken during the Seven Years War (1756-63) and ceded by France in 1784; and a third for colonies conquered in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
The first group--Barbados, the Bahamas, the Leeward Islands, and Jamaica--developed during the early attempts to found colonies. Like the mainland North American colonies (and Bermuda), these territories had representative assemblies based on the bicameral system of the mother country. Each colony had a governor who represented the monarch, an appointed upper house, and an elected lower house. The electoral franchise, however, was extremely restricted, being vested in a few wealthy male property holders. Power was divided between the governor, who executed the laws, and the assembly, which made them. However, the assembly retained the right to pass all money bills--including the pay for the governor-- and so used this right to obstruct legislation or simply control new officials.
These older colonies also had an effective system of local government based on parish vestries. The vestries were elected annually by the freeholders and met frequently to levy local revenues for the maintenance of the poor, the support of the clergy, the construction of roads, and other local business, such as the licensing of teachers.
Dominica, Grenada, St. Vincent, the Grenadines, Tobago, and St. Lucia were brought into the British Empire between 1763 and 1814. Grenada and the Grenadines were captured during the Seven Years War and ceded by France at the end of the war. St. Vincent came as part of the settlement of 1783 between France and Britain. Tobago, Dominica, and St. Lucia, won during the Napoleonic Wars, were ceded in 1803, 1805, and 1814, respectively. They were referred to as "ceded islands" and also had assemblies, which sometimes functioned like those in the older territories. However, the small size of the free landholding population in these islands vitiated the functions of these assemblies and precluded development of a viable system of local government such as had developed in Jamaica and Barbados. The British administered these islands in two units: the British Leeward Islands (St. Kitts, Nevis, Barbuda, Anguilla, Antigua, Montserrat, the British Virgin Islands, and also Dominica from 1871 to 1940) and the British Windward Islands (St. Lucia, St. Vincent, the Grenadines, and Grenada as well as Dominica between 1940 and 1956).
When Trinidad and St. Lucia were brought into the empire in 1797 and 1814, respectively, the British government, cognizant of the difficulty that it had had with the various local planters' assemblies, vested the royal governors with virtually autocratic powers. This system of direct British rule through appointed officials rather than elected representatives was known as "crown colony" government. At the same time, the British retained the previous Spanish, French, and Dutch forms of government, gradually altering them through time. No sustained attempt was made to foster local government in these newer colonies, although the leading cities--Port of Spain and Castries--had municipal councils. Perhaps as a result, a strong grass-roots democracy failed to develop early in the latter territories.
Colonial acquisition and administration were not neatly and easily accomplished. St. Lucia, having changed possession fourteen times, was administered as a British crown colony between 1814 and 1871, when it joined the Leeward Islands group. Tobago changed imperial masters more than a dozen times before finally being acquired by Britain in 1802--a position ratified by the French in 1814. It experienced many forms of administration before being confirmed as a ward of Trinidad in 1889. The Bahamas, irregularly colonized by the British beginning in 1629, had a representative assembly in 1728, but settled into a dull routine as a minor crown colony until the granting of complete internal self-government in January 1964. The British Virgin Islands, annexed in 1672, entered the sugar revolution with the rest of the region, but declined economically during the nineteenth century. Between 1871 and 1956, they formed part of the British Leeward Islands administration, and, having opted not to join the West Indies Federation, became crown colonies (see the West Indies Federation, 1958-62, this ch., and Postwar Federation Attempts, ch. 7). The Cayman Islands, erratically settled by the British, until 1848 were administered by the Bahamas. After a short period of legislative government (1848- 63), they reverted to the administration of Jamaica until 1962, when they became a crown colony.
Emancipation of the slaves placed great strains on the representation system. Designed originally for colonies of British settlers, the assemblies no longer represented the majority of citizens but merely a small minority of the oligarchy. Sometimes these oligarchies were too small to provide the necessary administrative apparatus, which explains the shifting nature of colonial government in some of the smaller islands, and the constant quest of the British government to reduce government costs. The power of the purse, once astutely wielded by the planter class, declined along with the value of the export economy, denying to the assemblies their former intimidating power over governors. The British government had always been uneasy about the colonial representative assemblies, especially given the increasing number of non-Europeans in the population. In Jamaica, just before the collapse of the system in 1865, the assembly had 49 members representing 28 constituencies elected by 1,457 voters. Only 1,903 registered voters existed in a population of 400,000--nearly half of whom were adult males.
The Morant Bay Rebellion of October 1865 brought about the end of the old representative assemblies. The "rebellion" was really a protest of rural black peasants in the southeastern parish of St. Thomas. The conflict had unmistakable racial and religious overtones, pitting George William Gordon and Paul Bogle, who were black Baptists, against the custos (the senior vestryman), a German immigrant named Baron Maximilian von Ketelholdt; the rector of the established church, the Reverend S.H. Cooke; and the governor of the island, Edward John Frye, a hostile incompetent with limited intelligence but long service in minor colonial posts. The original demonstrators were protesting what they believed to be unjust arrests at the courthouse in Morant Bay when, failing to obey an order to disperse, they were fired on by the militia, and seven protesters were killed. The crowd then rioted, burning the courthouse and killing fourteen vestrymen, one of whom was black. Bogle and Gordon, arrested in Kingston, were tried by court-martial in Morant Bay and hanged. (In 1965 the Jamaican government--an independent and representative entity--declared the two to be its first "national heroes.") Altogether, Governor Eyre ordered nearly 500 peasants executed, 600 brutally flogged, and 1,000 houses burned by the troops and the Maroons, descendants of former runaway slaves with whom the government had a legal treaty. In December the Jamaica Assembly abolished itself, making way for crown colony government. The act was the final gesture of the old planter oligarchy, symbolizing that it did not wish to share political power in a democratic way with the new groups.
Crown colony rule was soon established in other colonies. In the constitutional reorganization of the later nineteenth century, only Barbados managed to retain its representative assembly. Jamaica and the Windward Islands joined Trinidad as colonies fully administered by the crown while the Leeward Islands experimented with a federal system. With periodic adjustments, crown colony government endured until the middle of the twentieth century. Despite its paternalistic rhetoric, and many practical reforms in the social, educational, and economic arena, it retarded political development in the West Indies by consistently denying the legitimacy of political organizations while elevating the opinions of selected individuals. By so doing, it narrowed rather than broadened the social base of political power.
The limited political opportunities offered by service in the various municipal councils and parish vestries emphasized the inadequacies of the system of appointed councils in which social considerations overrode merit as the primary basis for selection. Appointed members had no political constituency--the basis on which they were chosen--and therefore no responsibility to the majority of people. Because there were no elected assemblies to represent the islands' interests, opposition to the crown colony system of government came more often from the local level alone.
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SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTS, 1800-1960
Education
Before the middle of the nineteenth century, education throughout the British Caribbean consisted of three types: education abroad on private initiative; education in the islands in exclusive schools designed for local whites lacking the resources for a foreign education; and education for the academically able of the intermediate group of nonwhites.
The wealthy planters generally sent their children abroad, mainly to Britain, but a surprisingly large number went to study in British North America. As early as 1720, Judah Morris, a Jew born in Jamaica, was a lecturer in Hebrew at Harvard College. Alexander Hamilton, born in Nevis in 1755, attended King's College (later Columbia University), where his political tracts attracted the attention of George Washington. Other students attended such colleges as the College of William and Mary in Virginia and the College of Philadelphia.
Indigent whites attended local grammar schools founded by charitable bequests in the eighteenth century, such as Codrington College and Harrison College in Barbados and Wolmer's, Rusea's, Beckford and Smith's, and Manning's schools in Jamaica.
Slaves and their offspring were given little more than religious instruction. Indeed, in 1797 a law in Barbados made it illegal to teach reading and writing to slaves. In the early nineteenth century, the endowment from the Mico Trust--originally established in 1670 to redeem Christian slaves in the Barbary States of North Africa--opened a series of schools for blacks and free nonwhite pupils throughout the Caribbean and three teachertraining colleges--Mico in Antigua and Jamaica and Codrington in Barbados.
After 1870 there was a mini-revolution in public education throughout the Caribbean. This coincided with the establishment of free compulsory public elementary education in Britain and in individual states of the United States. A system of free public primary education and limited secondary education became generally available in every territory, and an organized system of teacher training and examinations was established.
Nevertheless, the main thrust of public education in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries did not come from the local government, but rather, from the religious community. Competing Protestant denominations--the Church of England, the Baptists, the Moravians, the Wesleyans, and the Presbyterians--and the Jesuits operated a vast system of elementary and secondary schools. At the end of the nineteenth century, the churches monopolized elementary education in Jamaica and Barbados and ran a majority of the primary schools in Trinidad, Grenada, and Antigua. The most outstanding secondary schools--St. George's College, Kingston College, Jamaica College, Calabar High School, and the York Castle High School in Jamaica; Harrison College, Codrington College, the Lodge School, and the Queens College in Barbados; and Queen's College, St. Mary's, and Naparima in Trinidad--as well as the principal grammar schools in the Bahamas, Antigua, St. Kitts, and Grenada owe their origins to the religious denominations. Each territory had a board of education, which supervised both government and religious schools. Government assistance slowly increased until by the middle of the twentieth century the state eventually gained control over all forms of education. Although far from perfect--most colonies still spent more on prisons than on schools--public education fired the ambitions of the urban poor.
Based on the British system--even to the use of British textbooks and examinations--the colonial Caribbean educational system was never modified to local circumstances. Nevertheless, it created a cadre of leaders throughout the region whose strong sense of local identity and acute knowledge of British political institutions served the region well in the twentieth century.
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Precursors of Independence
Education produced two groups in the British West Indies. The first identified closely with the British system--especially with the Fabian Society of radical thinkers within the newly formed British Labour Party--and sought political reforms through conventional parliamentary channels. The most ardent representatives of this group were individuals in the local legislatures such as Sandy Cox and J.A.G. Smith in Jamaica, T. Albert Marryshow in Grenada, and Andrew A. Cipriani in Trinidad. Although they did not depend on the masses for political support (because the masses did not yet have the vote), they knew how to draw the masses into political action. They joined the municipal and parish councils in urging a reduction in the privileges of the old planter classes and more local representation in local affairs. They also advocated legal recognition of the fledgling trade union movement in the Caribbean.
The second group, inspired by the idea of a spiritual return to Africa, was more populist and more independent than the first group. From this group came individuals such as John J. Thomas (an articulate socio-linguist), Claude MacKay, H.S. Williams (founder of the Pan-African Association in London in 1897), George Padmore (the gray eminence of Ghanaian leader, Kwame Nkrumah), Richard B. Moore, W.A. Domingo, and Marcus Mosiah Garvey, founder of the United Negro Improvement Association in Jamaica (1914) and Harlem (1916). Thomas, Williams, and Padmore came from Trinidad; MacKay, Garvey, and Domingo, from Jamaica; and Moore, from Barbados.
In addition to these organizers, there were a number of individuals from all the colonies who had served abroad in World War I in the West India Regiments of the British Army. Some of these individuals were of African birth, and after the war were given land and pensions in several West Indian territories, where they formed the nucleus of an early pan-Caribbean movement. Their war experiences left them critical of the British government and British society, and they tended to agitate for political reforms to bring self-government to the Caribbean colonies.
The political agitation of these groups laid the groundwork for the generation of politicians who later dismantled colonialism in the British Caribbean: Norman Manley and Alexander Bustamante in Jamaica; Robert Bradshaw in St. Kitts; Vere Bird, Sr., in Antigua; Eric Matthew Gairy in Grenada; Grantley Adams in Barbados; and Uriah Butler, Albert Gomes, and Eric Williams in Trinidad.
The political agitation that periodically enveloped the British Caribbean had roots in its dismal economic situation. The colonial government had placed its faith in sugar and large plantations, but sugar was not doing well economically. Increased productivity in Jamaica, Barbados, and Trinidad could not mask the difficulties of price and marketing. Unemployment was rife. Wages on sugar estates were one-quarter to one-half of those paid on Cuban sugar estates during the same period. Many of the smaller islands had abandoned sugar production altogether. Not surprisingly, large numbers of West Indians emigrated for economic reasons to Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Cuba, Mexico, and the United States. When economic opportunities abroad ended with the Great Depression, the discontent of the returning migrants and frustrated laborers erupted into violence throughout the region from 1935 to 1937.
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POLITICAL INDEPENDENCE
Changes in the Social Base of Political Power
Although the riots of the 1930s brought swift political changes, the conditions that precipitated the explosion had been building slowly for more than half a century. The long period of direct and modified crown colony government after the Morant Bay disturbances produced two political patterns throughout the British Antilles. The first, to which allusion has already been made, was based on strong executive power in the hands of a governor. Whereas this undoubtedly made administration easier for governors, it had negative effects on the social basis of political power and political development. As Carl Campbell so eloquently put it, "[Crown colony government] sought constantly to increase the area of government and decrease the area of politics." Harris, was, of course, describing the situation in Trinidad in the middle of the nineteenth century, but his portrayal would have been apt for any British colony at the beginning of the twentieth. Colonial governors were not inhibited by the threat of legislative council vetoes of their decisions nor by the type of obstructionism that had characterized the assemblies before 1865. Colonial governors were responsible only to the Secretary of State for the Colonies in London. By appointing to the legislature members whose views were compatible with the goals of empire, the governors reduced the range of experience and advice available to them. They were not interested in local opinion and local advice. If they had been, they would not have stifled public opinion by consistently discouraging political organizations and insisting that only individuals could express their views.
Not surprisingly, the dominant views of the local governments were those of the planter classes, especially the older, more established planter classes. Nevertheless, by the end of the nineteenth century, the planter class not only was divided but also was being challenged by the popular classes. This challenge created a series of recurring political crises among the governors, the legislatures, and the Colonial Office, leading to some modest reforms in the system in the early twentieth century.
After emancipation, dissolution of the old caste structure of the Caribbean slave society, which was based on the confusing divisions of race, occupation, and status, gave rise to a new, more complex class society. Class divisions within the declining castes generated new groups and produced new tensions. For example, the planter class, which had never been homogeneous either within territories or across the British colonies, became even more variegated.
In the nineteenth century a new petty bourgeois class emerged consisting of merchants, successful estate owners without the ancestry and traditions of the older landed class, members of the professions, and an expanding managerial sector. This class was far more heterogeneous than the class it was surreptitiously displacing in economic and political affairs. In Jamaica, a very large number of Jews were given the franchise and participated actively in politics. Remarkably, Jews obtained equality in Jamaica and sat in the House of Assembly long before they secured such privileges in Britain. In Barbados, a small number of free nonwhites and Jews moved up, but the resilience of the planter aristocracy inhibited the opening of opportunities found elsewhere. In Trinidad, the white elites included English, French, Scots, and Spanish, and the religious division along Catholic and Protestant lines was as great as along political and social lines. Although governors might prefer the older planter families, especially those of English ancestry, the new reality was inescapable, and gradually the appointments to high political office reflected the social arrival of these new men. They tended to be politically conservative, but theirs was a less rigid conservatism than had prevailed for centuries in the Caribbean.
Although the small, predominantly planter and merchant elites retained political control until the 1940s, increasing social and political democratization of the Caribbean societies occurred. This democratization derived from four sources: economic diversification, which opened up economic opportunities; the expanded educational system, which produced a new professional class; the dynamic expansion of organized religion; and the rise of labor unions. Although not of equal weight, all these forces contributed to the formation of the strong tradition of democratic government that has characterized the British Caribbean during the twentieth century.
Between 1880 and 1937, expanded economic opportunities helped create a new, broader-based middle class throughout the British Caribbean. Much of this middle class was non-European--formerly from the free nonwhite community of the days of slavery, reinforced by the more industrious East Indians and other new immigrant groups of the later nineteenth century. Thus, the black and colored middle class has as long antecedents in the Caribbean as the white class. This class expanded significantly during the post-slavery period.
The lower ranks of the civil service had always provided an opening for nonwhite talent because in a typical colony sufficient Europeans could not be found to fill all vacancies. In the larger islands local groups sufficed. In the other areas the lower civil servants were intercolonial immigrants. For example, the police force of Trinidad was composed mainly of immigrants from Barbados although the senior officers were always European. Bridget Brereton points out that in 1892 only 47 of 506 policemen in Trinidad were local (7.8 percent), compared with 292 from Barbados (57.7 percent) and 137 from the other islands (27 percent).
New exports, such as rice, bananas, limes, cacao, nutmeg, and arrowroot, provided the means for a few people to join the middle economic classes and for their offspring to rise even higher. Rice cultivation, although primarily a peasant activity in Trinidad, also helped propel a number of its black, East Indian, and Chinese producers into the ranks of the middle class. Wealth, of course, was not enough to endow middle-class status, but it often facilitated the upward social mobility of the sons of peasants, who with the requisite education could aspire to full status.
Education was the great social elevator of the British Caribbean masses. From the middle of the nineteenth century, public education, expanded rapidly. A primary education combined with some knowledge of languages was useful in commercial concerns because most of the British Caribbean states conducted much of their commerce with neighboring Spanish-speaking countries. A secondary education was helpful in getting into the lower ranks of the bureaucracy and essential for entering the professions. A system of scholarships enabled lower-class children with ability to move into secondary schools and into the professions. The number was never large, but the stream was constant, and the competition for scholarships was fierce. Studying for these scholarships was more than an individual effort--it was a family enterprise. Moreover, by the early decades of the twentieth century, this process of academic selection and rigorous preparation for the British examinations--uniform for both British and colonial students--was controlled by predominantly black schoolmasters, the foundation of the emerging "certificated masses."
As Guyanese political activist and historian Walter Rodney wrote, "The rise of the middle class can only be effectively chronicled and analyzed in relationship to the schools... The position of headmaster of a primary school must be viewed as constituting the cornerstone of the black and brown middle class." Eric Williams, a distinguished product of the system, wrote, "If there was a difference between the English public school and its Trinidadian imitation, it was this, that the Trinidad school provided a more thorough preparation for the university than the average English school, partly because the students stayed to the age of twenty rather than eighteen and took a higher examination, partly also because it was not even the cream of the crop, but the top individual from Trinidad who found himself competing with a large number of English students of varying ability." The fact that village primary school headmasters were also lay preachers and intellectual and quasi-legal arbiters of the community increased their importance both socially and politically.
The churches became important in molding the intellect and the political sophistication of the masses beginning in the nineteenth century. In the 1980s, churches continued to play an important role in the Caribbean. Even more interesting, the churches have managed to be both politically revolutionary and conservative, avant garde and reactionary, depending both on the issues involved and the denomination.
Whereas the mainstream churches--mainly Anglican and Roman Catholic--accompanied the expansion of imperialism with the expressed desire of converting "the heathens," their close identity with the established order was a severe handicap to their effective incorporation of the lower orders of society. They were especially ineffective with the Hindus and Muslims from India. As a result, what early religious conversion took place was most effectively accomplished by the so-called nonconformist groups--Baptists, Methodists, Moravians, Presbyterians, and Quakers. These essentially evangelical sects originated in the metropolitan countries with a mass, or working class, urban clientele in mind. Their strongest converts were among the poorer classes. In the Caribbean they were faced with a rather anomalous situation: the hostility or indifference of the planters and the established churches and no equivalent class structure. They had either to work among the slaves and free nonwhites or change their clientele. They chose the former course and so came into direct conflict with the local elites. Nonconformist missionaries, white and nonwhite, were some of the unsung heroes in the struggle for the disintegration of the Caribbean slave systems.
The nonconformist churches enjoyed phenomenal success among the nonwhites until the late nineteenth century, but they paid a price. Their practice and their preaching became syncretized with the rival Afro-Caribbean religions such as Kumina and Myal. When social practice blocked the upward mobility of nonwhite members within the hierarchy of the churches, they flocked to form their own congregations, much as occurred in the United States. Some of these congregations moved into a succession of charismatic religions beginning with the rise of Pocomania in the 1880s, Bedwardism in the early twentieth century, and Rastafarianism (see Glossary) in the 1930s. All of these religions espoused trances, public confessions, dreams, spirit possession, and exotic dancing. The churches provided experience in mass mobilization and grass-roots organization. More important, they provided the psychological support for the black masses and gave them comfort and a self- confidence rare among those of their color, class, and condition. Politicians such as Marcus Garvey successfully tapped this popular religious tradition for support.
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Labor Organizations
Political experience emerged directly from the difficult growth of labor organizations throughout the Caribbean. Trade unionization derived from the plethora of mutual aid and benevolent societies that existed from the period of slavery among the Afro-Caribbean population. Not having the vote or a representative in power, the lower classes used these societies for their mutual social and economic assistance. To obtain political leverage, the working and employed classes had only two recourses: the general strike and the riot.
From time to time some of these strikes were widespread enough to bring the plight of the masses to the attention of the Colonial Office and forced significant changes in the constitutional order. Such was the case with the so-called Water Riots of Trinidad in 1903, which began as middle-class dissatisfaction over the colonial government's attempt to install water meters and reduce wastage. The municipal Ratepayers Association, a solidly middle-class organization, appealed to the working and unemployed classes of the city of Port of Spain. An excited mob assembled outside the legislative council's office, resulting in an altercation in which sixteen people were killed and forty-three injured by reckless police shooting, and the office of the legislature was burned to the ground. After the usual official inquiry, the Colonial Office gradually agreed to the insistent demands of a number of middleand working-class organizations for the restoration of an elected city council which was put in place between 1914 and 1918.
Another such riot occurred in Demerara, British Guiana, in 1905. Starting as a localized dispute over wages by some stevedores in Georgetown, it quickly spread to sugarfield workers, factory workers, domestics, bakers, and porters, engulfing an ever-widening area beyond the city limits. The causes of the disturbance were essentially economic, and the workers--as opposed to their middleclass sympathizers--lacked any organizational structure. Nevertheless, the governor of the colony called out the military forces to put down the disturbances, causing seven deaths and a score of serious injuries. Although the riots failed to achieve their economic goals, for a few days they brought together a great number of the middle and lower classes. The middle-class leadership of some elements of the working classes which resulted gave some impetus to the development of a trade union movement. The coincidence of these riots throughout the British Caribbean created an impression in Britain that the political administration of the colonies required greater attention--an impression reinforced with each commission report issued thereafter.
Between 1880 and 1920, the Caribbean witnessed a proliferation of organizations, despite the authorities' marked coolness to them. A number represented middle-class workers such as teachers, banana growers, coconut growers, cacao farmers, cane farmers, rice farmers, lime growers, and arrowroot growers. Sometimes, as in the case of the Ratepayers Association in Trinidad, they had overtly middle-class political aspirations: a widening of the political franchise to allow more of their members access to political office. However, more and more workers were forming unions and agitating for improvements in their wages and working conditions. Furthermore, as in the cases of the 1905 riots, the two sets of organizations worked in concert--although the martyrs to the cause were singularly from the working and unemployed classes. One reason why the two sets of organizations--middle class and working class-- could work together was their common belief that political reform of the unjust and anachronistic colonial administrative system was the major element needed to achieve their divergent goals. They realized that historically the governors had worked with a small and unrepresentative segment of the old planter class serving their narrow economic ends. To the middle classes and the workers--and to a certain extent the masses of urban unemployed--social and economic justice would be possible only if they secured control of the political machinery, and there were only two ways to gain that control: through persuasion or by force.
To a great degree, this conviction still exists among the populations of the Caribbean. It was given further authenticity when the British Labour Party, especially the Fabian wing of the party, expressed sympathy with this view. But the Fabians did more. They actively sought to guide these fledgling political associations along a path of "responsible reform," thereby hoping to avert revolutionary changes. After World War I, the Fabians grew more influential--as did the British Labour Party--in British politics. The experience of both the Boer War and World War I strengthened the anti-imperialists within Britain and weakened Britain's faith in its ability to rule far-flung colonies of diverse peoples. There was even less enthusiasm for colonial domination when the administrative costs exceeded the economic returns. The result of this ambivalence about empire was a sincere attempt to rule constitutionally and openly. British critics of colonial rule expressed their opinions freely, and even the government reports (Blue Books) produced annually on each colony detailed shortcomings of bureaucrats and policies. Nevertheless, talking about West Indian problems was not the same as doing something about them, and by the 1930s, it was clear that British colonial policy was intellectually bankrupt.
Throughout the 1920s and the 1930s, British labor unions had sought to guide and encourage formation of West Indian affiliates. As a result, unionization was common throughout the region, with many of the unions formally or informally affiliated with the British Trade Union Congress. However, Fabian tutelage and reformist policies appeared to have failed when workers broke out in spontaneous demonstrations throughout the region, beginning in St. Kitts in 1935 and culminating with Jamaica (and British Guiana) in 1938. A hastily dispatched Royal Commission, dominated by Fabians and chaired by Lord Moyne (hence called the Moyne Commission), toured the region and reported on the dismal conditions, making strong recommendations for significant political reform. The Moyne Commission noted as causes of the riots increased politicization of workers in the region, deriving from the war experiences of West Indian soldiers, the spread of elementary education, and the influence of industrial labor unrest in the United States. After the riots, the reforms sought by the union of the middle classes and the workers were formalized. In 1940 the British Parliament passed the Colonial Development Welfare Act, the first foreign assistance program legislated specifically for the islands. The British government also extended the franchise to all adults over the age of twenty-one and set about building the apparatus for modified self-government with greater local participation.
Jamaica held its first general election under universal adult suffrage in 1944, and the other territories followed soon thereafter. The alliance of professionals and labor leaders easily captured the state apparatus from the old combination of planters and bureaucrats. Thus, in most colonies a very close bond developed between the political parties and the workers' unions. In Jamaica, the Jamaica Labour Party drew its basic support from the Bustamante Industrial Trades Unions. Its rival, the People's National Party, was at first affiliated with the Trades Union Council, and after the purge of the radicals in 1951, created the National Workers' Union--the popular base that catapulted Michael Manley to political eminence in 1972 (see Historical Setting, ch. 2). In Barbados, the Barbados Labour Party depended in the early days on the mass base of the members of the Barbados Workers' Union. Likewise, labor unions formed the catalyst for the successful political parties of Vere Bird in Antigua, Robert Bradshaw in St. Kitts, and Eric Gairy in Grenada (see Government and Politics on individual countries, ch. 4 and ch. 5). The notable exception was Eric Williams in Trinidad. His Peoples' National Movement, established in 1956, succeeded despite a constant struggle against a sharply divided collection of strong unions (see Historical Setting, ch. 3).
Beginning after World War II and lasting until the late 1960s, a sort of honeymoon existed between the political parties and the labor unions. Expanding domestic economies allowed substantial concessions of benefits to workers, whose real wages increased significantly as unionization flourished.
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The West Indies Federation, 1957-62
As part of its decision to push modified self-government, the British authorities encouraged the experiment in confederation. The idea had been discussed in the Colonial Office since the later nineteenth century, but it was brought to new life with a regional conference held at Montego Bay, Jamaica, in 1947. The British were interested in administrative efficiency and centralization. The West Indians talked about political independence. At the conference, a compromise was worked out. The West Indian Meteorological Services and the University of the West Indies, as a College of London University, were set up, and plans were made for the creation of a political federation that would unite the various territories and eventually culminate in the political independence of the region. These new regional organizations joined others already in existence, such as the Caribbean Union of Teachers, established in 1935; the Associated Chambers of Commerce, organized in 1917; and the Caribbean Labour Congress, inaugurated in 1945.
The federation began inauspiciously with the leading politicians in Jamaica--Norman Manley (then prime minister) and Alexander Bustamante--and in Trinidad and Tobago--Eric Williams-- refusing to contest the federal elections. This uneasy federation of ten island territories (Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Grenada, St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica, and Montserrat) lasted from 1957 to 1961, when Jamaica opted to leave. Doomed from the start by lukewarm popular support, the federation quickly foundered on the islands' uncompromisingly parochial interests, especially those of the principal participants, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica. The former would not accept unrestricted freedom of movement; the latter would not accept a binding customs union. On September 19, 1961, some 54 percent of the Jamaican electorate voted to end their participation. It was the lowest popular vote in any Jamaican election, but the government accepted the decision and initiated the plans to request complete independence for the state. Attempts by Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados to salvage the federation after the withdrawal of Jamaica failed.
In 1962, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago became the first Anglophone Caribbean countries to achieve independence. Barbados gained its independence in 1966; the Bahamas in 1973; Grenada in 1974; Dominica in 1978; St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines in 1979; Antigua and Barbuda in 1981; and St. KittsNevis in 1983. In late 1987, Montserrat, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, and the Turks and Caicos Islands remained crown colonies with limited internal self-government. Anguilla, having broken away unilaterally from St. Kitts-Nevis in 1967, became an Associated State of Great Britain in 1976. The proliferation of mini-states in the Caribbean will most likely continue. The five remaining British dependencies may yet seek independence. Moreover, it is not inconceivable that one or more multiple-island states, such as St. Kitts-Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, or even Trinidad and Tobago, might split into separate entities.
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Political Systems
Despite generally similar political traditions throughout the region, there are marked differences among the political systems in the various countries. For example, in the Bahamas, Jamaica, and Barbados, a strong two-party political system has developed, and the performance of third parties has been dismal in elections. Trinidad and Tobago has a multiparty system, which, between 1956 and 1987, was dominated by the People's National Movement, first under the leadership of Eric Williams (party leader, 1956-81) and then under George Chambers (party leader, 1981-87). Furthermore, in Trinidad and Tobago, ethnic politics constitutes a significant part of the political equation, as Hindu and Muslim East Indians compete and form coalitions with black Trinidadians (see Political Dynamics, ch. 3).
In the smaller islands, a number of factors have coincided to make dual-party, democratic politics a difficult achievement. In some cases the populations are simply too small to provide the critical mass of diversity and anonymity. Family and kin relations make secret balloting and privacy elusive. The associations and cooperative organizations that were so important in Jamaica, Barbados, or Trinidad did not exist in the smaller societies. As a result, political stability and coherence of the type found in the larger countries have been difficult to achieve in smaller countries. For example, between 1979 and 1983, the government of Grenada was taken over by a band of self-avowed Marxists led by Maurice Bishop and Unison Whiteman. The People's Revolutionary Government, as it called itself, tried to create a new type of politics in the British Caribbean--namely, a populist government ruling without the benefit of elections (see Grenada, Government and Politics, ch. 4). The experiment, which went against a long, strong tradition of elections in the Commonwealth Caribbean, ended abruptly in confusion with the military intervention by troops from the United States and other Caribbean states in October 1983 (see Current Strategic Considerations, ch. 7).
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SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS
With the exception of Trinidad, where East Indians and Africans are nearly equal in number, the Caribbean states have predominantly African-derived populations. Race, ethnicity, class, and color, however, do not constitute the mutually reinforcing cleavages found elsewhere. No regional political or social organization is based exclusively on race, class, or color. Overt forms of segregation and discrimination do not exist, and crude political appeals to race and color have not been successful. Nevertheless, color consciousness permeates the societies, and various forms of more subtle social discrimination against non-Christians and East Indians, for example, have persisted.
Despite the common official language, common institutions, and common historical experience, each island and state has a distinct set of characteristics. For example, the local inflection of the English spoken in Jamaica varies significantly from that spoken in Barbados or Trinidad. Literacy rates also vary greatly from between 75 and 80 percent in Jamaica and St. Lucia to almost universal literacy in Trinidad, Barbados, and the Bahamas.
In a region where a constant racial and cultural mixing over centuries have resulted in extreme heterogeneity, any ethnic ideal clashes with the observed reality of everyday life. Nevertheless, ideals exist, often based on European models, and are at variance with the expressed rhetoric of the political majority, which tries to emphasize the African cultural heritage. At all levels of Caribbean societies, tensions exist between centrifugal state policies and ideals on the one hand and individual beliefs, family, and kin on the other. These tensions are exacerbated by the fragile political structures and even more delicate economic foundations on which a viable, cohesive nationalism must be forged among the Commonwealth Caribbean peoples. The most urgent challenges for the new political leaders lie in satisfying the constantly rising expectations amid the reality of constantly shrinking resources.
Perhaps as a result of its heterogeneity, the area is extremely dynamic culturally, producing a veritable explosion of local talent after World War II. Poets and novelists of international renown include Samuel Selvon, V.S. Naipaul, and Earl Lovelace from Trinidad; Derek Walcott from St. Lucia; George Lamming from Barbados; and Mervyn Morris, Vic Reid, John Hearne, Andrew Salkey, and Roger Mais from Jamaica. In painting and sculpture, the late Edna Manley was universally recognized. Commonwealth Caribbean music in the form of the calypso, reggae, ska, and steelband orchestra have captivated listeners around the world. Like the people themselves, art forms in the Caribbean demonstrate an eclectic variety harmoniously combining elements of European, African, Asian, and indigenous American traditions.
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General regional historical background on the islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean may be obtained from Franklin W. Knight, The Caribbean: The Genesis of a Fragmented Nationalism; Eric Williams, From Columbus to Castro. The History of the Caribbean, 1492-1969; John Parry and Philip Sherlock, A Short History of the West Indies; and Gordon K. Lewis, The Growth of the Modern West Indies. Much useful information also is available in Baedeker's Caribbean Including Bermuda, as well as EPICA, The Caribbean. Survival, Struggle and Sovereignty. For individual political histories, see Michael Craton, A History of the Bahamas; George E. Eaton, Alexander Bustamante and Modern Jamaica, Norman Washington Manley, The New Jamaica: Selected Speeches and Writings, 1938-1968; Trevor Munroe, The Politics of Constitutional Decolonization; George Brizan, Grenada, Island of Conflict; W. Richard Jacobs and Ian Jacobs, Grenada: Route to Revolution; David Lewis, Reform and Revolution in Grenada, 1950-1981; and Bridget Brereton, A History of Modern Trinidad. Economic information may be found in the annual reports published by the Inter-American Development Bank for the member states, i.e., the Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. For other views, see J.R. Mandle, Patterns of Caribbean Development: An Interpretative Essay on Economic Change; Ransford Palmer, Problems of Development in Beautiful Countries and Caribbean Dependence on the United States Economy; Anthony Payne and Paul Sutton, Dependency Under Challenge: The Political Economy of the Commonwealth Caribbean; and Clive Y. Thomas, Plantations, Peasants and State. For migration information, see Robert Pastor, ed., Migration and Development in the Caribbean. For information about relations with the United States, Lester Langley's The United States and the Caribbean in the Twentieth Century is very useful. (For complete citations and further information, see Bibliography.)
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Chapter 2. Jamaica
COUNTRY PROFILE
BEFORE THE SPANIARDS occupied Jamaica in the early sixteenth century, the island was inhabited by the Arawak Indians, who called it Xaymaca, meaning "land of wood and springs." Lying on the trade routes between the Old and New Worlds, Jamaica served variously for centuries as a way station for Spanish galleons, a market for slaves and goods from many countries, and a prize for the Spaniards, the British, buccaneers, and entrepreneurs. By far the largest of the English-speaking islands in size and population, independent Jamaica has played a leading role within the Commonwealth Caribbean and has been active in international organizations.
Jamaica's story is one of independence that began in the seventeenth century with the Maroons, runaway slaves who resisted the British colonizers by carrying out hit-and-run attacks from the interior. Their 7,000 descendants in the Cockpit Country have symbolized the fervent, sometimes belligerent, love of freedom that is ingrained in the Jamaican people as a result of both their British tutelage and their history of slavery. Independence came quietly, however, without a revolutionary struggle, apparently reflecting the lasting imprint of the British parliamentary legacy on Jamaican society.
Despite its people's respect for the rule of law and the British Westminster system of government, Jamaica's first twentyfive years as an independent state were marked by significant increases in criminal violence and political polarization. The extremely violent 1980 electoral campaign and the boycott by the opposition party of the 1983 local elections strained the island's two-party political system. In 1987 Jamaica was still bitterly divided, both politically and socially. This trend seemed to belie the motto beneath the Jamaican coat of arms, reading "Out of Many, One People." Both types of violence on the island--political and criminal--have been attributed among other things to Jamaican cultural and societal traits, the socioeconomic structure of Jamaican politics, worsening economic conditions, narcotics trafficking, and inadequate law enforcement.
Notwithstanding the periodic outbursts of violence around elections and the one-party legislative situation, the nation's well institutionalized political system remained generally intact during the first quarter- century of independence. Jamaicans have cherished their inherited parliamentary system of government, whose roots extend back to the seventeenth century. Despite the divergent ideologies and intense antipathy of the two principal political parties, they have recognized their common stake in the stability of political life. Jamaica has no history of coups, assassinations of national leaders, or racial confrontation. The two main parties have alternated in power every ten years, and neither has ever retained power beyond its constitutionally mandated term of office. It was widely expected that a changeover would result from the elections constitutionally required in early 1989.
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HISTORICAL SETTING
From May 5, 1494, when Columbus first set foot on what he described as "the fairest isle that eyes have beheld," to its emergence as an independent state on August 6, 1962, Jamaica passed through three main periods. First, it served for nearly 150 years as a Spanish-held way station for galleons en route to and from the Spanish Main. Second, from the mid-1600s until the abolition of slavery in 1834, it was a sugar-producing, slave-worked plantation society. Thereafter it was a largely agricultural, British colony peopled mainly by black peasants and workers.
The Spanish adventurer Juan de Esquivel settled the island in 1509, calling it Santiago, the name given it by Columbus. In the period of Spanish dominance from 1509 to 1655, the Spaniards exploited the island's precious metals and eradicated the Arawaks, who succumbed to imported diseases and harsh slavery (see The Pre- European Population, ch. 1). An English naval force sent by Oliver Cromwell attacked the island in 1655, forcing the small group of Spanish defenders to capitulate in May of that year (see The European Settlements, ch. 1). Within 3 years, the English had occupied the island, whose population was only about 3,000, but it took them many years to bring the rebellious slaves under their control.
Cromwell increased the island's white population by sending indentured servants and prisoners captured in battles with the Irish and Scots, as well as some common criminals. This practice was continued under Charles II, and the white population was also augmented by immigrants from the North American mainland and other islands, as well as by the English buccaneers. But tropical diseases kept the number of whites well under 10,000 until about 1740.
Although the slave population in the 1670s and 1680s never exceeded roughly 9,500, by the end of the seventeenth century imports of slaves increased the black population to at least five times the number of whites. Thereafter, Jamaica's blacks did not increase significantly in number until well into the eighteenth century, in part because the slave ships coming from the west coast of Africa preferred to unload at the islands of the Eastern Caribbean. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the number of slaves in Jamaica did not exceed 45,000, but by 1800 it had increased to over 300,000.
Beginning with the Stuart monarchy's appointment of a civil governor to Jamaica in 1661, political patterns were established that lasted well into the twentieth century. The second governor, Lord Windsor, brought with him in 1662 a proclamation from the king giving Jamaica's nonslave populace the rights of English citizens, including the right to make their own laws. Although he spent only ten weeks in Jamaica, Lord Windsor laid the foundations of a governing system that was to last for two centuries: a crown- appointed governor acting with the advice of a nominated council in the legislature. The legislature consisted of the governor and an elected but highly unrepresentative House of Assembly.
England gained formal possession of Jamaica from Spain in 1670 through the Treaty of Madrid. Removing the pressing need for constant defense against Spanish attack, this change served as an incentive to planting. For years, however, the planter-dominated Jamaica House of Assembly was in continual conflict with the various governors and the Stuart kings; there were also contentious factions within the assembly itself. For much of the 1670s and 1680s, Charles II and James II and the assembly feuded over such matters as the purchase of slaves from ships not run by the royal English trading company. The last Stuart governor, the Duke of Albemarle, who was more interested in treasure-hunting than in planting, turned the planter oligarchy out of office. After the duke's death in 1688, the planters, who had fled Jamaica to London, succeeded in lobbying James II to order a return to the pre- Albemarle political arrangement and the revolution that brought William III and Mary to the throne in 1689 confirmed the local control of Jamaican planters belonging to the assembly. This settlement also improved the supply of slaves and resulted in more protection, including military support, for the planters against foreign competition. This was of particular importance during the Anglo-French War in the Caribbean from 1689 to 1713.
Early in the eighteenth century, the Maroons took a heavy toll on the British troops and local militia sent against them in the interior; their rebellion ended, however, with the signing of peace agreements in 1738. The sugar monoculture and slave-worked plantation society characterized Jamaica throughout the eighteenth century. With the abolition of the slave trade in 1808 and slavery itself in 1834, however, the island's sugar- and slave-based economy faltered (see The Post-Emancipation Societies, ch. 1). The period after emancipation in 1834 initially was marked by a conflict between the plantocracy and elements in the Colonial Office over the extent to which individual freedom should be coupled with political participation for blacks. In 1840 the assembly changed the voting qualifications in a way that enabled a majority of blacks and people of mixed race (browns or mulattos) to vote. But neither change in the political system, nor abolition of slavery changed the planter's chief interest, which lay in the continued profitability of their estates, and they continued to dominate the elitist assembly. Nevertheless, at the end of the eighteenth century and in the early years of the nineteenth century, the crown began to allow some Jamaicans--mostly local merchants, urban professionals, and artisans--into the appointed councils.
In 1846 Jamaican planters, still reeling from the loss of slave labor, suffered a crushing blow when Britain passed the Sugar Duties Act, eliminating Jamaica's traditionally favored status as its primary supplier of sugar. The Jamaica House of Assembly stumbled from one crisis to another until the collapse of the sugar trade, when racial and religious tensions came to a head during the Morant Bay Rebellion of 1865 (see Political Traditions, ch. 1). Although suppressed ruthlessly, the severe rioting so alarmed the planters that the two-centuries-old assembly voted to abolish itself and asked for the establishment of direct British rule.
In 1866 the new crown colony government (see Glossary) consisted of the Legislative Council and the executive Privy Council containing members of both chambers of the House of Assembly, but the Colonial Office exercised effective power through a presiding British governor. The council included a few handpicked prominent Jamaicans for the sake of appearance only. In the late nineteenth century, crown colony rule was modified; representation and limited self-rule were reintroduced gradually into Jamaica after 1884. The colony's legal structure was reformed along the lines of English common law and county courts, and a constabulary force was established.
The smooth working of the crown colony system was dependent on a good understanding and an identity of interests between the governing officials, who were British, and most of the nonofficial, nominated members of the Legislative Council, who were Jamaicans. The elected members of this body were in a permanent minority and without any influence or administrative power. The unstated alliance--based on shared color, attitudes, and interest--between the British officials and the Jamaican upper class was reinforced in London, where the West India Committee lobbied for Jamaican interests. Jamaica's white or near-white propertied class continued to hold the dominant position in every respect; the vast majority of the black population remained poor and unenfranchised.
Marcus Mosiah Garvey, a black activist and labor leader, founded one of Jamaica's first political parties in 1929 and a workers association in the early 1930s. The Ras Taffari brotherhood (commonly called the Rastafarians--see Glossary), which in 1935 hailed Ethiopia's emperor Haile Selassie as its god (Jah), owed its origins to the cultivation of self-confidence and black pride promoted by Garvey and his black nationalist movement. Garvey, a controversial figure, had been the target of a four-year investigation by the United States government. He was convicted of mail fraud in 1923 and had served most of a five-year term in an Atlanta penitentiary when he was deported to Jamaica in 1927. Garvey left the colony in 1935 to live in Britain, where he died heavily in debt five years later. He was proclaimed Jamaica's first national hero in the 1960s after Edward P.G. Seaga, then a government minister, arranged the return of his remains to Jamaica. In 1987 Jamaica petitioned the United States Congress to pardon Garvey on the basis that the federal charges brought against him were unsubstantiated and unjust.
Dissatisfaction with crown colony rule reached its peak during the period between the world wars, as demands for responsible self- government grew. A growing mulatto middle-class with increasingly impressive education, ability, and even property identified with British social and political standards, but white Jamaicans were beginning to feel offended by a perceived British indifference to their economic difficulties and political opinions. They also resented British monopoly of high positions and the many limitations on their own mobility in the colonial civil service, especially if they were of mixed race.
The rise of nationalism, as distinct from island identification or desire for self-determination, is generally dated to the 1938 labor riots that affected both Jamaica and the islands of the Eastern Caribbean. William Alexander Bustamante, a moneylender in the capital city of Kingston who had formed the Jamaica Trade Workers and Tradesmen Union (JTWTU) three years earlier, captured the imagination of the black masses with his messianic personality, even though he himself was light-skinned, affluent, and aristocratic (see Growth and Structure of the Economy, this ch.). Bustamante emerged from the 1938 strikes and other disturbances as a populist leader and the principal spokesperson for the militant urban working class, and in that year, using the JTWTU as a stepping stone, he founded the Bustamante Industrial Trade Unions (BITU), which inaugurated Jamaica's workers movement.
A distant cousin of Bustamante's, Norman W. Manley, concluded as a result of the 1938 riots that the real basis for national unity in Jamaica lay in the masses. Unlike the union-oriented Bustamante, however, Manley was more interested in access to control over state power and political rights for the masses. On September 18, 1938, he inaugurated the People's National Party (PNP), which had begun as a nationalist movement supported by the mixed-race middle class and the liberal sector of the business community with leaders who were highly educated members of the upper-middle class. The 1938 riots spurred the PNP to unionize labor, although it would be several years before the PNP formed major labor unions. The party concentrated its earliest efforts on establishing a network both in urban areas and in banana-growing rural parishes, later working on building support among small farmers and in areas of bauxite mining.
The PNP adopted a socialist ideology in 1940 and later joined the Socialist International, allying itself formally with the social democratic parties of Western Europe. Guided by socialist principles, Manley was not a doctrinaire socialist. PNP socialism during the 1940s was similar to British Labour Party ideas on state control of the factors of production, equality of opportunity, and a welfare state, although a leftwing element in the PNP held more orthodox Marxist views and worked for the internationalization of the trade union movement through the Caribbean Labour Congress. In those formative years of Jamaican political and union activity, relations between Manley and Bustamante were cordial. Manley defended Bustamante in court against charges brought by the British for his labor activism in the 1938 riots and looked after the BITU during Bustamante's imprisonment.
Bustamante had political ambitions of his own, however. In 1942, while still incarcerated, he founded a political party to rival the PNP, called the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). The new party, whose leaders were of a lower class than those of the PNP, was supported by conservative businessmen and 60,000 dues-paying BITU members, who encompassed dock and sugar plantation workers and other unskilled urban laborers. On his release in 1943, Bustamante began building up the JLP. Meanwhile, several PNP leaders organized the leftist-oriented Trade Union Congress (TUC). Thus, from an early stage in modern Jamaica, unionized labor was an integral part of organized political life.
For the next quarter century, Bustamante and Manley competed for center stage in Jamaican political affairs, the former espousing the cause of the "barefoot man"; the latter, "democratic socialism," a loosely defined political and economic theory aimed at achieving a classless system of government. Jamaica's two founding fathers projected quite different popular images. Bustamante, lacking even a high school diploma, was an autocratic, charismatic, and highly adept politician; Manley was an athletic, Oxford-trained lawyer, Rhodes scholar, humanist, and liberal intellectual. Although considerably more reserved than Bustamante, Manley was well liked and widely respected. He was also a visionary nationalist who became the driving force behind the crown colony's quest for independence.
Following the 1938 disturbances in the West Indies, London sent the Moyne Commission to study conditions in the British Caribbean territories. Its findings led in the early 1940s to better wages and a new constitution (see Labor Organizations, ch. 1). Issued on November 20, 1944, the Constitution modified the crown colony system and inaugurated limited self-government based on the Westminster model of government and universal adult suffrage. It also embodied the island's principles of ministerial responsibility and the rule of law. Thirty-one percent of the population participated in the 1944 elections. The JPL--helped by its promises to create jobs, its practice of dispensing public funds in pro-JLP parishes, and the PNP's relatively radical platform--won an 18- percent majority of the votes over the PNP, as well as 22 seats in the 32-member House of Representatives, with 5 going to the PNP and 5 to other short-lived parties. In 1945 Bustamante took office as Jamaica's first premier (the pre-independence title for head of government).
Under the new charter, the British governor, assisted by the six-member Privy Council and ten-member Executive Council, remained responsible solely to the crown. The Jamaican Legislative Council became the upper house, or Senate, of the bicameral Parliament. House members were elected by adult suffrage from single-member electoral districts called constituencies. Despite these changes, ultimate power remained concentrated in the hands of the governor and other high officials.
After World War II, Jamaica began a relatively long transition to full political independence. Jamaicans preferred British culture over American, but they had a love-hate relationship with the British and resented British domination, racism, and the dictatorial Colonial Office. Britain gradually granted the colony more self-government under periodic constitutional changes.
Jamaica's political patterns and governmental structure were shaped during two decades of what was called "constitutional decolonization," the period between 1944 and independence in 1962.
Having seen how little popular appeal the PNP's 1944 campaign position had, the party shifted toward the center in 1949 and remained there until 1974. The PNP actually won a 0.8-percent majority of the votes over the JLP in the 1949 election, although the JLP won a majority of the House seats. In the 1950s, the PNP and JLP became increasingly similar in their sociological composition and ideological outlook. During the cold war years, socialism became an explosive domestic issue. The JLP exploited it among property owners and churchgoers, attracting more middle-class support. As a result, PNP leaders diluted their socialist rhetoric, and in 1952 the PNP moderated its image by expelling four prominent leftists who had controlled the TUC. The PNP then formed the more conservative National Workers Union (NWU). Henceforth, PNP socialism meant little more than national planning within a framework of private property and foreign capital. The PNP retained, however, a basic commitment to socialist precepts, such as public control of resources and a more equitable income distribution. Manley's PNP came to office for the first time after winning the 1955 elections with an 11-percent majority over the JLP and 50.5 percent of the popular vote.
Amendments to the constitution that took effect in May 1953 reconstituted the Executive Council and provided for eight ministers to be selected from among House members. The first ministries were subsequently established. These amendments also enlarged the limited powers of the House of Representatives and made elected members of the governor's executive council responsible to the legislature. Manley, elected chief minister beginning in January 1955, accelerated the process of decolonization during his able stewardship. Further progress toward self-government was achieved under constitutional amendments in 1955 and 1956, and cabinet government was established on November 11, 1957.
Assured by British declarations that independence would be granted to a collective West Indian state rather than to individual colonies, Manley supported Jamaica's joining nine other British territories in the West Indies Federation, established on January 3, 1958, (see The West Indies Federation, 1957-62, ch. 1). Manley became the island's premier after the PNP again won a decisive victory in the general election in July 1959, securing thirty of forty-five House seats.
Membership in the federation remained an issue in Jamaican politics. Bustamante, reversing his previously supportive position on the issue, warned of the financial implications of membership-- Jamaica was responsible for 43 percent of its own financing--and an inequity in Jamaica's proportional representation in the federation's House of Assembly. Manley's PNP favored staying in the federation, but he agreed to hold a referendum in September 1961 to decide on the issue. When 54 percent of the electorate voted to withdraw, Jamaica left the federation, which dissolved in 1962 after Trinidad and Tobago also pulled out. Manley believed that the rejection of his profederation policy in the 1961 referendum called for a renewed mandate from the electorate, but the JLP won the election of early 1962 by a fraction. Bustamante assumed the premiership that April, and Manley spent his remaining few years in politics as leader of the opposition.
Jamaica received its independence on August 6, 1962. The new nation retained, however, its membership in the Commonwealth of Nations and adopted a Westminster style parliamentary system (see Appendix B). Bustamante, at age seventy-eight, became the new nation's first prime minister and also assumed responsibility for the new ministries of defence and foreign affairs. Jamaicans welcomed independence, but they had already spent their nationalistic passion over the emotional issue of federation. The general feeling was that independence would not make much difference in their lives.
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GEOGRAPHY
Jamaica lies 145 kilometers south of Cuba and 160 kilometers west of Haiti (see fig. ___, frontispiece, and fig.___, Jamaica. Administrative Divisions.). Its capital city, Kingston, is about 920 kilometers southeast of Miami. At its greatest extent, Jamaica is 235 kilometers long, and it varies between 35 and 82 kilometers wide. With an area of 10,911 square kilometers, Jamaica is the largest island of the Commonwealth Caribbean and the third largest of the Greater Antilles, after Cuba and Hispaniola (the island containing the Dominican Republic and Haiti). The Pedro Banks, an area of shallow seas extending generally east to west for over 160 kilometers, lie southwest of Jamaica. A cluster of cays (low islands or reefs--see Glossary) are associated with the banks. To the southeast lie the Morant Cays, fifty-one kilometers from Morant Point, the easternmost point of Jamaica.
Jamaica and the other islands of the Antilles evolved from an arc of ancient volcanoes that rose from the sea billions of years ago. During periods of submersion, thick layers of limestone were laid down over the old igneous and metamorphic rock. In many places, the limestone is thousands of feet thick. The country can be divided into three landform regions: the eastern mountains, the central valleys and plateaus, and the coastal plains (see fig. ___, Jamaica. Topography).
The highest area is that of the Blue Mountains. These eastern mountains are formed by a central ridge of metamorphic rock running northwest to southeast from which many long spurs jut to the north and south. For a distance of over 3 kilometers, the crest of the ridge exceeds 1,800 meters. The highest point is Blue Mountain Peak at 2,256 meters. The Blue Mountains rise to these elevations from the coastal plain in the space of about sixteen kilometers, thus producing one of the steepest general gradients in the world. In this part of the country, the old metamorphic rock reveals itself through the surrounding limestone.
To the north of the Blue Mountains lies the strongly tilted limestone plateau forming the John Crow Mountains. This range rises to elevations of over 1,000 meters. To the west, in the central part of the country, are two high rolling plateaus: the Dry Harbour Mountains to the north and the Manchester Plateau to the south. Between the two, the land is rugged and here, also, the limestone layers are broken by the older rocks. Streams that rise in the region flow outward and sink soon after reaching the limestone layers.
The limestone plateau covers two-thirds of the country, so that karst formations dominate the island. Karst is formed by the erosion of the limestone in solution. Sinkholes, caves and caverns, disappearing streams, hummocky hills, and terra rosa (residual red) soils in the valleys are distinguishing features of a karst landscape; all these are present in Jamaica. To the west of the mountains is the rugged terrain of the Cockpit Country, one of the world's most dramatic examples of karst topography.
The Cockpit Country is pockmarked with steep-sided hollows as much as fifteen meters deep and separated by conical hills and ridges. This area of the country was once known as the "Land of Look Behind," because Spanish horsemen venturing into this region of hostile runaway slaves were said to have ridden two to a mount, one rider facing to the rear to keep a precautionary watch. Where the ridges between sinkholes in the plateau area have dissolved, flat-bottomed basins or valleys have been formed that are filled with terra rosa soils, some of the most productive on the island. The largest basin is the Vale of Clarendon, eighty kilometers long and thirty-two kilometers wide. Queen of Spains Valley, Nassau Valley, and Cave Valley were formed by the same process.
The coastline of Jamaica is one of many contrasts. The northeast shore is severely eroded by the ocean. There are many small inlets in the rugged coastline, but no coastal plain of any extent. A narrow strip of plains along the northern coast offers calm seas and white sand beaches. Behind the beaches is a flat raised plain of uplifted coral reef.
The southern coast has small stretches of plains lined by black sand beaches. These are backed by cliffs of limestone where the plateaus end. In many stretches with no coastal plain, the cliffs drop 300 meters straight to the sea. In the southwest, broad plains stretch inland for a number of kilometers. The Black River courses seventy kilometers through the largest of these plains. The swamplands of the Great Morass and the Upper Morass fill much of the plains. The western coastline contains the island's finest beaches, stretching for more than six kilometers along a sandbar at Negril.
Two types of climate are found on Jamaica. An upland tropical climate prevails on the windward side of the mountains, whereas a semiarid climate predominates on the leeward side. Warm trade winds from the east and northeast bring rainfall throughout the year. The rainfall is heaviest from May to October, with peaks in those two months. The average rainfall is 196 centimeters per year. Rainfall is much greater in the mountain areas facing the north and east, however. Where the higher elevations of the John Crow Mountains and the Blue Mountains catch the rain from the moisture-laden winds, rainfall exceeds 508 centimeters per year. Since the southwestern half of the island lies in the rain shadow of the mountains, it has a semiarid climate and receives fewer than 762 millimeters of rainfall annually.
Temperatures are fairly constant throughout the year, averaging 25°C to 30°C in the lowlands and 15°C to 22°C at higher elevations. Temperatures may dip to below 10°C at the peaks of the Blue Mountains. The island receives, in addition to the northeast trade winds, refreshing onshore breezes during the day and cooling offshore breezes at night. These are known on Jamaica as the "Doctor Breeze" and the "Undertaker's Breeze," respectively.
Jamaica lies at the edge of the hurricane track; as a result, the island usually experiences only indirect storm damage. Hurricanes occasionally score direct hits on the islands, however. In 1980, for example, Hurricane Allen destroyed nearly all Jamaica's banana crop.
Although most of Jamaica's native vegetation has been stripped in order to make room for cultivation, some areas have been left virtually undisturbed since the time of Columbus. Indigenous vegetation can be found along the northern coast from Rio Bueno to Discovery Bay, in the highest parts of the Blue Mountains, and in the heart of the Cockpit Country.
POPULATION
In 1986 Jamaica had an estimated population of 2,304,000 persons, making it the most populous of the English-speaking Caribbean islands. The most recent census, in June 1982, recorded a total population of 2,095,858 persons, an increase of 13.4 percent over the 1970 census count of 1,848,508. Between 1970 and 1982, Jamaica's average annual rate of population growth was 1.1 percent, a relatively low rate in comparison with other developing countries. In 1986 the rate of population growth had dropped farther, to 0.9 percent. Jamaica's low rate of population growth reflected gradually declining birth rates and high levels of emigration, the country's most striking demographic feature. Nevertheless, significant reductions in mortality rates, resulting from better health care and sanitation, also affected the overall population growth rate, tending to raise it.
Jamaica's annual rate of population growth has been relatively stable since roughly the end of World War I. Between 1881 and 1921, emigration and disease caused the rate of population growth to fall to very low levels. Some 156,000 Jamaicans emigrated during this period, 35 percent of the country's natural increase. Between 1911 and 1921, the rate of growth was only 0.4 percent per year as workers left Jamaica for Costa Rican banana plantations, Cuban sugar estates, and the Panama Canal. The burgeoning industries of the United States and Canada also attracted many Jamaicans during this period. Thousands of Jamaicans, however, returned home with the fall of sugar prices precipitated by the Great Depression. As a result from 1921 to 1954, the rate of population growth rose, averaging 1.7 percent per year.
Increased emigration after World War II reduced the rate of population growth once again. Between 1954 and 1970, the rate of growth was only 1.4 percent because large numbers of Jamaicans moved to Britain, the United States, Canada, and elsewhere. This exodus continued unabated during the 1970s and early 1980s, when 276,200 men and women, over 10 percent of the total population, departed. A significant percentage of the emigrants were skilled workers, technicians, doctors, and managers, thus creating a huge drain on the human resources of Jamaican society. The world economic recession of the 1980s reduced opportunities for migration as a number of countries tightened their immigration laws. Nevertheless, by the mid-1980s, it was estimated that more than half of all Jamaicans lived outside the island.
In July 1983 the Jamaican Parliament adopted the National Population Policy, which was developed by the Population Policy Task Force under the auspices of the Ministry of Health. The objectives of the policy were to achieve a population not in excess of 3 million by the year 2000; to promote health and increase the life expectancy of the population; to create employment opportunities and reduce unemployment, underemployment, and emigration; to provide access to family-planning services for all Jamaicans and reduce the average number of children per family from four to two, thus achieving replacement fertility levels; to promote balanced rural, urban, and regional development to achieve an optimal spatial distribution of population; and to improve the satisfaction of basic needs and the quality of life through improved housing, nutrition, education, and environmental conditions.
Family planning services have been visible, accessible, and active in Jamaica since the 1960s. The success of family planning reduced the country's birth rate by about 35 percent from 1965 to 1985. The Planning Institute of Jamaica, a government agency, estimated that the crude birth rate (the annual number of births per 1,000 population) was 24.3 per 1,000 in 1985. The total fertility rate (the average number of children born to a woman during her lifetime) decreased from 5.5 in 1970 to 3.5 by 1983. The government perceived its population goal of 3 million or less by the year 2000 as feasible only if the yearly population growth rate did not exceed 1.6 percent and the replacement fertility rate were two children per woman.
The crude death rate (the annual number of deaths per 1,000 population) was quite low at 6 per 1,000 population in 1985. By comparison, the United States had a crude death rate of 9 per 1,000 in the same year. Between 1965 and 1985, Jamaica's crude death rate declined by 44 percent, the result of significant levels of investment in health care delivery systems and improved sanitation facilities during the 1970s. In 1985 life expectancy at birth (the average number of years a newborn infant can expect to live under current mortality levels) was very high at seventy-three years. The infant mortality rate (the annual number of deaths of children younger than 1 year old per 1,000 births) was 20 per 1,000 births during the mid-1980, and this rate was consistent with that of 23 per 1,000 found in other English-speaking Caribbean islands.
Jamaica, like most of the other Commonwealth Caribbean islands, was densely populated. In 1986 its estimated population density was 209.62 persons per square kilometer. In terms of arable land, the population totaled nearly 1,000 persons per square kilometer, making it one of the most densely populated countries in the world. Since the 1960s, the population has become increasingly urban. In 1960, only 34 percent of the population lived in urban areas, but in the late 1980s, more than 50 percent of the population was urban. The heavily urbanized parishes of Kingston, St. Andrew, St. James, and St. Catherine accounted for 48.3 percent of Jamaica's total population in 1983.
Jamaica is a country of young people. Roughly 40 percent of the population was under fifteen years of age in the late 1980s. The fastest-growing age groups were those ten to thirty-four years of age and those seventy and over. Slower growth for middle-aged groups was generally explained by their greater tendency to emigrate. The 1982 census revealed that the group up to nine years old was the only one not becoming larger; this suggested both that the country's population was aging and that family planning was working. The 1982 census also revealed that 51 percent of the population was female.
The country's national motto points to the various ethnic groups present on the island. Although a predominantly black nation of West African descent, Jamaica had significant minorities of East Indians, Chinese, Europeans, Syrians, Lebanese, and numerous mixtures thereof in the late 1980s. Approximately 95 percent of all Jamaicans were of partial or total African descent, including 76 percent of complete African descent, 15 percent of Afro-European descent, and 4 percent of either Afro-East Indian or Afro-Chinese descent. Nearly 2 percent of the population was East Indian, close to 1 percent Chinese, and the remainder was made up of Europeans, peoples of the Middle East, and others. Although racial differences were not as important as class differences, the lightness of one's skin was still an issue, especially since minorities were generally members of the upper classes.
About 75 percent of Jamaica's population was Protestant, and 8 percent was Roman Catholic; various Muslim, Jewish, and spiritualist groups were also present. Rastafarians constituted roughly 5 percent of the population. Religious activities were popular, and religion played a fairly important role in society. The most striking religious trend occurring in Jamaica in the 1980s, as it was throughout the Americas, was the increasing number of charismatic or evangelical Christian groups.
EDUCATION
The educational system was slow to reach most Jamaicans until the early 1970s. Even after the abolition of slavery, education remained uncommon; early efforts were conducted mostly by Christian churches. In the late 1800s, some secondary schools created in Kingston served primarily the light-skinned elite. The limited availability of schools, especially beyond the primary level, and the elitist curriculum intensified class divisions in colonial society. A dual system of education, characterized by governmentrun primary schools and private secondary schools, effectively barred a large part of the population from attaining more than functional literacy. In addition, much of the content of formal education in Jamaica was largely irrelevant for students unable to attend universities in Britain. In 1943, fewer than 1 percent of blacks and only 9 percent of the mixed races attended secondary school.
The start of early self-government in 1944 finally cleared the way for increased funding for education. From the establishment of the Ministry of Education in 1953 to independence in 1962, a national education policy was developed that expanded the scope of education and redefined educational priorities. During the 1960s, the major goal of the government in the field of education was the construction of an adequate number of primary schools and fifty junior secondary schools (grades seven, eight, and nine). Until the 1970s, however, the educational system continued to provide insufficient opportunities at the postprimary levels because many of the features inherited from the British educational system remained.
The PNP government elected in 1972 initiated major changes in the educational system. Qualitative and quantitative improvements in education were identified as the key elements of the new government's program during its first term in office (1972-76). The two most important aspects of the program were universally free secondary and college education and a campaign to eliminate illiteracy. Educational reforms were intended to redress the social inequalities that the system of secondary education had formerly promoted and to create greater access for all Jamaicans to the preferred government and private-sector jobs that typically required a secondary school diploma.
The reforms of secondary education had positive but limited effects. Greater access to educational was the main accomplishment of the reform process, but limited funding may also have lowered the quality of education for the increased numbers of students attending secondary schools. Nevertheless, the introduction of universally free secondary education was a major step in removing the institutional barriers confronting poor Jamaicans who were otherwise unable to afford tuition.
After changes in its literacy policies in the early 1970s, the PNP government in 1974 formed the Jamaica Movement for the Advancement of Literacy (JAMAL), which administered adult education programs with the goal of involving 100,000 adults a year. Although in 1987 specific data were lacking, increases in the national literacy rates suggested the program was successful. Literacy rates increased from 16.3 percent in 1871 to 47.2 percent in 1911, 67.9 percent in 1943, and more than 85 percent by the late 1970s.
The educational system in Jamaica was quite complex in the 1980s. The public school system was administered principally by the Ministry of Education and regional school boards. Four major levels (preprimary, primary, secondary, and higher education) were divided into a number of different types of schools. The preprimary level was made up of infant and basic schools (ages four to six); primary education was provided at primary and "all-age" schools (grades one through six). Secondary schools included "new" secondary schools, comprehensive schools, and technical high schools (grades seven through eleven) as well as trade and vocational institutes and high schools (grades seven through thirteen). The twelfth and thirteenth years of high school were preparatory for university matriculation. The government also administered a school for the handicapped in Kingston.
Although education was free in the public schools and school attendance was compulsory to the age of sixteen, costs for books, uniforms, lunch, and transport deterred some families from sending their children to school. Public school enrollment ranged from 98 percent at the primary level to 58 percent at the secondary level in the early 1980s. Schools were generally crowded, averaging forty students per class.
There were also some 232 privately run schools in Jamaica, ranging from primary to college. The total enrollment in private schools was 41,000, or less than 7 percent of total public school enrollment. Most private-school students were enrolled in university preparatory programs. Both public and private schools were characterized by numerous examinations that determined placement and advancement. This testing material was originally British, but by the 1980s the Caribbean Examinations Council was increasingly the author of such tests.
Several colleges and universities served a limited number of Jamaican students. These included the largest campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI), the College of Arts, Science, and Technology (CAST), the College of Agriculture, various teachers colleges and community colleges, and a cultural training center made up of separate schools of dance, drama, art, and music. Located at Mona in the Kingston metropolitan area, the UWI was the most prominent institution of higher learning on the island, offering degree programs in most major fields of study. As a regional university serving the needs of all the Commonwealth Caribbean islands, the UWI also maintained campuses in Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados. Approximately 5 percent of the Jamaican population participated in university studies, although some students pursued their academic training outside the Caribbean. In 1985 the government announced plans to begin reorganizing higher education, including the eventual merger of CAST and the College of Agriculture into a polytechnical institute or a university.
In the early 1980s, the government reoriented its development strategies for education, emphasizing basic education in grades one to nine and human resources training. The government's plan stressed rehabilitating and upgrading primary and basic education facilities, improving the quality and efficiency of basic education, implementing a full curriculum for grades seven to nine in all-age schools, and establishing an effective inservice training program for teachers. Problems in secondary education were also identified, such as the existence of a complicated, secondary school system that produced graduates of varying quality and wasted scarce financial resources.
The goals of developing the human resource potential of the population intended to provide educational opportunities for students to prepare them for the types of jobs available in Jamaica. According to Prime Minister Edward Seaga, elected in 1980, a major policy in the area of primary education was to ensure that primary school graduates achieved functional literacy. Secondary education was restructured to provide students with an education sufficient to meet the requirements of upper secondary school. The government reported in June 1986 that only 9,000 of 82,000 students in lower secondary schools were receiving an acceptable level of education.
At the postsecondary level, the most important initiative of the government was the Human Employment and Resource Training Program (HEART). Announced in 1982, HEART aimed at providing training and employment for unemployed youths finished with school. In 1983, roughly 4,160 persons began job training or entered continuing business education classes. In 1985 six specialized HEART academies provided training in agriculture; hotel, secretarial, and commercial services; postal and telegraph operations; industrial production; and cosmetology. Nearly 1,400 persons completed agricultural or construction trades programs administered by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Youth and Community Development. The HEART program called for the eventual construction of 12 academies capable of training 500 youths at a time in various skills. The program's critics charged, however, that funds could be better spent on community colleges.
Education became increasingly politicized in the late 1980s, mostly as a result of the scarcity of resources. Spending on education declined to about 11 percent of government expenditures in the early 1980s, after peaking at nearly 20 percent of the 1973 budget. Issues of increased pay for teachers and renewed tuition expenses at the UWI threatened to make education a national political issue.
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ECONOMY
Jamaica is a middle-income, oil-importing country that attempted diverse economic development strategies during the 1970s and 1980s. Jamaica had the second largest GDP of the Commonwealth Caribbean, behind only Trinidad and Tobago, an oil-exporter. The island's GDP for 1985 was US$1.7 billion, or US$940 per capita. The major sectors of the economy were bauxite (see Glossary) and alumina (see Glossary), tourism, manufacturing, and agriculture. Bauxite and alumina, in particular, set the pace of Jamaica's postwar economic growth through new investment and foreign exchange earnings. Bauxite production declined rapidly in Jamaica in the 1980s, however, because of the prolonged recession in the world aluminum industry, global oversupply, and the departure of multinational producers. Tourism declined in the 1970s, but recovered between 1980 and 1986, thus becoming the second most important sector of the economy. Manufacturing, a quite diversified sector, underwent structural changes in the 1980s when production was refocused on exports rather than on the domestic market. Agriculture, the heart of the Jamaican economy for centuries, has been in relative decline since World War II.
Jamaica enjoyed rapid growth rates during the 1950s and 1960s as the bauxite industry boomed. Real GDP growth averaged about 4.5 percent during these two decades. Economic growth was sporadic and weak from 1972 to 1986, however. Indeed, the Jamaican economy did not register two consecutive years of significant growth during that period. Between 1973 and 1980, the island experienced seven consecutive years of negative growth. The economic downturn in the 1970s demonstrated the highly mobile nature of both labor and capital in Jamaica, as skilled labor and investment capital left the island. The democratic socialist government of Michael Manley from 1972 to 1980 was popularly blamed for the poor performance during the 1970s (see Political Dynamics, this ch.). Nevertheless, Manley's successor and conservative political opponent, Edward Seaga, was also unable to turn the economy around during his first six years in office. The economy experienced sporadic and unsustained growth in the early 1980s. GDP declined by 4.5 percent in 1985 but rose again in 1986 by more than 2 percent. In the mid1980s , the Jamaican economy was about where it was in 1980 in terms of real GDP. Negative growth in the 1980s was generally attributed to the acute decline in the world bauxite market.
Most Jamaicans enjoyed a relatively high quality of life when compared with their neighbors. For example, in the early 1980s, Jamaica's physical-quality-of-life index computed by the Overseas Development Council was higher than that of Mexico and Venezuela and equal to that of Trinidad and Tobago. Nevertheless, Jamaica still suffered from severe social problems resulting from the skewed distribution of the country's wealth, often said to be the legacy of colonialism and slavery. For example, in 1960 the top 20 percent of society received 61 percent of the national income, and after independence income distribution continued to worsen. Land tenure was also highly inequitable. In 1961, the year before independence, 10 percent of the population owned 64 percent of the land; this pattern continued in the 1970s, despite the implementation of a land reform program. Less than 1 percent of the country's farms covered about 43 percent of the land in 1978. Jamaicans in urban areas had much more access to piped water, sanitary plumbing facilities, and high quality health care than their rural counterparts. These disparities in income and service were believed to have widened even more as a result of the austere economic policies of the 1980s.
Jamaica was hardly immune from the structural economic problems affecting other developing countries in the era. Beginning in the mid-1970s, inflation was generally double-digit, caused primarily by the increase in world oil prices, expansionary fiscal policies, and entrenched labor unions. Chronic unemployment and recession coexisted with high inflation during the 1970s, causing stagflation. Unemployment averaged roughly 25 percent during the 1975-85 period, affecting women and urban youth the hardest. The country also faced rapid urbanization as economic opportunities in rural areas deteriorated. In 1960, about 34 percent of the island's population was considered urban, but by 1982 that figure had risen to about 48 percent as opportunities in rural areas declined. Like other countries in the Western hemisphere, Jamaica quickly compiled a large external debt in the 1970s and 1980s; by the end of 1986, it amounted to US$3.5 billion, one of the highest per capita debts in the world.
In the 1980s, Jamaica's economy was generally defined as free enterprise, although major sectors were government controlled. The PNP governments in the 1970s were the most active in increasing state ownership. Although some private companies were purchased, the more usual pattern was to create joint public-private enterprises or to increase government regulation of the private sector, especially of foreign multinationals. In the 1970s the state ownership was largely financed by a levy on bauxite production, introduced in 1974, and by deficit spending.
In 1980 Seaga was elected on a platform of denationalization and deregulation of the economy. In his first six years in office, however, Seaga achieved mixed results. Denationalization did occur in tourism and agriculture, but the role of government actually increased in oil refining and bauxite production after several large firms unexpectedly left the island. As of early 1987, the structural adjustment (see Glossary) of the economy was nearly completed and increased government divestments were forecast.
Jamaica's economy was rather open. Trade as a ratio of GDP was estimated to be over 50 percent in the 1970s, a percentage believed to be increasing in the 1980s. As part of structural adjustment policies to further open up the economy, the Jamaican dollar was devalued several times in the early 1980s. Although imports fell as a result, the country's overall trade deficit actually increased as prices collapsed for its major primary product exports, bauxite and sugar. The country's trade deficit rose to over US$500 million during 1985. The island's direction of trade changed, with a greater share going to the United States and less to the Caribbean Community and Common Market (Caricom--see Appendix C), particularly to Jamaica's major trading partner in the community, Trinidad and Tobago.
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Growth and Structure of the Economy
The first European settlers, the Spanish, were primarily interested in extracting precious metals and did not develop or otherwise transform Jamaica. In 1655 the English occupied the island and began a slow process of creating an agricultural economy based on slave labor in support of England's industrial revolution. During the seventeenth century, the basic patterns and social system of the sugar plantation economy were established in Jamaica (see The Sugar Revolutions and Slavery, ch. 1). Large estates owned by absentee planters were managed by local agents. The slave population increased rapidly during the last quarter of the seventeenth century and, by the end of the century, slaves outnumbered white Europeans by at least five to one. Because conditions were extremely harsh under the slave regime and the mortality rate for slaves was high, the slave population expanded through the slave trade from West Africa rather than by natural increase.
During most of the eighteenth century, a monocrop economy based on sugar production for export flourished. In the last quarter of the century, however, the Jamaican sugar economy declined as famines, hurricanes, colonial wars, and wars of independence disrupted trade. By the 1820s, Jamaican sugar had become less competitive with that from high-volume producers such as Cuba and production subsequently declined. By 1882 sugar output was less than half the level achieved in 1828. A major reason for the decline was the British Parliament's 1807 abolition of the slave trade, under which the transportation of slaves to Jamaica after March 1, 1808 was forbidden; the abolition of the slave trade was followed by the abolition of slavery in 1834 and full emancipation within four years (see The Post-Emancipation Societies, ch. 1). Unable to convert the ex-slaves into a sharecropping tenant class similar to the one established in the post-Civil War South of the United States, planters became increasingly dependent on wage labor and began recruiting workers abroad, primarily from India, China, and Sierra Leone. Many of the former slaves settled in peasant or small farm communities in the interior of the island, the "yam belt," where they engaged in subsistence and some cash-crop farming.
The second half of the nineteenth century was a period of severe economic decline for Jamaica. Low crop prices, droughts, and disease led to serious social unrest, culminating in the Morant Bay rebellions of 1865 (see Political Traditions, ch. 1). However, renewed British administration after the 1865 rebellion, in the form of crown colony status, resulted in some social and economic progress as well as investment in the physical infrastructure. Agricultural development was the centerpiece of restored British rule in Jamaica. In 1868 the first large-scale irrigation project was launched. In 1895 the Jamaica Agricultural Society was founded to promote more scientific and profitable methods of farming. Also in the 1890s, the Crown Lands Settlement Scheme was introduced, a land reform program of sorts, which allowed small farmers to purchase two hectares or more of land on favorable terms.
Between 1865 and 1930, the character of landholding in Jamaica changed substantially, as sugar declined in importance. As many former plantations went bankrupt, some land was sold to Jamaican peasants under the Crown Lands Settlement whereas other cane fields were consolidated by dominant British producers, most notably by the British firm Tate and Lyle. Although the concentration of land and wealth in Jamaica was not as drastic as in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, by the 1920s the typical sugar plantation on the island had increased to an average of 266 hectares. But, as noted, smallscale agriculture in Jamaica survived the consolidation of land by sugar powers. The number of small holdings in fact tripled between 1865 and 1930, thus retaining a large portion of the population as peasantry. Most of the expansion in small holdings took place before 1910, with farms averaging between two and twenty hectares.
The rise of the banana trade during the second half of the nineteenth century also changed production and trade patterns on the island. Bananas were first exported in 1867, and banana farming grew rapidly thereafter. By 1890, bananas had replaced sugar as Jamaica's principal export. Production rose from 5 million stems (32 percent of exports) in 1897 to an average of 20 million stems a year in the 1920s and 1930s, or over half of domestic exports. As with sugar, the presence of American companies, like the well-known United Fruit Company in Jamaica, was a driving force behind renewed agricultural exports. The British also became more interested in Jamaican bananas than in the country's sugar. Expansion of banana production, however, was hampered by serious labor shortages. The rise of the banana economy took place amidst a general exodus of up to 11,000 Jamaicans a year (see Population, this ch.).
The Great Depression caused sugar prices to slump in 1929 and led to the return of many Jamaicans. Economic stagnation, discontent with unemployment, low wages, high prices, and poor living conditions caused social unrest in the 1930s. Uprisings in Jamaica began on the Frome Sugar Estate in the western parish of Westmoreland and quickly spread east to Kingston. Jamaica, in particular, set the pace for the region in its demands for economic development from British colonial rule.
Because of disturbances in Jamaica and the rest of the region, the British in 1938 appointed the Moyne Commission (see Labor Organizations, ch. 1). An immediate result of the Commission was the Colonial Development Welfare Act, which provided for the expenditure of approximately £1 million a year for twenty years on coordinated development in the British West Indies. Concrete actions, however, were not implemented to deal with Jamaica's massive structural problems.
The expanding relationship that Jamaica entered into with the United States during World War II produced a momentum for change that could not be turned back by the end of the war (see Political Dynamics, this ch.). Familiarity with the early economic progress achieved in Puerto Rico under Operation Bootstrap, renewed emigration to the United States, the lasting impressions of Marcus Garvey, and the publication of the Moyne Commission Report led to important modifications in the Jamaican political process and demands for economic development. As was the case throughout the Commonwealth Caribbean in the mid- to late 1930s, social upheaval in Jamaica paved the way for the emergence of strong trade unions and nascent political parties. These changes set the stage for early modernization in the 1940s and 1950s and for limited selfrule , introduced in 1944.
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Patterns of Development
An extensive period of postwar growth transformed Jamaica into an increasingly industrial society. This pattern was accelerated with the export of bauxite beginning in the 1950s. The economic structure shifted from a dependence on agriculture that in 1950 accounted for 30.8 percent of GDP to an agricultural contribution of 12.9 percent in 1960 and 6.7 percent in 1970. During the same period, the contribution to GDP of mining increased from less than 1 percent in 1950 to 9.3 percent in 1960 and 12.6 percent in 1970. Manufacturing expanded from 11.3 percent in 1950 to 12.8 in 1960 and 15.7 in 1970.
Seven consecutive years of negative economic growth were registered from 1973 to 1980 as several external and internal factors changed postwar patterns of economic development. The most important factor was the supply-side shock of quadrupled oil prices. Jamaica was particularly vulnerable in that its economy was relatively oil intensive for a developing country, primarily because the bauxite industry's technology predated the energy crisis. As a result of the crisis, Jamaica's oil import bill increased 172 percent between 1973 and 1974. The economy was simultaneously hurt by the plateau experienced in foreign investment in the bauxite sector in the early 1970s, as the major multinational companies were then operating on the island. Also, both internal and external factors affected the tourist industry. Internal politics, some violence, and the PNP's defiant Third World stance scared away some tourists. PNP politicians, however, blamed the fall in tourist arrivals primarily on biased press coverage in North America and United States attempts at "destabilization."
PNP policies also contributed to negative growth. Unlike other governments in the Caribbean, the PNP in Jamaica was proposing very expansionary fiscal policies during a period of both serious inflation and recession. Government expenditures on badly needed social programs expanded much more rapidly than government revenues, creating chronic budget deficits that increasingly were financed by external loans. By 1980 external debt was as high as 82 percent of GDP and debt service was over 20 percent of exports. Government budget deficits went from a level equal to 6 percent of GDP in 1974 to a level of 18 percent of GDP in 1980. Chronic deficits were coupled with restrictive import controls, unrealistic exchange rates, and tight monetary policies; the result was a sharp drop in investment and a decline of 18 percent in GDP from 1973 to 1980. The deteriorating economic situation and increasing political violence generated serious capital flight and emigration of skilled labor, thereby creating further long-run obstacles to future growth and development.
Although growth did occur in the 1980s, it was sporadic and unsustained. Real GDP growth was 4.0 percent in 1981, 0.0 in 1982, 1.8 in 1983, 0.4 in 1984, -4.5 in 1985, and was estimated at 2.0 percent in 1986. Despite some growth in the first half of the decade, 1985 GDP was still below 1981 levels in real terms. Furthermore, economic growth did not keep pace with population growth; as a result, per capita GDP, in constant terms, declined 7.5 percent from 1981 to 1985. Observers estimated that real per capita GDP in the mid 1980s was close to pre-independence levels. Modest annual growth was expected in the late 1980s.
The economy went through a structural adjustment process with the help of unprecedented funding from the World Bank (see Glossary), the International Monetary Fund (IMF--see Glossary), and the United States Agency for International Development (AID). The adjustment process integrated the local economy more fully with the international economy by reducing tariffs, promoting nontraditional exports, increasing the role of the private sector, and devaluing the Jamaican dollar (J$). Nonetheless, recession in the world economy and the depressed prices for traditional exports prevented significant net increases in foreign investment or exports. Although there was substantial growth in nontraditional exports, such growth was unable to offset the large fall-out in traditional exports and production. Unemployment, the greatest social problem, remained stagnant at 25 percent in the mid-1980s.
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Role of Government
The government's first attempts to intervene in the economy occurred during early self-government in the form of national, macroeconomic planning that stated only the broadest of economic objectives. The first such government plan was the "Ten-Year Plan of Development," issued in 1947 and revised in 1951. Industrialization, however, was eventually spurred on more by industrial incentive legislation than by macroeconomic planning.
Legislation during the first two decades after World War II changed the pace of industrialization and the structure of the economy. Generous fiscal incentives--such as tax holidays, accelerated depreciation rates, duty-free importation of raw materials, tariff protection, and subsidized factory space--served to emphasize industry and services over agriculture, particularly manufacturing, mining, and tourism. The manufacturing sector grew as a result of important government acts, such as the Pioneer Industries Law of 1949, the Industrial Incentives Law of 1956, and the Export Industries Law of 1956. Investment in the bauxite and alumina sector was encouraged by the Bauxite and Alumina Act of 1950. The Hotel Aid Law of 1944 provided a similar catalyst to investment in the tourism sector.
During the first decade of independence, government policies generally continued the efforts of the 1950s to lure investment in mining, manufacturing, tourism and, by the 1960s, in banking and insurance. A large number of foreign corporations, mostly from the United States, were established in Jamaica as a result of the "industrialization by invitation" strategy that was based on the Puerto Rican growth model of development.
Government involvement in the economy increased significantly from 1972 to 1980, establishing one of the largest public sectors in the Caribbean. In 1974 Prime Minister Michael Manley declared his government socialist and announced its intention of controlling the "commanding heights of the economy." Although the economy was nominally socialist, its production patterns during the 1970s were actually mixed. Private enterprise dominated in nearly every sector and the "right to private property" was maintained. Internationally, the government led the call for a New International Economic Order in the world's economic system.
Manley's first term as prime minister (1972-76) was much more populist and nationalist in orientation than his second term. Manley advocated a "third path" development strategy that viewed Jamaica as a nonaligned, independent member of the Third World. This approach rejected both the Puerto Rican and Cuban models of development and sought to reverse democratically the inequitable distribution of wealth in Jamaica. Policies included the creation of rural health schemes, food subsidies, literacy campaigns, free secondary and higher education, a national minimum wage, equal pay for women, sugar cooperatives, and rent and price controls.
Between 1972 and 1976, the Manley government carried out a small agrarian reform program, Project Land Lease, that sought to alleviate high unemployment by introducing job creation schemes and redistributing concentrated land holdings. The reform process included the creation of agricultural cooperatives, including the formation of a Sugar Workers Cooperative Council, an important actor in the country's political economy. Seeking to reduce dependency on foreign investment, the government also nationalized with compensation all of the foreign-owned utility companies (electricity, telephone, and public transportation companies). The government also purchased sugar factories and the foreign-owned Barclays Bank. The new role of government in the economy was financed through deficit spending and a greatly increased levy on bauxite production; the latter move quickly brought the Manley government into conflict with the American and Canadian aluminum companies.
The bauxite conflict involved Jamaica's abrogation of its agreements with international aluminum companies in 1974. The dispute resulted from Jamaica's decision to impose a new 7.5- percent bauxite levy in order to gain greater national benefits from the industry and offset the increased cost of imported oil. This measure had the broad, and perhaps overwhelming, support of nearly all sectors of Jamaican society. From January 1974 to March 1975, the bauxite levy provided close to J$ 200 million, increasing bauxite revenues sevenfold in the first fiscal year of the tax (see table __, Selected Movements in the Jamaican Exchange Rate, Appendix A). The new bauxite levy was the most important and dramatic example of expanded government involvement in the economy.
The Manley government also began negotiating with the aluminum companies over acquisition of a significant equity position in their Jamaican operations (albeit a smaller share than that sought in bauxite production). Between 1974 and 1978, Jamaica and the international companies concluded agreements that gave Jamaica a 51-percent stake in both Kaiser and Reynolds' local operations, a 6-percent share of Alcoa's, and 7 percent of Alcan's. Revere Aluminum and the government could not agree on a price, resulting in Revere's withdrawal from Jamaica. The government also purchased much agricultural land surrounding the bauxite mines. Throughout the proceedings, the government was able to acquire the companies' landholdings at book value.
An important element of Jamaica's bauxite policy during the 1970s was the formation of the eleven-member International Bauxite Association (IBA). Modelled on the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), by 1976 the IBA controlled about 70 percent of world bauxite production and 90 percent of world bauxite trade from its Kingston headquarters. The greater availability of bauxite compared with oil, however, and the reluctance of other key members of the IBA to impose taxes equivalent to those of Jamaica reduced the IBA's effectiveness.
Although extremely popular among most social classes in Jamaica, Manley's bauxite levy produced mixed results. In the short run, the policy provided significant revenues for the government's social programs and generated scarce foreign exchange for Jamaica's businessmen; it alienated the foreign companies, however, and encouraged them to develop new resources in Brazil, Australia, and Guinea during the 1970s and 1980s. A long-term decline in new investment in Jamaican bauxite caused a fall in the country's share of world output.
Manley's second term (1976-80) was characterized by protracted attempts to come to terms with the IMF for economic support. As the economy gradually deteriorated and international reserves had dwindled during Manley's first term, the government had been forced to approach the IMF for assistance with balance-of-payments support. Strapped with an ailing economy, the Jamaican government agreed to an IMF stabilization program a few months before the 1976 election. The IMF agreed to make a loan to Jamaica if the government undertook a large currency devaluation, instituted a wage freeze, and made a greater effort to balance the budget. After the election, however, Manley rejected the IMF recommendations, citing the harsh measures demanded by the Fund in return for balance-of-payments support and arguing that the IMF conditionalities constituted interference in the internal affairs of the country.
The government then produced an austerity plan, the Emergency Production Plan of 1977, that emphasized self-reliance and agricultural development. The plan included provisions for establishing a two-tier exchange system and devaluing the Jamaican dollar. Although the plan did not conform to IMF demands, it laid the groundwork for an eventual reconciliation between Manley and the IMF. In May 1977, IMF negotiators arrived in Jamaica to arrange a two-year Standby Agreement that was to provide Jamaica with a much needed US$75 million. The IMF suspended the Standby Agreement in December, however, because Jamaica had failed to meet one of the targets monitored by the IMF on a quarterly basis.
In January 1978, the IMF was once again invited to Jamaica to negotiate a three-year Extended Fund Facility (EFF) in the amount of US$240 million. In order to qualify for the EFF, Jamaica devalued its two-tiered currency by 13.6 percent (basic rate) and by 5.2 percent (special rate). Under the terms of a rigid May 1978 agreement, the government reunified and devalued its currency, agreed to place the currency on a crawling-peg system of regular devaluations during the next year, imposed new taxes on consumer goods, reduced government expenditures, increased charges for government services, lifted price controls, guaranteed profits for private firms, set a ceiling on wage increases, and limited the activities of several state-owned corporations.
The IMF program resulted in exacerbated political and social tensions. Although Jamaica generally followed the terms of the agreement, inflation soared, real wages fell, foreign reserves collapsed, and the trade deficit rose, all of which were expected as part of the short-term adjustment to stabilization policies. The decline in living standards caused by the agreement increased unrest, violence, and opposition protests.
Because Jamaica had complied with its policies, the IMF increased its lending to Jamaica in June 1979. The new limits for the EFF were set at US$428 million to cover the costs of severe floods and the increased price of oil, which skyrocketed again during 1979. Despite the new funding, IMF-Jamaican relations soured in late 1979 as the economy continued to perform poorly even though the island followed the Fund's basic guidelines. Jamaica continued to negotiate with the IMF until March 1980, when Manley broke off negotiations and outlined a new, non-IMF path to economic recovery. In the subsequent election of October 1980, the PNP carried only 41 percent of the vote, an apparent repudiation of Manley's policies of initially seeking IMF support and later imposing severe austerity measures on the population.
Seaga's October 1980 election marked the beginning of the second major shift in economic policy since independence. Seaga's JLP was quick to put virtually all of the blame on Manley for the steep economic decline of the previous decade. The Seaga government, a close ally of the newly elected administration of United States president Ronald Reagan, also favored a supply-side approach to economic management. Provided with unprecedented external financing from multilateral and bilateral lending agencies, the Seaga government embarked on a structural adjustment program under the specific guidelines of the IMF and the World Bank.
The Seaga government changed the general outlook of the Jamaican government by the structural adjustment of the economy, stressing private-sector initiative and market mechanisms. Determined to reverse the export bias of the manufacturing industry, the government refocused exports on "third country markets" (other than the domestic or Caricom markets), particularly the United States, using foreign exchange export incentives to increase trade. This strategy coincided with the duty-free importation of goods destined to the United States market covered under the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI--see Appendix D).
Basing its policies on comparative advantage studies, in the early 1980s the government announced seven priority subsectors where investment and production would be emphasized and foreign exchange would be focused: garments and sewn products, footwear and leather products, construction materials, food and agro-industry, automotive products, furniture, electronics, and electrical products. Primary emphasis was placed on light or value-added manufacturing that utilized Jamaica's comparative advantage of cheap labor through production-sharing with American or Asian companies. The new industrial push also entailed a variety of physical infrastructure improvements and projects. For example, the government used World Bank loans to build factory space in Export Free Zones in Kingston, Montego Bay, and later in Spanish Town, where the bulk of the new export-oriented industries operated. New garment and apparel factories were generally referred to as 807 program factories, (see Glossary), named after the corresponding United States Tariff Schedule number that allowed these exports preferential access. Light manufacturing factories were the busiest, and garments and other sewn products in particular enjoyed the most rapid growth of all priority subsectors.
Structural adjustment policies were also aimed at reducing state ownership in directly productive enterprises, such as hotels, which were divested. Although the JLP government sought similar policies of divestment in oil refining and bauxite mining, the abrupt decisions of large foreign companies to leave Jamaica limited Seaga's flexibility. For example, when the Exxon Corporation decided to sell its Jamaican refinery, the Seaga government felt obliged to buy it so the country could refine oil locally and continue a small reexport program. A similar situation arose in the early to mid-1980s, when most of the major bauxite companies on the island decided to close operations or leave Jamaica, despite the government's pro-foreign investment stance. In the case of the closing and sale of the Alpart plant in Clarendon, the government once again bought the enterprise in order to maintain a necessary level of production and exports. In 1987 a new round of divestment of state enterprises was announced, including the National Commercial Bank and branches of the national media. The government decided to retain ownership in utilities, however.
Beyond the outright buying and selling of private enterprises, the structural adjustment also entailed promoting investment, finding new markets for nontraditional products, and improving financing for exporters. The attempt to achieve these economic goals led to important organizational changes in government agencies, most notably the establishment of the Jamaican National Investment Promotion Limited (JNIP). The JNIP's task was to lure more foreign investment to Jamaica while promoting the island's newly developed exports through offices in the Caribbean, North America, Europe, and Asia. The high-profile offices were established to act as a one-stop shop for foreign investors, who were often dismayed by Jamaican bureaucracy. Although the JNIP was able to solicit new investment during the 1980s, these gains could not replace the aggregate investment losses represented by the departure of major oil and mining companies.
The government also sought to improve available financing for exporters. In 1981 the government established the Export Development Fund to troubleshoot export problems and strengthen the budget and promotional role of the Jamaica National Export Corporation. In 1986 the government disbanded the Jamaica Export Credit Insurance Company and replaced it by the more sophisticated Jamaican Export-Import Bank, which was expected to give more effective support to exporters.
Privatization was the government's focus in agriculture as well. Several large foreign companies were invited to the island to manage previously government-run activities, especially in the sugar industry. In addition, a special, high-profile government agency, Agro-21, established as part of the prime minister's office, was created to develop new agricultural products and to modernize farming methods. Like the JNIP, Agro-21 had mixed success; some subsectors such as floral exports and inland fisheries flourished, whereas Agro-21's largest endeavor, the Spring Plains Project had not, as of 1987, proved successful.
The Seaga government also pursued more orthodox fiscal and monetary policies in attempts to retain access to external financing under structural adjustment lending. On the fiscal side, the government attempted to reduce budget deficits primarily through public sector lay-offs and divestment of enterprises, and secondarily through ad hoc sales taxes and a comprehensive tax reform. Further policies included the elimination of food subsidies and other price controls, increased public school fees and a reestablishment of university tuition, and a gradual reduction in quantitative restrictions on imports. Monetary policy was characterized by a tight control of the money supply. Although emphasis was placed on savings to stir investment, local investment was hindered by relatively high interest rates. Despite orthodox policies, deficits remained relatively large until 1986, when national accounts began to improve.
The Seaga government's structural adjustment and economic reform measures were only partially successful by the end of 1986. On the positive side, the virtual completion of the structural adjustment process had increased confidence in the economy. Decreased oil prices and some improvement in the bauxite sector spurred the economy to grow once again in 1986. At the same time, however, it was evident that there would be no easy recovery from the deep recession of the early 1980s. In the late 1980s, debt, unemployment, and unequal distribution of wealth continued to be major economic problems facing Jamaica. As had happened with Manley's policies, Seaga's economic policies were offset by adverse trends in the international economy, especially commodity prices. Seaga also discovered that the opposition political forces and the country's economic legacy represented major constraints on establishing those policies. Neither Manley nor Seaga succeeded in transforming the economic structures of Jamaica to the extent proposed in their rhetoric. Finally, Seaga, too, came into some conflict with the IMF over both the pace and the nature of economic conditionalities as the political tide turned against the JLP in 1986. Although most pressures abated after a January 1987 IMF agreement, the JLP softened its strict orthodoxy of the early 1980s and focused economic policies on the electoral challenge ahead.
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National Income and Public Finance
The greatest contributor to national income in 1985 was government services, accounting for 18.6 percent of GDP, followed by manufacturing at 15.7 percent, distributive trade at 15.3 percent, agriculture at 8.8 percent, construction at 5.4 percent, mining at 5.1 percent, and the balance in various other services including tourism (see fig.__ Jamaica. Structure of Production-- Distribution of Gross Domestic Product (1985)). The decline of agriculture and the rise of industry and services marked the Jamaican economy in the 1980s. A large underground economy also persisted. Many self-employed peddlers, locally referred to as higglers, worked in the large redistributive trade that often fell outside the formal economy; therefore, they were not taxed or recorded in official data. This included some higglers who received merchandise through illicit imports, thus circumventing official import regulations. More important, there was a large underground economy based on marijuana growing and trafficking. Some analysts estimated that the underground economy was equivalent to over half of the official economy.
The fiscal year in Jamaica extends from April 1 through March 31. As required by the Constitution, the minister of finance submits the annual budget to the House of Representatives, the final authority on the budget, before the end of the prior fiscal year. Budgeted expenditures are divided into a capital and a current account, also called a recurrent account. For decades, the surpluses on the current account were not adequate to finance the envisioned capital expenditures, such as physical and social infrastructure, creating structural budget deficits.
Beginning in the early 1970s, expansionary fiscal policies created deficits in both current and capital accounts, financed by internal and external borrowing. Although the fiscal deficit as a ratio of GDP rose from 5 percent in 1972 to 20 percent by 1979, it had decreased to under 12 percent by 1985 and to under 2 percent by 1986. Total government expenditures in 1985 amounted to US$823 million, whereas revenues reached only US$583 million, resulting in an overall deficit of US$240 million, or 11.6 percent of GDP. Budget deficits in the 1970s and 1980s were increasingly financed by external borrowing. Fueled by extensive foreign borrowing and relatively high interest rates, the national internal debt rose from 9 percent of GDP in 1972 to 45 percent in 1979 and exceeded 58 percent of GDP in 1985. By the early 1980s the economy had spiraled into serious indebtedness, causing total debt servicing to account for 43.6 percent of total government expenditures in 1985. The crisis appeared likely to continue, as over 65 percent of its debt servicing bill was destined for interest payments alone.
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Expenditures
Total government expenditures in 1985 were estimated to have reached US$823 million or nearly 40 percent of GDP at current prices. If debt servicing was excluded from expenditures, they equaled only 22.5 percent of GDP. Current account expenditures totalled US$591 million or 72 percent of the total; thus, a rather high percentage of the Jamaican budget was dedicated to recurrent expenditures. The capital account in 1985 amounted to US$232 million, or 28 percent of total expenditures. More expansionary and politically oriented budgets in the late 1980s were expected to increase the capital account's share of the budget to over 30 percent.
The government's current and capital accounts were divided into general services, social and community services, economic services, and miscellaneous services. Sixty-one percent of current account expenditures were devoted to general services; two-thirds of that total were interest payments, followed by payments for administrative services, police, defense, justice, and prisons. Social and community services (comprising education, health, social security, housing, and water) represented 29.7 percent of current account expenditures and economic services made up 6.5 percent. The remaining 2.4 percent consisted of miscellaneous services, all of which were grants to local government.
The distribution of capital expenditures changed markedly in the 1980s as compared with previous decades, primarily as a result of the increasingly unmanageable national debt. Fifty percent of all capital expenditures in 1985 fell under general services, of which over 90 percent went to repay the principal of the public debt and other fiscal services. Economic services accounted for 39 percent of capital expenditures. The largest share of economic services was destined for industry and commerce, followed by agriculture, roads, transport and communications, and natural resource development. Eleven percent of capital expenditures were devoted to social and community services, primarily for school facilities, health centers, water systems, and housing. This pattern of expenditure was in sharp contrast to the situation in the 1960s and 1970s, when lower debt repayment had allowed the Jamaican government to emphasize physical infrastructure development.
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Revenues
Total revenue in 1985 was US$583 million. The figure was US$240 million short of the expected expenditure, thus creating a budget deficit equal to 29 percent of the total budget and 11.6 percent of GDP. In 1985, 84 percent of total revenues came from tax revenues, comprising mainly income tax, consumption duties, and stamp duties. In contrast to previous policy, budget deficits were commonly being financed through external financing. In 1985, over 90 percent of the funds to pay for the budget deficit came from external financing, an unusually high percentage. The United States provided 39 percent of external loans, followed by France, Britain, the Netherlands, Japan, and the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). Multilateral lending agencies also financed a significant portion of revenue short-falls.
In the mid-1980s, the Seaga government enacted a comprehensive tax reform package in which it sought to simplify the reporting system, reduce the number of taxpayers, lessen evasion, and lower marginal rates; all of these problems were thought to discourage private sector initiative. The key feature of the revised system, effective January 1, 1986, was complete tax relief for the first US$1,500 of annual income for all taxpayers, which was expected to relieve 150,000 citizens of paying taxes. After the tax-free income level, all were taxed at a flat rate of 33.3 percent; in addition, interest on savings was taxed for the first time. Corporate taxes were also cut to under 33.3 percent during the second phase of the reform program from a typical top rate of 45 percent. The early results of the reform indicated that annual tax revenues would increase as a result of better collection. Other ad hoc taxes proposed to increase government revenues in the mid-1980s frequently caused heated political debate. Most controversial were new taxes for license plates and a proposed annual tax on satellite dishes.
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Labor Force and Industrial Relations
The labor force in 1985 consisted of some 1,042,000 persons, or less than half of all Jamaicans. The level of employment stood at 787,700 or 75 percent of the labor force, allowing for an official unemployment rate of 25 percent. Sixty-one percent of the registered labor force was male. Almost 15 percent of the work force was regarded as part-time, defined as those working fewer than thirty-three hours per week; of that total, 60 percent were women. According to the Statistical Institute of Jamaica, the most numerous category of employed persons fell under the title of "own account workers" or self-employed persons, representing 43.5 percent of the total work force. They were followed by blue-collar workers (25.4 percent), white-collar workers (17.7 percent), and service workers (13.1 percent).
As in other Commonwealth Caribbean nations, unemployment continued to be a pressing economic, social, and political issue. Throughout the first six years of the 1980s, unemployment remained at or above 25 percent despite emigration. Women under twenty-five years of age made up over 65 percent of those without work, whereas men over twenty-five experienced only a 9.7-percent unemployment rate. Whereas in United States unemployment statistics only job seekers are considered as members of the labor force, Commonwealth Caribbean countries include nonseekers as part of the labor force as well. If job seekers only had been included in the 1985 unemployment figures, the unemployment rate would have been 13 percent. Because of the prevalence of underemployment and disguised unemployment, however, many economists feel that the Caribbean method provides the most accurate measurement.
Organized labor has played a central role in both the economic and political development of Jamaica since the earliest days of self-government. By 1985 there were over fifty active trade unions on the island dominated by two large unions, BITU and the NWU (see Historical Setting, this ch.). The BITU, the predecessor of the Jamaican Labour Party, was established in 1938 and consisted of over 100,000 workers in the 1980s. The NWU, closely affiliated with the PNP, was established in 1952 and reached a membership as high as 170,000 in the mid-1970s. In 1985 over 30 percent of the labor force was unionized, with the overwhelming majority in the BITU and NWU.
Throughout the first half of the 1980s, Jamaica averaged roughly 600 industrial disputes a year, including 80 to 90 annual work stoppages. Unlike the labor disputes of the 1970s, which were characterized by greater wage demands in manufacturing and in mining, strikes in the 1980s were most often over public sector lay-offs (the service sector). Work stoppages numbered 83 in 1985, a fairly typical number, causing the loss of 110,457 man days. Labor strikes and disputes also occurred as a result of violations of various labor acts, such as the Minimum Wage Act, the Holiday with Pay Act, and the Act of Women Employment. Industrial disputes were generally administered through the Industrial Disputes Tribunal (IDT) of the Ministry of Labour. IDT decisions were binding with the exception of an appeal to the Supreme Court.
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Industry
Mining
In spite of its relative decline, during the 1980s mining remained the most important sector of the economy in terms of foreign exchange (see fif.___, Mining and Related Activities). Bauxite was by far the most dominant mineral and subsector in the economy. The mining of bauxite had generated over 50 percent of export earnings since the 1960s. Nevertheless, bauxite production was declining and output in 1985 equaled 6 million tons, only half of the 1980 level (see table __, Bauxite and Alumina Production and Exports (1980-1985), Appendix A). As bauxite exports declined and receipts from tourism increased in the 1980s, it seemed possible that tourism might replace bauxite as the greatest foreign-exchange earner.
Although a large foreign-exchange earner, bauxite production represented only 5 percent of GDP in 1985 and employed under 1 percent of the labor force. The very capital-intensive nature of the industry made it a controversial subsector because of the high rates of unemployment on the island. Likewise, the large presence of North American aluminum companies extracting the ore was also a prominent issue.
Bauxite was first produced commercially in Jamaica in 1952 by Reynolds Metals Ltd. In only six years, Jamaica became the largest producer of bauxite in the world. It retained this position until 1971, when it was surpassed by Australia. In the late 1980s, Jamaica ranked third in worldwide production behind Australia and Guinea and accounted for roughly 13 percent of world output of bauxite and 7 percent of alumina. During the first half of the 1980s, Jamaican bauxite production declined drastically as half of the six North American companies ceased production or left the island completely, and world prices for bauxite entered a prolonged depression because of oversupply. The departure of foreign companies encouraged the government to buy into the bauxite industry, and by 1986 the government-run Clarendon Aluminum Plant was the most successful producer on the island.
Jamaica's bauxite reserves are large, exceeding 1.5 billion tons. At the present rate of extraction, reserves could last another 150 years. Jamaica's bauxite is not extremely alumina pure; one ton of Jamaican bauxite contains only about 0.4 tons of alumina. The island's bauxite comparative advantage lies in the easy extraction of the metal ore as a result of its close proximity to the surface.
Although generally beneficial for the economy, Jamaica's bauxite industry must import large amounts of caustic soda and heavy machinery to mine and export the ore, making the industry highly import intensive. Likewise, the mining of the ore has raised environmental concerns over bauxite by-products discharged in highly visible red lakes.
Jamaica also has significant reserves of several other commercially viable minerals, including limestone, gypsum, silica, and marble. Limestone covers about 80 percent of the island, making the total estimated reserves of 50 billion tons virtually inexhaustible. Certain limestone reserves are of very high quality. Nevertheless, limestone production has been rather small and extremely dependent on external market forces. Although 83,000 tons of limestone were exported in 1984, none was exported in 1985, and estimates for 1986 were placed at close to 100,000 tons.
Gypsum, mined in eastern Jamaica since 1949, was the second most important mineral in the 1980s. Reserves of at least 80 percent purity amounted to over 4 million tons out of total reserves exceeding 40 million tons. Some gypsum was used in the local manufacturing of tiles and cement, but over 90 percent of the mineral and its derivative, anhydride, were exported unprocessed to the United States and Latin America. Jamaica normally produced roughly 180,000 tons of gypsum a year.
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Manufacturing
For a small developing country, Jamaica had quite diversified manufacturing. Sugar, condensed milk, rum, edible oils, cloth carpet, cigarettes, and shoes were some of the more basic manufactured goods. Production also included heavier industrial goods, such as sulfuric acid, detergents, fertilizers, gasoline, petroleum, batteries, and steel. The sector accounted for 15.7 percent of GDP in 1985 and employed 127,000 workers, or 12 percent of the labor force.
During the 1980s, the manufacturing sector underwent its first major changes since independence, reflecting the government's structural adjustment policies, which emphasized labor-intensive, export-oriented light manufacturing. As a result, a growing percentage of manufactured goods, particularly nontraditional items, were produced solely for export. Apparel and sewn products, mineral fuels, and miscellaneous manufactured goods experienced the fastest growth rate.
The manufacturing sector was historically linked to agricultural processing until World War II, when general shortages encouraged import substitution industrialization (see Glossary) in such areas as clothing and footwear. From 1950 to 1968, the sector's growth outpaced all other sectors of the economy, expanding 7.6 percent annually, including over 10 percent growth in the last five years of this period. The growth of domestic industries also relied on generous government import protection in the form of quantitative restrictions beginning in the 1960s and an overvalued exchange rate starting in the 1970s. Chemicals, cement, furniture, and metal products were the most important subsectors to emerge as a result of the import substitution policies.
Two general types of manufacturing firms operated in Jamaica after World War II. The first type was generally foreign owned, capital intensive, and export oriented, usually operating under the Export Industries Law. Some of these firms, however, were labor intensive and commonly called "screwdriver" industries because only a small percentage of the value added was performed in Jamaica. The second type of firm was typically locally owned, generously protected, and domestically oriented. Many of these manufacturers were quite inefficient but did serve to integrate certain subsectors of the national economy.
In an attempt to reduce previous price distortions, the manufacturing sector undertook structural adjustment reforms from 1982 to 1985. The adjustment measures included numerous currency devaluations, unification of the two-tier exchange rate, relaxation of import licensing, reductions in quantitative restrictions, encouragement of foreign investment, and export promotion to thirdcountry or hard-currency markets. During the structural adjustment process, many less efficient producers reduced output or closed altogether. Factory closings were particularly common in 1982. Declines in investment and output were most frequent in the metal, chemical, and domestic apparel subsectors. In 1985 traditional manufacturing's output was 30 percent less than 1984 levels. At the same time, however, investment in new export-oriented industries increased quickly, helping to keep the sector afloat.
As noted previously, the Seaga government defined seven "priority subsectors" in the early 1980s, emphasizing them in terms of investment, factory space, and financing. Of all the priority subsectors, only garments and agro-industrial products had achieved any real success by 1987. In 1985 garment and processed food exports increased 15 percent and 11 percent, respectively, over 1984 levels. Garment factories in particular skyrocketed, totalling 148 companies by 1986, with fifty-six new 807 type firms established from 1981 to 1986. Although roughly 50 percent of these new firms were small and employed fewer than 50 people, 6 companies had over 500 workers. The great majority of production in these priority areas was destined for third-country markets, primarily the United States. Third-country markets' share of exports rose from 47 percent to 74 percent between 1983 and 1985. Simultaneously, manufactured exports to Caricom decreased by 50 percent.
Regarded as the engine of growth under the structural adjustment policies, manufacturing received renewed government attention in the 1980s. Several government-sponsored agencies or activities were introduced or reorganized to provide technical assistance, financing, export promotion, and marketing assistance. New efforts to improve technical assistance to exporting manufacturers were offered by both the JNIP and the Jamaican Industrial Development Corporation (JIDC). In 1985 the Technical Assistance Fund for Exporters was created to provide further aid in new product development. Institutional support for financing exports was available from the National Development Bank, the Trafalgar Development Bank, the Export Development Fund, and the Jamaican Export-Import Bank, all newly organized or reorganized. Export promotion and marketing assistance were provided by the Jamaica National Export Corporation and the JNIP.
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Construction
In the early 1980s, the construction industry had yet to recover from the short- and long-term decline experienced during the 1970s. Construction had increased during the initial expansion of the bauxite and tourist industries, because both required a great deal of physical infrastructure. Construction stagnated in the 1970s, however, because of aggregate declines in investment, downturns in tourism, and the peak in bauxite mining. By the 1980s, the most common construction activities were new factory space, tourist hotels, and residential housing.
Construction recovered in 1982 and 1983, but real production declined in 1984 and 1985 by 5 percent and 14 percent, respectively. Construction's share of GDP dropped from 6.1 percent in 1982 to 5.4 percent in 1985. Total output in 1985 equaled US$171 million, with virtually all activity dedicated to the local market. Only 745 housing starts and 1,867 completions were registered in 1985, down sharply from 1984 levels of 3,114 starts and 3,132 completions. Private-sector construction operations decreased by over 50 percent in 1985 alone. A 29-percent increase in the Ministry of Construction expenditures helped to stabilize the sector's downfall; the JIDC's national factory building program was important in this regard.
Many of the materials used in the construction industry were produced locally, although imports of iron, steel, and wood remained significant. Cement production reached 240,000 tons in the mid-1980s. All cement was produced at the Caribbean Cement (I.C.) plant in Kingston, of which government shares were sold to a Norwegian company in 1987. Steel, produced by the Caribbean Steel Company and BRC Ltd., stood at 18,300 tons by mid-decade. The Jamaica Mortgage Bank and the National Housing Trust were the key financial institutions in the construction sector.
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Energy
Jamaica has no known oil reserves; as a consequence, the island was about 90 percent dependent on imported oil for energy generation in the late 1980s. Most of Jamaica's oil imports came from Mexico, Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Netherlands Antilles. Over 30 percent of imported petroleum imports were destined for the oil-intensive alumina subsector. Oil resources and imports were managed by the state-owned Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ). In 1985 the PCJ accounted for 73 percent of the imported petroleum, with private bauxite companies directly importing the other 27 percent. Total oil consumption averaged nearly 13 million barrels a year in the 1980s.
The island's only oil refinery, located in Kingston, had a refining capacity of 36,000 barrels per day. Formerly owned by Exxon, the refinery was purchased by the government of Jamaica in 1982 for US$55 million. Subsequent to the refinery's sale to the government, PetroJam, a subsidiary of the PCJ, managed the plant's operations. The Kingston refinery was considered strategically important to Jamaica because of the country's great dependence on foreign oil and the high oil intensivity of the economy. For example, the per capita energy consumption of Jamaica in the early 1980s exceeded that of Brazil or the Republic of Korea (South Korea), mostly as a result of the bauxite industry.
Ethanol, an octane enhancer, was produced for export for the first time in 1985. The first ethanol plant was established in the early 1980s by Tropicana, a subsidiary of a California-based firm. Representing an investment of about US$23 million, the plant was easily the largest investment that had entered Jamaica or the Caribbean under the CBI by 1987. Even though the plant had not completed a full year of production in 1985, output still reached approximately 75 million liters of anhydrous ethanol. The ethanol was exported solely to the United States market. In addition, in 1987 the Jamaican government arranged with Belize to process ethanol from sugarcane there.
Demand for electricity grew with the country's aggregate growth. In the mid-1980s, roughly 90 percent of all energy generated was oil based. Hydroelectric power and bagasse (sugarcane residue) fuels made up most of the balance of energy generation. Government energy policy in the 1970s focused on increasing rural access to electricity. Before 1975 only about 10 percent of rural areas had electricity. In 1975 the government of Jamaica, in conjunction with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), launched the Rural Electrification Program, which improved rural access to electricity. By 1987 general access to electricity was greater than in most developing countries, about 54 percent, with access in urban areas reaching close to 100 percent.
Power outages were very common until the mid-1980s, when the sector was upgraded and expanded as part of physical infrastructure improvements in the new industrial strategy. The island's installed capacity increased from 680 megawatts in 1980 to over 700 megawatts by 1983. Government electric policy, implemented by the Ministry of Public Utilities and Transport, focused on efficiency, conservation, and alternative energy sources in the 1980s. Work on developing alternative energy sources focused on hydropower, peat, coal, bagasse, and others.
In 1983 approximately 70 percent of total electricity was generated by the government-owned Jamaica Public Service Company whereas the remaining 30 percent was produced by private industry in alumina, sugar, and cement factories. Electricity was produced primarily by steam plants (83 percent), although hydroelectric systems (11 percent) and gas/diesel plants (6 percent) were increasingly being used. At least 60 percent of electricity was consumed in the major urban areas of Kingston and Montego Bay. Total commercial energy consumption was equivalent to 11.2 million barrels of oil in 1985. The electrical transmission system included 864 kilometers of 138-kilovolts and 69-kilovolt lines in addition to some 8,000 kilometers of primary distribution lines at a voltage of 24 kilovolts and below. Oil prices and electricity rates became political issues in the 1980s, as oil prices remained above market prices and electricity rates increased very sharply.
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Services
Tourism
Tourism was one of the brightest spots of the economy in the 1980s as, depending on bauxite output in a given year, it became the first or second leading foreign exchange earner. Net earnings from tourism nearly doubled in the first six years of the decade, reaching US$437 million in 1986. Tourist arrivals increased 53 percent over the five-year period from 1981 to 1985. Hotel occupancy rates rose from 41.5 percent in 1981 to the 70-percent range in 1986 and early 1987.
Jamaica's appeal to tourists came from its scenic beauty, warm climate, and white sand beaches, as well as the warmth of its people. The island's proximity to the large North American tourist market was another advantage. An expensive government advertisement campaign, beckoning American tourists to "come back to Jamaica," as well as more cruise ship stopovers spurred tourist development in the early 1980s. Jamaica ranked second only to the Bahamas as the preferred vacation location for American tourists in the Caribbean. Direct employment in tourist hotels increased from 9,527 in 1980 to 13,619 in 1985. Although this employment represented only a small percentage of the total work force, the industry indirectly created numerous service jobs in restaurants, transport, entertainment, and crafts.
Tourism began in Jamaica in the 1890s, when the United Fruit Company, seeking to use the excess capacity of its ships, encouraged cruises to Jamaica, and tourist hotels were constructed on the island. Tourism, however, did not flourish until after World War II, when accelerated depreciation allowances for investment in that sector helped to triple the number of hotels from 1945 to 1970. Further hotel incentive legislation in 1968 continued to transform the industry, eventually strengthening the role of larger hotels. After a twenty-year period of growth, tourism slumped in the mid-1970s for a variety of reasons, ranging from radical domestic policies to negative press coverage abroad. In the 1980s, the tourist market was recaptured, and it expanded more quickly than the rest of the economy. American tourists were believed to be traveling more often to the Caribbean as a result of growing terrorism in Europe. In addition, Jamaica became particularly attractive as numerous devaluations of the Jamaican dollar made United States dollars more valuable. The number of European tourists was also expected to increase in the 1980s, following the decline in value of the United States dollar, to which the Jamaican currency was pegged.
Jamaica recorded 846,716 visitor arrivals in 1985. Stop-over visitors numbered 571,713 and cruise ship passengers totalled 261,508. Some 13,495 servicemen also visited the island, many of whom were United States soldiers from the naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Ninety percent of all tourists in Jamaica originated in North America, with about 75 percent coming from the United States. Europeans and Latin Americans made up the remaining 10 percent. Canadians and Europeans tended to stay longer than Americans, whose average stay was roughly one week. Although Jamaican citizens received discounted hotel rates, costs remained too high for most Jamaicans.
Jamaican tourism was quite diversified, ranging from camping in the Blue Mountains, to small beach houses in Negril, to large tourist hotels in Montego Bay and Ocho Rios. The country's room capacity exceeded 11,000 rooms, served by over 700 hotels and various other guest houses. Most large hotels were foreign owned, whereas the majority of smaller hotels were locally owned. In the 1980s, the government divested numerous hotels that were purchased by the government in the 1970s.
Since 1956 the tourist industry has been regulated by the Jamaican Tourist Board (JTB) which greeted tourists, provided courtesy police, trained workers, set standards, and promoted Jamaican tourism both at home and abroad. One of the largest problems that the JTB faced in the 1980s was the continued harassment of tourists. Most harassment stemmed from frequent peddling of goods to tourists, at times incessantly; this peddling most likely reflected the high unemployment rates. Tourists were also approached to purchase drugs, primarily marijuana, colloquially called "ganja."
Another issue for the JTB and tourist industry in the 1980s was whether to allow casino gambling, which would probably attract tourists. Largely as a result of strong church lobbying, casino gambling legislation had never been enacted, and it remained doubtful that it ever would be.
Although most Jamaicans were favorable toward tourism, certain sectors of society frowned on it for its perceived negative moral influences. Others doubted its contributions to the economy, given both the large percentage of imported goods used in the industry and the prominent role of foreigners.
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Banking, Financial Services, and Currency
In the 1980s, Jamaica had a well-established financial system that was expanding. Since 1962, the number of financial institutions had more than doubled to over forty, including the country's central bank, development finance banks, commercial banks, trust companies, merchant banks, building societies, insurance companies, peoples cooperative banks, finance houses, and credit unions. The government's economic policies in the 1980s favored greater use of monetary factors to influence the economy and tighter credit policies than previously used so as to restrain inflation.
The Bank of Jamaica was established in 1960 as the country's central bank. It was formed to replace the Currency Board, whose lack of authority to control the money supply had prevented the use of monetary policies. The bank issued currency, regulated the banking system, set minimum reserve ratios, adjusted liquid reserve ratios, established discount rates, and generally controlled credit. As part of the government's economic policies in the 1980s, the bank pursued a restrictive credit policy to lower aggregate demand in the economy. The tight credit policy was accomplished through higher reserve and liquidity ratios, which in 1985 required commercial banks to retain 50 percent of their assets in a liquid form. Likewise, the prime lending rate was maintained at high levels, reaching 23 percent in December 1985, or more than 10 percentage points higher than the prime rate in the United States. Another monetary policy of the bank was the devaluation of the Jamaican dollar to adjust the real rate of exchange to more realistic levels. The bank devalued the Jamaican dollar numerous times in the 1980s, lowering the exchange rate several times over its value in the 1970s. These policies were designed to help reduce the balance-of-payments deficit by making exports more competitive.
As a result of the historical reluctance of many commercial banks to make medium- to long-term loans, several government banks were created to finance economic development. The most important such government-sponsored bank was the National Development Bank of Jamaica. Other government banks supplying credit to specific sectors of the economy included the Jamaica Mortgage Bank, the Agriculture Credit Bank, the Jamaican Industrial Development Corporation, the Small Business Loan Board, and the Workers Savings and Loan Bank. These banks generally offered favorable interest rates and some technical assistance where appropriate.
There were eight commercial banks in Jamaica in 1985, all of which were originally or remained foreign owned. The British Barclay's Bank was the first commercial bank on the island, established in 1836 to finance the sugar industry. It was followed by three large Canadian Banks, which eventually came under local ownership and were renamed the Bank of Nova Scotia Jamaica, the Royal Bank of Jamaica, and the Bank of Commerce Jamaica. In the 1960s, American banks such as Citibank and Chase Manhattan Bank also entered the island. Barclay's Bank, later named the National Commercial Bank, was bought by the government in the 1970s; the government returned the bank to private hands in 1987, however. In 1985, 63 percent of all private-sector assets in major financial institutions were found in the commercial banks. Throughout the 1980s, commercial banks made three to four times more loans to the private sector than to the public sector. Loans were distributed approximately as follows: 25 percent to manufacturing, 20 percent to construction and land development, 16 percent to agriculture, 12 percent to transport, storage, and communications, and the balance to various other sectors.
Life insurance companies, building societies, trust companies, and merchant banks were other prominent financial institutions in Jamaica. Their share of private-sector assets ranked 19 percent, 7.4 percent, 7 percent, and 4 percent, respectively. In 1985 there were over twenty insurance companies in Jamaica, most of which held assets in large foreign firms. Insurance companies played an important role in building savings for investment in the economy. Building societies, all locally owned, were less numerous than insurance companies and generally attracted smaller savings to finance mortgages. Trust companies lent to commercial banks, provided trustee services, and held time deposits. Merchant banks functioned to underwrite securities, finance external trade, and offer managerial advice to industry. Several new merchant banks were established in the 1980s, including the Falcon Fund and the Export-Import Bank.
The Jamaican Stock Exchange, the oldest in the Caribbean, was established in 1969 under the direction of the Bank of Jamaica. Only a small percentage of the country's capital assets were traded on the original exchange, as most companies were either foreignowned or purely family-run businesses. The number of shares traded grew rapidly in the mid-1980s; these included the shares of some new publicly owned companies. As of early 1987, only thirty-nine companies were listed on the exchange. The exchange's performance in 1985 quadrupled the performance of 1984. In 1985, 37.6 million shares were traded for US$21.3 million compared with 9.7 million shares for US$7 million in the preceding year. From 1981 to 1986, the exchange's composite index increased 129 percent, standing at 1,499.87 by the end of 1986. A major cause of the rise was the increasing number of companies that issued public equity shares, rather than relying on commercial banks, to raise capital.
The Jamaican dollar became legal tender when it superseded the Jamaican pound in 1969. Because of tourism, United States, Canadian, and British currencies also circulated, and illegal black markets were common. Many of the tourist hotels listed prices only in United States dollars because of the greater stability of that currency. Eastern Caribbean dollars (EC$ (the joint currency used by members of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OELS-- see Glossary) and pegged to the United States dollar at ES$270 equals US$1.00) were also visible. The value of the Jamaican dollar was tied to the British pound sterling until 1973, when it became pegged to the United States dollar. In the process, the Jamaican dollar moved from being the strongest currency in the Commonwealth Caribbean to being one of the weakest. After experiments with various types of exchange rates in the 1970s, exchange rates were unified in November 1983. Beginning in 1984, foreign exchange was allocated through a twice weekly foreign exchange auction system.
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Transportation and Communications
Jamaica's physical infrastructure developed primarily in response to the demands of the sugar and bauxite industries. The country's geography, especially its mountainous terrain, directly affected both the development of a transport network and integration of the economy. Because of the central corridor of mountains, the island's roads were generally divided between north and south, winding along the various ports on the island's coast. As late as the 1880s, it was still cheaper to send goods within Jamaica by sea rather than by land because of the mountains. Eventually, north-south roads were constructed, passing through the scenic heights of the rising interior. Although north-south roads improved island-wide transportation considerably, even in the 1980s a 198-kilometer drive from Montego Bay to Kingston required about 4 hours, compared with an air passage of only 20 minutes.
Jamaica contained over 12,360 kilometers of roads in the mid1980s ; of that total, nearly 40 percent were paved. Roads were originally built on the paths of least resistance, along the coastlines, rivers, and mountains. As such, winding, narrow, and mountainous roadways were common. Road maintenance presented a nagging political and economic problem, as the tropical sun and seasonal rains quickly deteriorated roads, making potholes common.
In 1985 there were over 70,400 certified vehicles on the road, of which 60 percent were cars, 33 percent trucks or buses, and 7 percent motorcycles. Many vehicles, especially in rural areas, operated unlicensed. Taxis, numerous in most major towns, were cheap and generally offered unmetered rates, frequently negotiated by the driver and passenger.
Bus service was most extensive in Kingston, where in 1985 the buses carried more than 247 million passengers. Bus service was divested from government ownership to ten franchises in Kingston during the 1980s; this move was widely perceived to have greatly improved efficiency.
Nevertheless, private bus companies were criticized for pirating routes, not completing less popular routes, disregarding passenger comfort by overcrowding, and showing reluctance to transport lower fare passengers such as children and the handicapped. Almost all rural buses and many urban buses were mini-buses or mini-vans. In rural areas passengers on mini-buses entered and exited anywhere along a given route. Buses were typically overcrowded and in need of some repair. In addition, private charter buses were operated for the tourist industry.
Jamaica has the oldest colonial railroad in the world. Established in 1843 by the Jamaican Railway Company, the rail system was subsequently expanded, improved, and eventually sold to the government. The rail system covered 340 kilometers of tracks by the 1980s. The principal route was from Montego Bay to Kingston passing through the heart of rural Jamaica. In the 1950s and 1960s, bauxite companies built small, unconnected rail lines to their major ports at Discovery Bay, Ocho Rios, Port Antonio, Rocky Point, and Port Kaiser. The rail system was run by the government-owned Jamaica Railway Corporation, which generally operated at a loss in the 1980s.
Extensive airfields existed for such a small country. These included two international airports--the Norman W. Manley International Airport at Kingston and the Donald Sangster Airport at Montego Bay--and scores of small airfields, both publicly and privately owned. Some small airfields were paved with asphalt or concrete, but most were grass airstrips. In the 1980s, the government was constantly closing clandestine airstrips used in marijuana trafficking, although these were frequently reopened illegally.
Jamaica's vibrant tourist industry accounted for most of the 2.38-million passenger movements recorded in 1985, ranking it seventh in the world in air traffic with the United States. Thirtyfive thousand aircraft movements were recorded at the Norman W. Manley International Airport compared with 24,300 at Donald Sangster Airport; the latter, however, received more passengers. Trans Jamaica Airlines Ltd. and various other private carriers serviced intra-island flights. The government-owned airline, Air Jamaica, was well established and profitable and operated a fleet of Boeing 727 jets servicing ten international routes. Major Caribbean, European, and American airlines made stops in Jamaica.
Numerous ports were found around the island; Kingston, the central shipping facility, possessed one of the ten largest natural harbors in the world. The port of Kingston covered over sixteen kilometers of usable waterfront, comprising eleven commercial wharves, deep-water loading facilities, a container terminal, and other modern infrastructure. Virtually all the country's imports entered through Kingston; less than 10 percent of exports left from the port, however. Exports were often shipped from first-class ports such as Falmouth, Port Antonio, Port Morant, Portland Bight, and Savanna-la-Mar as well as second-class ports in Ocho Rios, Montego Bay, Discovery Bay, St. Ann's Bay, Black River, and others. Some ports concentrated on only one or two exports, depending on the region. Over 2,100 ships and vessels made port calls to Jamaica during 1985, representing scores of shipping lines. Jamaica was also affiliated with the regional organization, the West Indies Shipping Corporation (Wisco--see Appendix C). Only two inland rivers, the Rio Grande and Black River, were deep and long enough to be viable transport routes. A major goal of sea transport in the 1980s was port facility upgrading to accommodate growing cruise ship arrivals.
The government-owned Jamaica Telephone Company operated a fully automatic telephone network that included over 143,000 phones in 1985. Sixty-three percent of all phones were located in businesses, and 37 percent in residences. Phone failures were common and in 1985 over 60,000 consumers were awaiting phone service. Submarine cables to the United States, Panama, and the Cayman Islands provided direct service with those countries or territories. An International Telecommunications Satettile Corporation (INTELSAT) Standard A earth station provided international telephone services, controlled by the government-owned Jamintel. Jamintel, formerly owned by Cable and Wireless, also provided telegraph, telex, and other major telecommunications services. Over 300 telegraph offices were located island-wide. Mail service was available from over 300 post offices, nearly 500 postal agencies, and several subagencies. Mail service was slow, and former "Royal Mail" trucks were still in operation.
Jamaica's mass media included one television station, two major radio stations, and two daily newspapers. Television was operated by the government-run Jamaica Broadcast Corporation (JBC), whose programming was often the source of derisive newspaper editorials. The government announced in 1987 that it would privatize the public media, and many Jamaicans were in favor of a nongovernmental television station. Because of the poor television service, wealthier Jamaicans bought satellite dishes. Both major radio stations, the JBC and Radio Jamaica (RJR), received government financing. Most listeners tuned into RJR on the AM dial, aired twenty-four-hours a day via four regional transmitters. Other small radio stations were also in operation during the 1980s. Radio programs were frequently educational and developmental. Some 750,000 radios were in use island-wide during the 1980s.
The major daily newspaper circulated in Jamaica was the Daily Gleaner, an independent newspaper founded by Jewish immigrants in 1834. The Daily Gleaner's daily circulation was 45,000 and 95,000 on Sundays. Although formally independent, the Daily Gleaner was generally perceived as conservative and pro-JLP. The other newspaper was the afternoon tabloid, the Star.
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Agriculture
The decline in agriculture's share of both GDP and the labor force continued in the 1980s. From 1980 to 1985, agriculture as a share of GDP dropped from 8.3 percent to 5.7 percent. Likewise, the percentage of the labor force in agriculture decreased from over 30 percent in the 1970s to 24 percent by 1985. Agriculture's inability to keep pace with other sectors of the economy or population growth forced an increase in food imports. As a result of these trends, Jamaica's total food import bill increased elevenfold from 1960 to 1980. These patterns were likely to persist because fewer younger people were entering farming. For example, in 1985 an estimated 50 percent of the agricultural labor force was over fifty years of age and 30 percent over sixty years. In the 1980s, government policies sought to revive declining production of traditional export crops and to introduce and promote nontraditional export crops through the commercialization and modernization of the sector.
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Land Tenure and Use
Jamaica's total land area covers over 1 million hectares, 25 percent of which were under cultivation in the 1980s. In 1985, about 145,000 hectares, mostly in the coastal plains, were determined to be highly fertile, and 350,000 hectares were suitable for cultivation with various limitations. Some 160,000 hectares of agricultural land remained idle or underutilized. Twenty-four percent of total land, some 265,000 hectares, was covered with natural forest of commercial value. By mid-decade Jamaica had roughly 155,000 farms,down considerably from the 1978-79 agriculture census total of 179,700. Most farms were small; over 90 percent of all farms had four hectares or less. Farms having more than 20 hectares contained 43 percent of total cultivated land, however. According to the agriculture census of 1978-79, the average farm measured 3 hectares, and the island's largest farms, those 200 hectares and over, averaged 784 hectares. Sugarcane still covered over 25 percent of all agricultural land in use, followed by bananas, root crops, coconuts, citrus, and pimento.
Historically, land tenure in Jamaica has been rather inequitable. Most concentration of land in the postwar period resulted from urban migration and the purchases of very large tracts of land by incoming bauxite companies. The most important land reform programs in the postwar period were the 1966 Land Development and Utilization Act (also known as the Idle Land Law) and Project Land Lease introduced in 1973. The 1966 act allowed the government to encourage either the productive use, sale, or lease of some 40,000 hectares identified for the program. Project Land Lease attempted a more integrated rural development approach, providing small farmers with land, technical advice, inputs such as fertilizer, and access to credit. The plan helped more than 23,000 farmers cultivate 18,000 hectares. It is estimated that 14 percent of idle land was redistributed through Project Land Lease. Redistribution was still perceived by some as slow, inadequate, and containing marginally arable land, however; still others saw it as highly uneconomical and partisan in political terms. In the 1970s, unrealistically high expectations over land reform, as well as economic frustration, caused some sporadic land seizures and squatting, which found little government support. Redistribution of land in the 1970s emphasized cooperative ownership, a decision that sharply increased the number of cooperatives on the island and made members an important political force.
Government policies toward land tenure and land use shifted in the 1980s in favor of privatization, commercialization, and modernization of agriculture. Sugar cooperatives were dismantled, some government holdings were divested, and foreign investment was sought to update farming methods and help develop new product lines, or "nontraditional exports." Agro-21, established in 1983 to spearhead the new agriculture policies, held the ambitious objective of putting 80,000 hectares of idle land into the hands of the private sector in four years. The program relied heavily on international consultants and foreign investment; for example, the most prominent Agro-21 project, the Spring Plains farm, utilized Israeli technology. Although success was mixed, the program was responsible for growth in the production and export of nontraditional crops, such as winter vegetables, flowers, and Jamaican ethnic crops.
Traditional farming methods, including slash-and-burn methods, still dominated on most small farms. The mountainous island suffered from serious erosion problems, the result of farming on overly steep hillsides in the interior. Such farming has caused long-term damage to the country's topsoil, lowering soil productivity up to one-third according to some estimates. Most small farmers tended to grow a diversity of crops along with one main crop. Few peasants were solely subsistence farmers as the great majority traded a part of their produce and participated in the exchange economy.
In the 1980s, the use of such agricultural inputs as machinery, fertilizers, irrigated water, and technical assistance was slowly growing. Most small farmers still used handtools, especially the machete instead of more expensive power tools. A large percentage of the machinery was found on medium-to-large farms, but farms of up to two hectares used a surprisingly large amount of machinery for the size of the plot. According to data from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the number of tractors in use on the island increased by 5.6 percent from 1971 to 1980, averaging eleven in use per 1,000 hectares of arable land in 1983; despite the improvement, this ratio was relatively low.
Fertilizers, pesticides, and irrigated water were likewise used in moderate amounts. Chemical fertilizers were not widely used, and animal manure and mulch were more common among small farmers. The use of chemical fertilizers declined by 4.8 percent in the 1970s after an increase of some 7.2 percent in the 1960s. Declining use of fertilizers continued in the 1980s. Fertilizer use was most prevalent for large export crops such as sugarcane, bananas, and citrus. Pesticides were even less common than fertilizers and were utilized mostly for sugarcane. Irrigated water covered 12 percent of arable land in 1983, up from an 8-percent level in 1965.
Most agricultural research occurred within the Ministry of Agriculture, but various farmer associations, such as the Coffee Industry Board or the Coconut Industry Board, provided research, as did the UWI at Mona. The Saturday edition of the Daily Gleaner provided farmers with valuable information on planting, harvesting, and new techniques. Agricultural extension workers were also active in Jamaica, including Ministry of Agriculture officials, crop associations, and agents of both local and foreign development organizations. The most important national farmer's organization was the Jamaican Agricultural Society, to which most farmers belonged.
Access to credit had increased since the integrated rural development plans of Project Land Lease in the 1970s, and augmenting credit to farmers continued to be an important government policy in the 1980s. The most customary sources of credit included the People's Cooperative Banks, commercial banks, Agriculture Credit Board, Agriculture Credit Bank, and Jamaican Agricultural Development Foundation. High interest rates in Jamaica throughout the 1980s prevented most small farmers from obtaining commercial bank loans. Nonetheless, the growth of private commercialized farming doubled the number of outstanding agricultural loans from commercial banks between 1980 and 1985. Multilateral and bilateral development agencies supported a number of projects in 1987 designed to improve export crops, rural parish markets, fumigation and certification, and overseas marketing.
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Crops
Jamaica's monoculture sugar economy became diversified after emancipation, when former slaves planted a wide variety of food and some cash crops. Agricultural produce was quite varied in the 1980s, and included export crops, domestic crops, mixed crops, and nontraditional export crops; the latter comprised both new crops and those traditionally grown but not previously exported.
Sugar has been the dominant crop in Jamaica for centuries with the exception of the fifty-year period from 1890 to 1940. Even in the late 1980s, sugarcane fields covered over 25 percent of the total area under crops and employed about 18 percent of the total work force, although that demand was seasonal. Sugar production (including rum) accounted for nearly 50 percent of agricultural export earnings in the early 1980s. Nevertheless, sugar production declined sharply from 1965, when 60,000 hectares of cane fields produced 515,000 tons, to 1984, when 40,000 hectares produced only 193,000 tons. Many factors contributed to the decline of sugar, such as world price declines, falling yields, declining quality, labor unrest, and factory inefficiency. Farms over 200 hectares held the overwhelming share of the land under cane, usually on the fertile coastal plains. Jamaica's history as a slave-based, sugar plantation society marked sugarcane, and cane cutting in particular, with a strong social stigma.
Jamaica enjoyed two preferential markets for its sugar in the mid-1980s in the European Economic Community (EEC) through the Lomé Convention (see Glossary) and in the United States market via the United States sugar quota. In the 1980s, Jamaica was allocated 1.1 percent of the sugar imported into the United States from the world market. Although the United States sugar quota for Jamaican sugar dropped rapidly from 1984 to 1986 from 30,000 tons to 17,000 tons, Jamaica's own dwindling production prevented it from meeting the quota level in 1984. In 1985 the island actually imported several thousand tons of refined sugar for the domestic market. Meanwhile, the EEC remained a stable market.
Bananas were the only crop in Jamaica to have surpassed sugar in export revenues. After the peak years of the early twentieth century, however, banana production and exports were cyclical and generally in decline. During the 1970s, production decreased rapidly from 136,000 tons in 1970 to 33,000 tons in 1980. Although major efforts were made by the government and farmers, the production decline continued in the 1980s with 1984's figures totalling only 11,100 tons, one of the worst of the century. Several factors accounted for ebbing production, including slow technological advance, diseases, shortage of inputs, natural disaster, and transportation bottlenecks. In contrast to sugar, bananas were typically produced by small farmers. Most farms that grew bananas grew other crops as well. Banana exports were destined for Britain, where Jamaica had preferential access for up to 150,000 tons of its bananas against non-Commonwealth nations.
Citrus products, which included oranges, sweet oranges, tangerines, grapefruits, and various hybrids, were usually grown on small farms. The large interior town of Mandeville was the hub of the industry. Citrus output was stable in the first half of the 1980s and reached 754,000 boxes in 1985. Citrus fruits enjoyed a large domestic market for direct consumption and processing. Many farmers picked their own produce to sell directly to consumers. Government policies in the 1980s sought to expand larger-scale production and emphasized fruit processing for juices, concentrates, preserves, or canned fruit.
Coffee, cultivated since the early 1720s, remained an important export crop for small and large farmers in the 1980s. All coffee growing was regulated by a central organization, the Coffee Industry Board. Two varieties of coffee grew in Jamaica. Lowland coffee was generally grown on small farms and accounted for about 80 percent of output in the early 1980s. Blue Mountain coffee represented 20 percent of output but was steadily gaining a larger share of production. The number of hectares with Blue Mountain coffee doubled in the first 5 years of the 1980s to over 2,000 hectares, but Lowland's cultivation remained constant. New coffee farms were generally medium-to-large in size. Jamaican coffee enjoyed exceptional prices relative to world prices. Lowland coffee averaged a price two to three times the world price, whereas the highly aromatic Blue Mountain coffee received four to five times the world price. Some 1,000 tons of coffee were exported in 1984. Almost all of Jamaica's Blue Mountain coffee was sold to the Japanese, who were willing to pay top prices.
Jamaica produced a number of other traditional export crops such as cocoa (derived from the cacao plant), tobacco, coconuts, pimento, and ginger. Jamaican cacao plants were relatively diseaseand pest-free. Most cacao was cultivated on small farms on hillsides as a mixed crop. Although world cocoa prices were cyclical, Jamaica tended to receive a premium price for its cocoa. Some 51 tobacco farms produced 269,000 kilograms of tobacco in 1985 for both the domestic and export market. The tobacco industry was undergoing a process of deregulation. Coconuts were recovering from a lethal yellowing disease that killed 88 percent of the Jamaican variety. New varieties were being grown to continue to produce coconut derivatives such as soaps and oils from copra. Pimento, from which allspice is derived, remained stable and was also deregulated. The island's ginger was of high quality and found easy market access abroad, as well as being sold locally for use in nonalcoholic ginger beer, chocolate, and national dishes.
Numerous domestic crops, both fruits and vegetables, were also grown. Tubers, the most important staple crop, included yams, sweet potatoes, cassava, and dasheens. Popular vegetables included calaloo (a type of greens), sweet and hot peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, and pumpkin. Abundant fruits such as plantains, avocados, mangoes, pineapples, soursop, breadfruit akee and melons were also grown. Legumes were also common, especially gungo peas, red peas (Jamaicans call beans peas), and peanuts. Jamaica was relatively self-sufficient in vegetable production.
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Livestock, Fishing, and Forestry
Livestock were healthy, diversified, and relatively numerous in the late 1980s. Self-sufficiency was close to 100 percent for pork, 80 percent for beef, and 60 percent for poultry. Agro-21's Master Plan of 1983 called for beef self-sufficiency to be reached nationwide, a goal generally perceived as feasible. Nevertheless, livestock production declined in the mid-1980s, largely as a result of increased feed costs brought on by numerous devaluations of the Jamaican dollar. Virtually all of the poultry produced were chickens, of which there were nearly 6 million on the island. Most chicken farms were small, but a few large producers were influential. Poultry production was dependent on price changes relative to the price of other meats. An increase in the price of chicken in the late 1980s forecast lowered output. Besides chicken, the most common farm animals in Jamaica were goats, totalling more than 295,000, raised for both their milk and meat. Pigs were common on small farms. Swine disease rates were low compared with other Caribbean islands.
Two large dairy farms, Alcan (the bauxite company) and Serge Island, produced 80 percent of domestic milk, although 60 percent of dairy cattle were owned by small farmers. During 1984, two formerly government-owned dairies, Cornwall and Montepelier, were closed as part of the government's divestment policies; the closings further hindered output. As a result of climate and resources, Jamaicans also consumed a large quantity of imported powdered milk. In 1985 the country remained dependent on imported dairy products to meet 84 percent of local demand.
Other livestock included mules, donkeys, and horses, all of which were used primarily for transport. The agricultural census also reported nearly 7,000 sheep and almost 24,000 rabbits. An increasingly popular activity was bee farming for the commercial production of honey.
One of the most important obstacles that faced the government in the 1980s was the high price of imported feeds. To overcome this problem, agricultural policies stressed import substitution, such as increased corn production and experimentation with nontraditional feeds, including sugarcane tops, fish waste, and other agricultural by-products.
Fish was consumed in large quantities in Jamaica, exceeding domestic production. Dried saltfish, historically imported from Canada in exchange for Jamaican rum, still entered the country, but supply was irregular by the late 1980s. The island also imported more than 50,000 kilos of shrimp, codfish, sardines, mackerel, and herring in 1985. Fish production dropped markedly from 18,500 tons in 1980 to 6,000 tons in 1984 as a result of the high cost of equipment, but production rebounded in 1985, reaching 9,550 tons. From 1983 to 1985, pond area grew by 55 percent in an attempt to increase fresh water production for local markets and shrimp production for the export market. Improved marketing, which would require a switch of preference in consumer taste from salt water fish to fresh water fish, remained an obstacle to the success of inland fish farming. Fish ponds were one of several priority subsectors of the Agro-21 plan.
Natural forests, defined as land with at least 20 percent tree cover, represented 24 percent of total land. Government forestry preserves were large. Policies sought self-sufficiency in general purpose timber, with a target 1,700 hectares of forest and producing 40,000 cubic meters of sawlogs a year. In the late 1980s, however, self-sufficiency was still far away. The long-term development of mostly hardwoods, pines, and other species was planned to support the furniture, craft, and construction industries. Small sawmills were common but generally undersupplied.
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External Sector
External Trade
Trade has always played a major role in Jamaica's economic activity; indeed, the island is one of the most trade-dependent countries in the world. Trade as a ratio of GDP was over 50 percent in the 1970s, a figure that increased in the 1980s as the economy opened further to international trade. Although trade allowed Jamaica to import productive resources and consumer goods, chronic trade deficits generated a long-term drain on government finances. During the first twenty-five years of independence, Jamaica ran a trade surplus in only three years--1963, 1977, and 1978. Trade deficits reached unprecedented levels, in excess of US$500 million, by the mid-1980s. Jamaican exports generally suffered in the 1980s because of unfavorable prices for traditional exports such as bauxite and sugar. Newly developed nontraditional exports experienced rapid growth, but their small volume improved the negative trade balance only marginally.
Total imports in 1985 were valued at US$1.14 billion. Imports were divided as follows: fuels (37 percent), machinery and transport equipment (17 percent), food (15 percent), manufactured goods (15 percent), chemicals (11 percent), and the balance in various other categories. The United States was the major supplier of goods and services to Jamaica, accounting for approximately 40 percent of imports in the mid-1980s. Other major suppliers were Britain, Canada, Venezuela, the Netherlands Antilles, and Caricom. Imports fluctuated throughout the 1980s. The relative price of oil was an influential factor in determining the total import bill and the origin of imports. The Seaga government sought to reduce imports in the 1980s as part of an overall strategy to reduce aggregate demand in the economy. Although the government devalued the Jamaican dollar several times over its 1970s value in an effort to discourage imports, the dismantling of import controls, licensing, and quantitative restrictions actually increased imports, at least in the short run. Import liberalization policies were scheduled to continue into the late 1980s.
Exports were generally broken down into three categories in Jamaica: traditional, reexports, and nontraditional. Traditional exports included bauxite, alumina, gypsum, sugar, bananas, citrus, coffee, cocoa, pimento, and rum. Reexports were goods shipped to Jamaica and then reexported for a profit, usually transhipments. Nontraditional exports were all remaining exports. In the 1980s, the major exports remained alumina, bauxite, and sugar. Total exports averaged US$650 million from 1983 to 1985, or roughly half of imports. The substantial trade gap between exports and imports created large annual trade deficits. In fact, the 1985 trade deficit equaled over a third of total trade. Despite a downturn in the bauxite market worldwide, the bauxite sector still accounted for over half of visible export earnings. Nontraditional exports made up a quarter of total exports in the 1980s, a share that was steadily increasing. Contributing most to the expansion of nontraditional exports were garment and apparel manufacturing, nontraditional agriculture, and mineral fuels and lubricants. The principal markets for exports were generally the same countries from which imports were obtained. As Jamaicans sought to break into new markets with nontraditional goods and services, the United States share of Jamaican exports increased from 35 percent in 1982 to over 40 percent by mid-decade.
In the mid-1980s, Jamaica enjoyed wide access to foreign markets for its exports. As a former British colony, it participated in the Lomé Convention, which provided guaranteed access levels for certain products, often at favorable prices. Jamaican exports to the United States entered under various preferential agreements, including the Generalized System of Preferences, the CBI, and the 807 program. Canada also introduced a trade initiative in 1986 called "Caribcan" that provided preferential access to its market similar to that of the CBI. Access to the Caricom market, the traditional market for Jamaica's manufactured goods, declined in the 1980s; recession, devaluation, and other exchange rate and import licensing policies in Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, the two principal members of the community, caused a steady decline in regional trade. Although various bilateral and multilateral accords had been signed and the political support for Caricom existed, increased trade was not a reality in the late 1980s. As a result of its foreign exchange shortage, Jamaica was increasingly involved in countertrade or barter deals that circumvented currency exchanges. The most prominent agreement of that kind allowed Jamaica to export bauxite to the Soviet Union in exchange for Lada automobiles.
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Balance of Payments and Debt
Jamaica has displayed a negative balance on its current account each year since 1963, primarily the result of large trade deficits. Capital account surpluses were generally not large enough to offset current account deficits, thus producing overall negative balance of payments. In the 1970s and 1980s, balance-of-payments shortfalls were financed increasingly through very large capital inflows in the form of concessional loans from multilateral and bilateral lending agencies. The IMF was the largest source of balance of payments support.
In the 1980s, the greatest source of payment deficits appeared in the merchandise trade portion of the current account (see table __, Jamaican Balance of Payments 1981-85, Appendix A). As trade was liberalized and export prices depressed, unprecedented trade deficits appeared during the first five years of the 1980s. The terms of trade for Jamaica quickly declined, with large shortfalls in expected bauxite exports causing the greatest damage to the merchandise trade deficit and the economy as a whole. Jamaica's service balance progressively became positive as increased tourist receipts steadily bolstered invisible exports. The largest portion of the service account lowering surpluses was the considerable amount of investment income, or profits, repatriated abroad. Net transfers were generally positive, as funds received from regional and international organizations were greater than contributions. Surpluses on the capital account in the 1980s were generally the result of official capital flows, in the form of balance-of- payments support, rather than private investment capital. Although new foreign capital was invested in Jamaica, significant foreign investment left the island, especially in 1983. As a result, official capital movements accounted for over 90 percent of the surplus on the capital account in the first five years of the 1980s. Net international reserves, with the exception of 1984, continued to decline in the first half of the decade after a previous decline from 1974 to 1979.
Jamaica's rapidly growing debt dated back to the oil price increases and expansionary fiscal policies of the 1970s. The balance of payments crisis experienced in the mid-1970s, however, was only the start of a spiraling debt crisis. From 1980 to 1986, Jamaica's total debt doubled, making the island one of the most indebted countries in the world on a per capita basis. Jamaica's debt peaked in the mid-1980s at US$3.5 billion and was not expected to exceed that level into the 1990s. Seaga's 1987 debt rescheduling negotiations with the IMF and the Paris Club (see Glossary) resulted in generous grace periods and at least a short-term easing of the crisis. Nonetheless, Jamaica's debt loomed large and unmanageable; by 1983, the total debt surpassed 150 percent of GDP. As noted above, debt servicing accounted for over 40 percent of government spending by 1985. Similarly, debt servicing as a ratio of exports reached levels higher than those in virtually any other Latin American nation.
Jamaica's strategy for managing its indebtedness primarily involved rescheduling and export-led growth (see Glossary). Although the rescheduling goal was generally achieved by the late 1980s, the export-led growth strategy, as outlined in the structural adjustment policies, had not been successful. Exports showed little dynamism in the 1980s, suffering from unfavorable terms of trade. Modest growth in nontraditional exports, at least by 1987, was unlikely to reduce significantly the huge national debt. In May 1987 Jamaica initiated another strategy of selling government equity shares in tourism and manufacturing for the private purchase of a portion of the country's foreign debt. Debt to equity swaps, as they are called, were not perceived to relieve a significant percentage of the debt, however. No definitive strategies to overcome the debt crisis had been devised by the late 1980s.
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Foreign Assistance
Jamaica received unprecedented levels of foreign assistance in the 1980s; the primary lenders were the IMF, the World Bank, and AID. Most analysts perceived the generous aid as support for the Seaga government's more orthodox economic policies favoring market forces, trade liberalization, foreign investment, and the structural adjustment of the economy. The island's relations with the IMF provided badly needed balance-of-payments support, and stimulated renewed investor confidence in the island. With the signing of a US$650-million loan in April 1981, Jamaica became the number-one per capita recipient of IMF lending in the world. The government signed three more agreements with the Fund through 1987 on relatively favorable terms. IMF lending, however, entailed economic policy conditionalities and austerity measures. Jamaica also received generous funding from the World Bank, ranking as the number-one per capita recipient in 1982. As in the case of IMF funding, the structural adjustment loans of the World Bank included economic policy reform conditions that Jamaica to meet prior to obtaining further disbursements.
United States bilateral assistance to Jamaica after 1981 was also unprecedented. From 1981 to 1985, Jamaica ranked as the second or third per capita recipient of AID funding, or around the tenth in absolute terms. In 1981 and 1982 alone, Jamaica received more assistance from the United States than it did during the entire previous postwar period. It was estimated that the United States would provide Jamaica with US$1 billion during the 1980s. Most funding went to balance-of-payments support. By the mid-1980s, funds were typically transferred in the form of grants rather than concessional loans. AID's assistance to Jamaica generally went to strengthen the policies of the IMF and the World Bank; these three organizations often operated together.
Finally, Jamaica also received generous funding from traditional multilateral donors such as the IDB and the United Nations Development Program. Canada, West European countries, and Japan provided bilateral assistance at the government level. In addition, numerous nonprofit development organizations, particularly from the United States, operated throughout Jamaica.
The abundant outside assistance that Jamaica received from international donors in the 1980s was directly related to the major economic policy reforms that the government pursued. Foreign assistance not only framed the country's economic reforms but also served to insulate the island from international recession and the regional debt crisis, at least temporarily. As these adjustment policies neared completion in 1987, the government's stance toward reform softened, and economic policies became increasingly sensitive to the political consequences of years of austerity.
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GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
The Governmental System
Jamaica is a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary democracy based on the Westminster model, with a functional two- party system. Under this system of government, the prime minister and his cabinet are responsible to the legislature, and universal suffrage exists for citizens over the age of eighteen. The clauses of the 1962 Constitution, which consists of 138 articles in 10 chapters, may be amended by majorities of two-thirds in both houses of Parliament or, if the Senate does not concur, with the approval of a special majority of the electorate voting in referendum.
Jamaica's Constitution entitles anyone born on the island to Jamaican citizenship, which may be revoked if that person becomes a citizen of another country. Children and spouses of Jamaicans also may claim citizenship even if born outside of Jamaica. Chapter 3 of the Constitution grants all persons residing in Jamaica fundamental individual rights and freedoms, such as life, liberty, security of person, property ownership, and protection from arbitrary arrest or detention. The Constitution also guarantees freedom of conscience and expression, including freedom of speech and press; peaceful assembly and association, including the right to join a trade union; freedom of movement and residence within the country and of foreign travel, emigration, and repatriation; and due process of law, including protection against double jeopardy or retroactive punishment.
The Constitution forbids inhumane treatment and racial, sexual, or political discrimination. Jamaican women are accorded full equality, and the 1975 Employment Act guarantees them equal pay for the same work. The legal status of women was reflected in the substantial number of women in influential positions in the civil service and government in the 1980s. The Supreme Court is given original jurisdiction over matters concerning civil rights, and cases arising from them are promised a fair hearing within a reasonable time. Individual rights and freedoms are explicitly subject to respect for rights of others and the public interest in matters of defense, order, health, and morality.
Although an independent member of the British Commonwealth of Nations (see Appendix B) since 1962, Jamaica has retained the British monarch as its chief of state. Executive power is vested nominally in the queen but exercised by the governor general, whom the queen appoints on recommendation of the prime minister. The governor general, who has the right to be kept informed on any aspect of the conduct of government, wields the prerogatives of judicial pardon, performs the ceremonial duties of head of state, makes appointments to public offices, formally assents to bills before they can become law, and summons and adjourns Parliament. In most matters, the governor general acts only on the advice of the prime minister, but occasionally on the advice of both the latter and the leader of the opposition, or with the assistance of the Privy Council, whose six members are appointed by the governor general after consultation with the prime minister. At least two members of the Privy Council must be persons holding or having held public office. Its functions are to advise the governor general on exercising the royal prerogative to grant appeals for mercy and on disciplinary matters from the three service commissions. Its decisions can be appealed to the Privy Council in London, which is the final resort.
The cabinet, which is responsible to the House of Representatives, is the "principal instrument of policy." Directed by the prime minister, it usually has had from thirteen to fifteen members heading ministries staffed chiefly by the civil service. During the 1980s, the three most important portfolios have been those of finance and planning, national security, and foreign affairs. The Constitution stipulates that "not less than two nor more than four of the Ministers shall be persons who are members of the Senate."
As a result of the cabinet reorganization of October 1986, ministries were as follows: agriculture; construction; education; foreign affairs and industry; health; justice and attorney general; labor; local government; mining, energy, and tourism; national security; public service; public utilities and transport; social security and consumer affairs; and youth and community development. Ministries were often separated or combined. For example, the Ministry of National Security was combined with the Ministry of Justice in 1974, but separated again in October 1986 as a result of cabinet changes announced by Prime Minister Seaga.
Ministers, especially the prime minister, may hold more than one portfolio, and they may also supervise statutory boards set up to augment the usual departments. Ministers may be assisted by parliamentary secretaries. A cabinet member may lose his position or be forced to resign as a result of losing either his seat in Parliament or the confidence of the prime minister. A minister's power and prestige depend on party standing and loyalty, as well as individual ability.
The prime minister is the most important member of the cabinet and the acknowledged leader of the majority party. The governor general selects as prime minister the party leader favored by the majority of House members. The prime minister selects other cabinet members from Parliament, directs the arrangement and conduct of cabinet business, and acts as the government's chief spokesperson at home and abroad. Control over foreign policy has remained firmly in the hands of the prime minister. The prime minister may be removed by resigning or otherwise ceasing to be a member of the House of Representatives or by being given a vote of no confidence by a majority of House members.
Under Jamaica's two-party system, the leader of the opposition is an institutionalized position, receiving a higher rate of remuneration than ordinary members of Parliament and exercising consultative functions, especially on appointments to public offices. The opposition leader is appointed by the governor general and is either the one who is "best able to command the support of the majority of those who do not support the government," or the leader of the largest single group in opposition. The opposition leader is expected to challenge the government and provide an ever- ready alternative for Parliament and the public. The institutionalized role of the opposition leader and Jamaica's democratic tradition give the opposition considerable freedom to criticize the government.
Modeled after the British Parliament, Jamaica's Parliament is the country's supreme legislative body. In addition to an elected House of Representatives and an appointed Senate (upper house), the Parliament consists of a ceremonial head, who is the queen or her representative, and the governor general. The latter nominates the twenty-one members of the Senate: thirteen on the prime minister's advice and eight on the opposition leader's advice. The sixty House members (formerly fifty-three) are elected by universal adult suffrage for five years (subject to dissolution) in elections held in each of the country's sixty constituencies. The Constitution requires that the prime minister call a general election no later than five years after the first sitting of the previous Parliament. To qualify for appointment to the Senate or for election to the House, a person must be a citizen of Jamaica or another Commonwealth country, be age twenty-one or over, and ordinarily have resided in Jamaica for the immediately preceding twelve months.
In addition to submitting bills, the Senate reviews legislation submitted by the House and may delay legislative bills for seven months and money bills for one month. The Senate delay may be overridden if a majority in the House passes such bills three times in succession. For a constitutional amendment to pass Parliament, however, Senate concurrence is essential. As in many other Commonwealth countries, the existence of an upper house (Senate) permits useful participation in public affairs to those who might not wish to run for election; it also encourages the patronage offerings of the major political parties. The cabinet, which is the executive branch of government responsible to Parliament, must include two to four senators; others may be appointed as parliamentary secretaries to assist cabinet members.
The House of Representatives initiates all financial bills, but other bills may be introduced in either house. Bills designed to implement government policy usually are introduced by a cabinet minister. The House regulates its own procedures and chooses its own officers, including the speaker, who acts as a nonpartisan chairman of proceedings and enjoys considerable prestige. Although Parliament, and particularly its House of Representatives, has a number of standing committees, these have relatively little investigative power; they also have not provided a locus for checking the executive, a task undertaken by the parliamentary opposition.
The conduct of parliamentary business requires the presence of quorums: eight in the Senate and sixteen in the House. Absenteeism, a longstanding problem, often has been criticized publicly. A majority of those present and voting usually make the decisions. Parliamentary sessions must not be held more than six months apart. Elections must take place every five years, but the terms of members of Parliament may be extended twice, each time for one year, in case of war or national emergency. Although the legislature traditionally has enjoyed a high position, effective legislative powers are concentrated in the cabinet.
Members of Parliament are immune from arrest and protected against lawsuits arising from their duties. Each house may exempt members from vacating their seats over conflict of interest matters. Members, however, may be disqualified for insanity, bankruptcy, allegiance to a foreign power, holdings in firms contracting with the government, holding other public office, or conviction for corrupt electoral practices.
The prime minister may call elections earlier than the law requires if his government loses the confidence of the House of Representatives, or if he feels the need to call for a public mandate on an important issue. Thus, the incumbent government holds the initiative, although the Constitution attempts to safeguard the impartiality of the actual process. Elections are supervised by a senior civil servant as chief electoral officer, a staff consisting of a returning officer in each constituency, election clerks, and a polling clerk at each polling station. Votes are counted in the presence of the candidates or their agents to minimize charges of fraud. A returning officer may cast a vote to decide a tie. Constituencies are demarcated by a six-member standing parliamentary committee, but alterations favoring the party in power are not unknown. Security forces vote in advance of election day so that they can be deployed across the island on that date.
Each constituency elects one candidate and the winner requires only a simple majority. Thus, the number of seats won by a party may not reflect accurately the number of votes cast for it, and the disparity in seats won by the two parties is usually higher than the variance between the total votes. Candidates, most of them sponsored by the JLP and PNP, are nominated twenty-three days before an election. The central committees of these two parties select those who will receive the party tickets and the constituencies from which they will run. Each nomination must be accompanied by a deposit, which is forfeited if the candidate receives fewer than one-eighth of the votes cast. Campaign expenses are limited by law, and influencing voters unduly is prohibited. Loopholes exist, however, and have been used.
Although the Constitution is explicitly declared to be supreme, it may be subject to judicial review, as may laws inconsistent with its provisions. A parliament in which the ruling party has a comfortable majority may amend the charter relatively easily in accordance with the traditional doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. The content and concepts of Jamaican law are basically the same as those of Britain. Nevertheless, the Jamaican Parliament occasionally has questioned the relevance of British decisions; statutes enacted by the Jamaican legislative body increasingly have taken into consideration local conditions.
Despite Jamaica's well-developed judicial system, it and the police force were widely criticized in the mid-1980s because of dramatic increases in political and criminal violence. Many believed that the judicial system had deteriorated and that the authority and dignity of the courts had diminished. Critics noted that many of the new judges and lawyers were not as well educated as in the past and lacked self-confidence. Since the early 1970s, only graduates of the three-year West Indies Faculty of Law or the two-year graduate School of Legal Education have been permitted to practice law in Jamaica, whereas previously most Jamaican lawyers received their legal training in Britain. In February 1986, Carl Stone, Jamaica's leading political scientist, criticized what he referred to as the criminal justice system's corrupt practice of bribing juries and rendering corrupt judgments in favor of those who have political or economic power.
Despite antiquated laws and overcrowded jails, Jamaicans generally have respected the rule of law and the system of justice inherited from the British. The principle of habeas corpus, which is rooted in English common law, is stated explicitly in Jamaican statutes enacted either before or since independence. It is also respected by the courts and police. Bail may be granted on a discretionary basis. The courts operate at three broad levels: the Court of Appeal; the Supreme Court; and the Resident Magistrate's Court, of which there are nineteen. Other judicial bodies are the Coroner's Court, Traffic Court, Petty Sessions Court, juvenile courts, Revenue Court, Family Court, and Gun Court (see National Security, this ch.). Justices of the peace, who are local notables without legal training, preside over courts of petty sessions.
The eight-member Court of Appeal is at the apex of the court hierarchy in Jamaica. This court is headed by a president, who is appointed by the governor general on recommendation of the prime minister after consultation with the leader of the opposition. It is also staffed by a chief justice and six other judges appointed by the governor general on the advice of the prime minister and the opposition leader. It sits in two divisions in Kingston throughout the year. A person who is dissatisfied with the decision of another court, except petty sessions, may appeal to this court. Section 110 of the Constitution provides that decisions of the Court of Appeal can be taken on appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London in grave civil or criminal cases, for matters deemed of great public importance, or as decided by Parliament or the Court of Appeal itself. The Privy Council is given final jurisdiction on interpretation of the Constitution.
The Supreme Court is headed by the chief justice, who is appointed in the same manner as the president of the Court of Appeal. It is also staffed by five other judges, a senior puisne judge, and other judicial officials. The Supreme Court has unlimited jurisdiction in civil and criminal cases and can dispense summary justice without jury in certain criminal cases. It sits in Kingston for the trial of civil cases; for criminal cases, it serves as a circuit court in the capital town of each parish.
The Resident Magistrate's Court, which includes the Petty Sessions Court, deals with minor infractions, but may also indict an individual for a serious offense, which would then be adjudicated in a circuit court. Kingston has four resident magistrate courts; St. Andrew, three; and the other parishes, one each. Circuit court judges exercise broad discretion in imposing sentences for serious violations of law.
Constitutional provisions relating to the appointment and tenure of the higher judiciary provide safeguards for their independence from government. Appointments are made by the governor general in consultation with the prime minister, the leader of the opposition, and a judicial service commission. Judges are almost always appointed from within the judicial department of the civil service.
The career civil service is largely responsible for administering governmental policy; as in Britain, it is organized into six categories: administrative, professional, technical, executive, clerical, and manual. The Constitution details the conditions of service, including pensions. Seniority and performance in competitive examinations are taken into consideration for promotion. The civil service is presumed to be nonpartisan in discharging its duties. Separate public commissions, appointed on the recommendation of the prime minister and opposition leader, are responsible for the employees of the career civil service, including the judicial branch, police, local government employees, and public school teachers. The Ministry of Finance also has supervisory authority over personnel management.
Under Seaga's Staff Adjustment Programme, employment in public administration was reduced sharply during the 1984-86 period from an estimated 120,000 employees in 1984 to 79,900 by late 1986. Jamaica's relatively large public sector in 1984 included 36,486 members of the civil service; 16,613 employees in local government services; and about 6,000 members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), the service primarily responsible for internal security. Although the nation inherited a well-trained civil service from the British, by 1980 observers were describing it as heavily overstaffed and highly inefficient.
Before Jamaica achieved internal autonomy, senior civil servants were generally British, enjoyed high prestige, and wielded considerable power. Policies and administrative decisions were decided mostly in Whitehall or Jamaica House (the governor's residence). This situation changed when political authority passed into the hands of popularly elected Jamaicans, with whose nationalist goals civil servants were not necessarily in sympathy. The status and power of the senior civil servants have declined since then. The more capable civil servants were lured away by foreign or private companies offering attractive working conditions and substantially higher wages. Consequently, economic and political development was hindered by shortages of skilled personnel at the higher management levels. Jamaican leaders frequently have bypassed the career civil service and the ministries by creating statutory boards or corporations and appointing their supporters to high positions in these entities. Career diplomats are chosen by competitive examination, and career servants may move between the foreign service and the senior civil service.
At the local level, the nation, a unitary state, is divided into fourteen administrative parishes (see fig.__, Administrative Divisions Jamaica.). The Kingston and St. Andrew Parishes are amalgamated as the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation. A parochial council, which exercises limited self-government, is elected in each parish by universal adult suffrage at times other than those at which general elections are held. The 278 parish councilors were voluntary workers whose allowances only covered attendance at council meetings. Although established to provide the basic amenities for local populations, the parish councils became increasingly dependent on financial assistance from the central government because of insufficient revenues from local taxes, fees, and licenses. Government indifference sometimes has frustrated local initiatives directed toward feasible projects, regardless of the party in power. Because wealthier individuals tended to monopolize parish council positions, relations of this local elite with the poorer masses were based more on authoritarian paternalism than cooperation.
Central government financial assistance has diminished the autonomy of local governments and reinforced habits of subservience acquired in the colonial period. The general trend since 1944 has been toward the centralization of political power away from the parishes to the capital. Stone, who is also Jamaica's leading pollster and a professor of political sociology at (UWI), the University of the West Indies documented this trend in his frequent and respected Stone Polls, sponsored and published, beginning in 1976, by the independent but generally pro-JLP Daily Gleaner newspaper. A decrease in voter turnout for local elections since 1944 was symptomatic of this trend. By the 1980s, politics had become highly centralized, and political issues focused on the national rather than local level. A September 1984 Stone Poll revealed that only 58 percent of registered voters were likely to vote in any forthcoming local government elections. Many voters felt that local government had become useless.
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Political Dynamics
Jamaica's two-party system, which had its roots in the rivalry between William Alexander Bustamante and Norman W. Manley (see Historical Setting, this ch.), resembles traditional North American patterns. Both parties--the JLP and PNP--were formed and operated by a relatively small number of men and with a high degree of British and intraparty cooperation. By the 1960s, politics had changed significantly from the time of the 1944 elections when the country was predominantly rural and voting was based as much on local issues and personalities as on national affairs. The JLP and PNP, responding to sectional interest groups, appeared to move closer to each other and away from the basic concerns of the population, namely employment opportunities. Their paths later diverged, but some similarities remained. Both parties operated as multiclass alliances, whose adherents cut across class and racial lines. Both represented frequently shifting group interests and sought a large independent vote. Moreover, in their attempt to appeal to all sectors of the population for votes and funds, both parties adopted somewhat similar policies. Differences in foreign policies, however, became more pronounced.
The two-party arrangement differed from the British and United States systems in two important respects. One is that Jamaica's elites, from which the island's leaders have emerged, are closely knit groups; four of the nation's first five prime ministers were related. The other difference is that party identification, not race or class, is the primary political frame of reference. Each party has a fiercely loyal, almost tribal, inner core defined by family ties and neighborhood. Antagonism to the other party is passionate and frequently violent.
Despite the intensity of party rivalry in Jamaica, Stone Polls revealed the increasing importance of the "swing vote" in determining electoral outcomes. At the time of independence, the swing vote was only 5 percent, but by 1985 the percentage of uncommitted voters had stabilized at 26. The growth of the swing vote was accompanied by a periodic pattern of support for the two parties. For example, the percentage of voters not committed to either the JLP or PNP rose from 15 percent in November 1976 to 40 percent by mid-1978. During the same period, PNP support declined from 40 to 28 percent, whereas that of the JLP fell from 37 to 32 percent. These declines were interpreted at the time as a loss of support for the two major parties. Nevertheless, by December 1979 the percentage of uncommitted voters had dropped back down to 16, whereas JLP support had climbed from 32 to 47 percent and PNP support from 28 to 37 percent. Although their political interest was seasonal, the uncommitted voters remained an integral part of the support for the two major parties.
Unlike much of Hispanic Latin America and many former colonies in Africa and Asia, Jamaica has enjoyed a tradition of political stability, notwithstanding the escalating political violence on the island during the 1974-80 period. The JLP and PNP alternated in power every ten years in the general elections held between 1955 and 1980. Turnout at the polls during the postwar period and the first twenty-five years of independence was consistently high, in contrast to the average 3-percent voting rate in the seven general legislative elections held between 1901 and 1934. Voter participation increased steadily from 65 percent of the electorate, or 495,000, in 1955 to 85 percent, or 736,000, in 1976.
A review of political dynamics in independent Jamaica can begin in 1965, when illness forced Prime Minister Bustamante, one of Jamaica's two founding fathers, to resign from politics. Sir Donald Sangster took over as acting prime minister and later became prime minister as a result of the narrow JLP victory in the February 1967 elections. He died suddenly two months later, however, and Hugh Shearer, the BITU president, succeeded him on April 12. The Shearer government was known for its weak management, factionalism, and corruption.
After Norman Manley's death in 1969, the JLP and PNP evolved along increasingly divergent lines. Beginning in 1970, the JLP's identification with domestic and foreign business interests became increasingly evident. After Manley died, his son Michael, a Third World-oriented social democrat, succeeded him as PNP leader and began to revive the party's socialist heritage. Michael Manley, who had been was educated at Jamaica College and the London School of Economics, worked as a journalist and trade unionist (1952-72). Eloquent, tall and charismatic, he defeated Shearer impressively in the February 1972 election, winning 56 percent of the popular vote, which gave the PNP thirty-six of the fifty-three House seats. Manley, who represented Central Kingston, won support not only from the lower classes, including the Rastafarians (see Glossary), but also from middle and business classes disenchanted with the Shearer government.
Manley's PNP won the 1972 election on a Rastafarian-influenced swing vote of 8 percent. During the 1972 election campaign, Manley had tried to change his party's image by evoking the memory of Marcus Garvey, using symbols appealing to the Rastafarians, and associating with their leader, Claudius Henry. Manley also had appeared in public with an ornamental "rod of correction" reputedly given him by Haile Selassie I. Manley's informal dress and the PNP's imaginative use of two features of Rastafarian culture-- creole dialect and reggae music--in the 1972 campaign were designed to dispel fears of elitism and woo the votes of those who had disparaged Norman Manley's facility with the English language.
During Michael Manley's terms as prime minister (1972-80), the PNP aligned itself with socialist and "anti-imperialist" forces throughout the world. Thus, for the first time, political divisions within Jamaica reflected the East-West conflict. Manley's PNP did not publicly announce its resurrected goal of "democratic socialism" until the fall of 1974, on the occasion of a state visit to Jamaica by Tanzania's socialist president Julius K. Nyerere. In addition to redirecting the PNP along these lines, Manley began building a mass party, with emphasis on political mobilization.
Manley's populist policies gave impetus to a shift, begun with independence, of many more dark-skinned middle-class Jamaicans moving upward into political and social prominence, taking over political and civil service positions from the old white elite. Prior to independence, most top leaders had Anglo-European life- styles and disdained many aspects of Jamaican and West Indian culture. By the 1970s, most Jamaican leaders preferred life-styles that identified them more closely with local culture.
In 1974 Seaga succeeded Shearer as JLP leader and began playing an active role as leader of the opposition (1974-80). Seaga and Manley continued the traditional JLP-PNP leadership rivalry in the 1970s, but on a far more bitter and intense level than had Bustamante and Norman Manley. Born in Boston in 1930 of Jamaican parents of Syrian and Scottish origin, Seaga was educated at Wolmer's Boys School in Kingston and at Harvard University. He joined the JLP in the late 1950s and was appointed by Bustamante to the upper house of the Legislative Council in 1959. A social scientist with expertise in financial, cultural, and social development areas, Seaga also served as minister of development and social welfare (1962-67) and minister of finance and planning (1967-72). Contrasting sharply with the affable and oratorical Manley, Seaga often has been described as remote and technocratic, with a stiff, formal manner. Although he did not endear himself to the common man, Seaga earned a reputation as a highly disciplined, hard-working, and intellectual leader. Despite being white and wealthy, he represented Denham Town, one of the poorest and blackest constituencies of West Kingston, which regularly gave 95 percent of its vote to the JLP.
The December 1976 elections witnessed major realignments in class voting for the two parties, as well as unprecedented political violence and polarization on ideological and policy issues. The support of manual wage laborers and the unemployed resulted in another sweeping victory in the elections for the PNP; the party won 57 percent of the vote and forty-seven of sixty House seats. The PNP was also aided by the lowering of the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen. Despite losing a substantial number of votes among the upper-middle and upper classes as well as among white-collar employees, the PNP retained majority support among these sectors. Many Jamaicans did not share JLP concerns about the direction that the Manley government was taking. A Stone Poll found that 69 percent of the electorate at that time rejected the JLP view that the PNP was leading the nation toward communism. The JLP had depicted the rising number of Cubans in Jamaica, who included technical, economic, and medical personnel, as a national security threat. According to a Stone Poll, however, a 63-percent majority viewed the Cuban presence in Jamaica favorably, believing the Cubans to be providing technical and economic assistance.
During his second term in office, Manley, having broadened the PNP's electoral base by wooing a number of charismatic leftwing leaders, veered sharply leftward. One of his leftwing cabinet appointees, Donald K. Duncan, headed the new Ministry of National Mobilization, with responsibility for supervising the government's "people's programs" in worker participation in industry and in the "democratization" of education. Despite the efforts of Duncan and others, the PNP left wing never succeeded in radically transforming the polity or economy.
The PNP's dominant position in politics in the 1970s was reinforced on March 8, 1977, when the party won 237 out of 269 municipal seats in local government elections in which 58 percent of the electorate participated. By mid-term, however, internal PNP infighting between leftwingers and moderates had intensified and JLP opposition had escalated. Support for the PNP declined considerably as the public became increasingly concerned over the PNP's alliance with the communist Workers Party of Jamaica (WPJ), as well as growing unemployment, crime and other violence, internal party divisions, mismanagement of the government, and the government's close ties to Cuba.
The JLP, which continued to enjoy strong support in the business community, remained more pragmatic and flexible in policy than the PNP. JLP business executives and technocrats emerged in the top party positions, replacing the old guard labor leaders. Endorsing a platform described simply as "nationalism," JLP leaders continued to stand in the ideological center of the political system. They advocated a pro-United States, pro-free enterprise, and anti-Cuban ideology.
The 1980 election campaign, Jamaica's most bitter and violent, was waged in the context of extreme scarcity of foreign exchange and consequent shortages of all kinds of goods. Two central issues in the campaign were the state of the economy, including the Manley government's relations with the IMF (see Role of Government, this ch.), and the JLP's charges that the Manley government had lost the people's confidence because of its close relations with Cuba. Seaga alleged in particular that the security forces were being subjected to "communist infiltration" and that young "brigadistas" (construction brigade members) who had received vocational training in Cuba were subjected to political indoctrination. By 1980 the majority of Jamaicans regarded the PNP government as incapable of managing the economy or maintaining order in the society. Even the security forces--fearful of being replaced by Home Guards, Cuban- trained "brigadistas," and "people's militia"--joined the opposition to the government.
In the October 30, 1980 elections, the PNP was unable to withstand the alliance of the private sector, church, security forces, media, intelligentsia, workers, and unemployed. The electorate gave Seaga's JLP a landslide victory; the opposition party won 59 percent of the vote and 51 of 60 seats in the House. Despite the electoral violence, the election, in which a record 86 percent of the voters turned out, was considered one of the fairest and most important in the nation's history. Other than some incidents of fraud and box tampering, the number of contested votes was relatively low. Stone has noted that the election was also the first in which a party had won a majority of the parish vote in all parishes.
After taking office as prime minister, Seaga, who also assumed the finance portfolio, redirected the island's economy along free- enterprise lines, emphasizing the role of the private sector and continuing to encourage foreign investment. As the governing party, the JLP under Seaga was described by Stone as "conservative reformist." It continued to receive substantial support from the 100,000-member Bustamante Industrial Trade Unions (BITU), and JLP policies were subject to strong labor influence. Nevertheless, the party has not been able to take BITU support for granted, and the BITU had been known to act independently.
In the early 1980s, Manley's opposition PNP, described by Stone as "radical reformist," tried to moderate its political image. Stone Polls conducted in early 1981 showed that over 70 percent of the electorate was critical of the PNP's links with local communists. The PNP subsequently broke with the WPJ in a move supported by 71 percent of the electorate. As leader of the opposition in the 1980s, Manley has been the country's most popular party leader. His personality as an emotional nationalist and socialist idealist has contrasted sharply with Seaga's. Manley also has continued to represent Central Kingston, a middle-class district, and serve as the NWU leader.
In late November 1983, Prime Minister Seaga responded to a PNP leader's call for his resignation as finance minister by announcing the holding of early elections on December 15, 1983. Having achieved a significant increase in popularity because of Jamaica's participation in the United States-Caribbean operation in Grenada in late October, an action that a Stone Poll indicated was supported by 56 percent of the electorate, Seaga was confident of winning the snap elections. The PNP, unable to nominate candidates within the four days allowed, boycotted the elections, arguing that the government had broken a promise to update the voters' register and to implement antifraud measures. The PNP claimed that up to 100,000 eligible voters were disenfranchised. As a result of the PNP's boycott, the JLP had token opposition in only six of the sixty parliamentary districts. By winning those races, the JLP completed its control of the House, occupying all sixty seats. The PNP's decision not to contest the election also made the prime minister responsible for selecting the eight nongovernmental opposition members of the Senate. When the government chose non-PNP individuals with independent views, Jamaica found itself with an unprecedented one-party Parliament and without an official leader of the opposition. Ironically, a Stone Poll found that had it not boycotted the election the PNP would have won the December 1983 elections with 54 percent of the vote and a 10-percent margin over the JLP.
Although the holding of the snap elections was a constitutional prerogative of the prime minister, it marked a departure from Jamaica's traditional consensus politics and weakened the Seaga government's public standing. A 59-to-38 percent majority disapproved of the holding of early elections using the old voters' register. At the same time, according to a December 1983 Stone Poll, the public was generally divided over the PNP's boycott, with 47 percent disapproving of it and 46 percent approving. By a margin of 70 to 26 percent, Jamaicans favored calling new elections when the voters' list was ready. The PNP campaigned unsuccessfully during 1985 for a general election to be held by October. The party reasoned that this date would mark the end of the five-year mandate that the electorate had given the JLP in 1980. Opinion polls throughout 1985 showed that the PNP enjoyed a considerable lead over the governing JLP. Nevertheless, the JLP held all sixty seats in the House until early 1986, when two members defected.
Municipal elections, scheduled originally for June 1984 but postponed twice, were held on July 29, 1986. Disputes over a reduction in the number of council seats and a redrawing of local constituency boundaries caused the delay. In what was the first real contest between the two main parties since 1980, the opposition PNP defeated the JLP soundly, taking 57 percent of the vote and obtaining control of eleven of the thirteen municipalities in which polling had taken place. An estimated 60 percent of the 970,000 eligible voters cast ballots. The JLP's heavy defeat in the local elections was blamed largely on Seaga's austere economic policies and deteriorating social and economic conditions. Buoyed by the victory, Manley appealed, again unsuccessfully, for an early general election; it was not expected to be held, however, before late 1988.
At a JLP retreat held on October 12, 1986, Seaga announced his decision to resign as prime minister in August 1987 and not to seek re-election as leader of the JLP because of "personal considerations" and unhappiness with the progress of his economic recovery program. Seaga revoked his decision, however, at a JLP meeting on November 5, 1986, after JLP members of Parliament and parish councilors voted unanimously not to accept it. Critics expressed skepticism over the strength of support for Seaga and noted that he had used the resignation ploy twice before to rally support successfully: in the early 1970s in a bid to challenge Hugh Shearer for the JLP leadership and in 1979 as JLP leader.
Seaga's declining electoral prospects were again reflected in a January 1987 Stone Poll. Sixty-three percent of those polled said conditions had worsened since 1980 when the PNP had left office and 56 percent felt that Manley could run the country better than Seaga; the poll gave Seaga only a 45-percent positive rating. Another Stone Poll conducted nationwide in June 1987 found that the JLP had picked up 2 percentage points, but still trailed the PNP by 15. In August 1987, Seaga became the target of serious criticism as a result of his creation of a commercially run tourist attraction in Ocho Rios called the Gardens of Cariñosa, which was also open to the public for an admissions fee. The PNP and several columnists questioned the propriety of public officials being involved in private investments while still holding office. Although Manley was clearly Jamaica's most popular political leader and favored next prime minister in late 1987, health problems, including major intestinal surgery the previous April, had cast a shadow on his long-term political prospects.
As of 1987, Jamaica's two-party system had not been conducive to the emergence of a third parliamentary party. During the nation's first twenty-five years of independence, twenty-seven minor political parties had tried to take over that role but had become defunct within a year. There is no constitutional impediment, however, to third-party representatives or even independents becoming recognized as "the opposition," provided they can win the second largest bloc of seats in Parliament. Jamaicans generally were satisfied with the two-party system. A February 1985 Stone Poll indicated that a 78-percent majority saw no need for a new political party. Only 11 percent supported the idea of forming a new party.
The communist WPJ, having functioned as Jamaica's officially recognized third party since the late 1970s, has set a longevity record. Founded by Trevor Munroe, its secretary general, on December 17, 1978, the WPJ (formerly known as the Workers Liberation League) adopted a pro-Moscow, avowedly Marxist-Leninist orientation. It advocated a "nonalignment" policy for Jamaica that Munroe defined as distancing the country from the United States and Britain. Munroe, who had earned a doctorate at Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes scholar, had held the position of senior lecturer in government at UWI. According to a March 1985 Stone Poll, the WPJ had increased its popular support from 3 to 4 percent, but 58 percent of Jamaicans were still hostile to the party. The WPJ failed to elect a single councillor island-wide in the July 1986 local elections; its best showing in any of the divisions was 7 percent. The WPJ's relations with Cuba were strained in the mid-1980s became of WPJ criticism of Cuba's perceived failure to back the Bernard Coard-Hudson Austin regime in Grenada that overthrew and assassinated Prime Minister Maurice Bishop (see Political Dynamics, this ch.). The Cuban Communist Party and WPJ repaired relations, however, and Munroe attended the Third Congress of the Cuban Communist Party in Havana in early February 1986.
A United States resident, James Chrisholm, founded another third party of quite different orientation, the Jamaican-American Party (JAP), on April 5, 1986. Advocating a United States statehood platform, the JAP nominated six candidates in the July 29, 1986, local elections. Fewer than 1 percent of Jamaicans questioned in a May 1986 Stone Poll indicated they would vote for the JAP, although 41 percent had heard about it.
JLP and PNP leadership relations during the Seaga administrations have been characterized by clashing viewpoints on a wide range of domestic and foreign policy issues. Stone noted in 1985 that on every politically sensitive issue, ranging from security and police matters to government economic policies and political issues, JLP and PNP opinions were separated by a huge gap and deep mutual distrust. Somewhat contradictorily, however, Stone Polls found that during the 1970s and 1980s the public gradually became less inclined to vote according to partisan loyalties.
According to the May 1986 Stone Poll, political opinions appeared to be converging at the center, with PNP and JLP supporters agreeing more than disagreeing on many sensitive political issues. For example, according to the poll 85 percent of the PNP and 65 percent of the JLP opposed United States statehood, whereas in the poll taken in the early 1980s 32 percent of the PNP and 57 percent of the JLP favored it. Nevertheless, the JLP and PNP continued to disagree on many issues.
Manley's views on foreign affairs in the 1980s continued to reflect his left-of-center, Third World orientation and therefore clashed frequently with those held by Seaga. Manley maintained close relations with Fidel Castro, whom he visited periodically in Havana for private talks. The PNP declared its intention to renew Jamaican-Cuban relations, broken by Seaga in 1981, if it should win the elections that were expected to be held in 1988 (see Foreign Relations, this ch.). Manley and the PNP also were critical of the alleged militarization of the Commonwealth Caribbean and United States military activities in the region. The PNP opposed Jamaica's participation in the joint United States-Caribbean military operation in Grenada in October 1983, as well as participation in regional military maneuvers with the United States.
With the principal exceptions of South Africa and the events in Grenada, the Jamaican electorate generally has evinced little interest in foreign policy issues since independence. The level of public and parliamentary information or discussion on international problems has been low. Public commentaries on foreign policy issues were limited to views expressed by the urban elite and intellectuals in the Daily Gleaner and radio talk shows. Stone Polls revealed, however, that international issues had begun to have a greater impact on domestic politics in the late 1970s; Grenada was a particularly divisive issue in 1979-83. The assassination of Maurice Bishop in Grenada and the subsequent multinational military intervention in October 1983 had a major impact on Jamaican domestic politics. PNP supporters favored the Bishop regime, whereas JLP adherents were strongly critical of it. According to a December 1983 Stone Poll, 86 percent of the JLP was in favor of the intervention and 60 percent of the PNP, opposed).
Although Jamaica has traditionally had a free press and an absence of censorship, the government was not without considerable influence over news media such as the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC) and the independent Radio Jamaica Ltd.(RJR). The PNP has accused the Seaga government of using RJR and JBC in a partisan manner. Similar charges were made by the JLP when the JBC and other media, except for the Daily Gleaner, were controlled by Manley's government in the 1970s. During the 1980 election campaign, the JBC waged a vitriolic propaganda campaign against the United States. Since the mid-1970s, both national radio stations have broadcast popular "phone-in" programs that have politicized the mass media increasingly. On October 8, 1984, the Seaga government made the Jampress News Agency, which had been suspended since 1980, its official news outlet. Jampress replaced the news-gathering function of the Jamaica Information Service (JIS), which was restructured and remained a full department of government under the Ministry of Public Service.
Marijuana eradication was another sensitive political issue, especially insofar as the appearance of foreign pressure was concerned. There was widespread and bitter resentment against the antimarijuana drive. Traffickers in Jamaica, known as "Robin Hoods," had cultivated selected local loyalties by supplying funds for school construction and road improvements. Whereas 66 percent of Jamaicans expressed support for the policy of marijuana eradication in a 1979 Stone Poll, a January 1987 poll found that opinions had swung against the government's antidrug policies. Forty-seven percent of the population rejected the policies because they prevented many rural people from earning money during hard economic times. The 46 percent of the public who supported the government's actions felt that drugs were destroying the youth, corrupting the country, and fueling crime and other violence. Opinions divided along party lines; 70 percent of JLP supporters were for marijuana eradication and 57 percent of PNP supporters against.
Several religious groups or cults, primarily the Rastafarians, traditionally have used marijuana (called "ganja" in Jamaica) as a sacramental drug. Cultivated clandestinely in mountainous areas, ganja is rolled into huge flute-shaped cigarettes called spliffs and smoked. In other popular uses, ganja leaves are baked into small cakes, brewed for tea, soaked in rum, drunk with roots as an aphrodisiac, used as a poultice to reduce pain and swelling, or used popularly as a cold remedy.
Both the JLP and PNP were widely believed in the 1980s to have received campaign contributions from narcotics traffickers. A January 1987 Stone Poll revealed that 68 percent of those polled felt that both parties received drug money. Seaga noted on November 31, 1986, that marijuana barons were fast becoming deeply involved in Jamaica's political situation. Two years earlier, on October 1, 1984, Seaga reported that the security forces had discovered a plot by narcotics traffickers to assassinate him; no suspects were named, however, and no arrests were made.
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FOREIGN RELATIONS
Relations with the United States, Britain, and Canada
Close ties with the United States, Britain, and Canada traditionally have been of prime importance and have existed at the political, commercial, and personal levels. After World War II, the United States, Britain, and Canada all provided economic assistance to Jamaica through international organizations, private investments, and encouragement of the idea of West Indian federation. By the 1950s, the United States and Canada had replaced the once-dominant British trade role. On August 7, 1962, the day after independence, Prime Minister Bustamante described Jamaica as pro-Western, Christian, and anticommunist, and he announced "the irrevocable decision that Jamaica stands with the West and the United States."
Independent Jamaica adopted Western models for internal development and external perspective. Jamaican leaders, recognizing the strong United States disapproval of Soviet influence in Cuba and British Guiana (present-day Guyana), rejected the Soviet alternative. As British influence in Jamaica eroded rapidly following independence, the United States began paying closer attention to political events on the island. Beginning with the seizure of power in Cuba by Fidel Castro, Jamaica's proximity to both Cuba and the United States raised Jamaica's profile in American foreign policy circles. Growing United States economic interest in Jamaica paralleled the former's increasing political interest. Jamaica sided frequently with the United States in its United Nations (UN) voting on cold war issues during the first few years of independence. The nation became visibly less pro-West in its UN voting beginning in 1965-66, however. Jamaica moved out of the United States orbit for the first time when it abstained on the 1971 vote to admit China into the UN. According to a survey by academic researchers, favorable attitudes toward Jamaica's alignment with Western nations declined from 71 percent in 1962 to 36 percent in 1974.
Nevertheless, during his visit to the United States in 1970, Prime Minister Shearer declared that his party, the JLP, had reoriented its foreign relations priority away from Britain to the United States. Relations between Jamaica and the United States, Canada, and Britain remained generally friendly. Tensions arose occasionally, however, over the dominance of foreign firms in the Jamaican economy in the 1970s, continuing colonial patterns of trade, racial antagonism, emigration of well-educated Jamaicans to the United States, and the nation's ambivalent attitude toward the United States as a global power.
Jamaica's foreign policy orientation shifted again under Michael Manley, who decided that Jamaicans, in order to solve their economic problems, needed to break out of their traditional reliance on the United States and the Commonwealth of Nations. Jamaican-United States relations were strained after the Manley government established diplomatic relations with Cuba in late 1972, at a time when a majority of the Organization of American States (OAS) had voted against such recognition. In July 1973, the Manley government declared the United States ambassador, who was a political appointee, persona non grata; the ambassador had claimed before a congressional committee that he had made a "deal" with Manley, promising American support of Manley's candidacy in the 1972 elections in exchange for his promise not to nationalize the bauxite industry. Also contributing to strained relations were the Manley government's imposition in mid-1974 of a production levy on companies producing bauxite in Jamaica and its move to acquire 51- percent control of the industry (see Role of Government, this ch.); however, subsequent negotiations largely overcame these issues. In the late 1970s, Jamaican-United States relations were aggravated further by Manley's anti-United States rhetoric in Third World forums, his government's close relations with Cuba, his staunch support for Cuban interventionism in Africa, and his defense of the placement of Soviet combat troops in Cuban bases.
After becoming prime minister in 1980, Seaga reversed Jamaica's pro-Cuban, Third World-oriented foreign policy and began close, cooperative relations with the United States administration of President Ronald Reagan. Seaga was the first foreign leader to visit Reagan following the latter's inauguration in January 1981. A Stone Poll conducted that month indicated that 85 percent of the Jamaican electorate supported Seaga's close ties to Reagan. That year United States aid to Jamaica increased fivefold; it averaged more than US$125 million a year during the 1981-86 period, but was cut by 40 percent in 1987 (see External Sector, this ch.). The Reagan administration made Jamaica the fulcrum of its Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI), a program that Seaga helped to inspire (see Appendix D). Seaga met periodically with Reagan and other senior United States government officials, during 1980-87, and in April 1982, Reagan became the first United States President to visit Jamaica. In addition to its pro-CBI stance (see The Economy, this ch.), Jamaica adopted pro-United States positions on Grenada and relations with Cuba. The Seaga government favored a return to principles of dètente in hopes of ensuring the security of small states, and firmly supported nuclear weapons reductions with adequate verification. The Seaga government has disagreed strongly with the United States, however, on two issues in particular: South Africa and the Law of the Sea Treaty. Jamaica, example, disputed territorial water boundaries recognized by the United States.
Jamaica's international horizons remained limited mainly to the United States, Canada, and Britain, with the principal exception of the 1970s, when Manley's government maintained close relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba. Although twenty-seven countries had missions in Kingston in 1985, Jamaica maintained a minimal diplomatic presence in foreign capitals. Even its most important missions abroad--in London, Washington, Ottawa, and at the UN--were kept small. Jamaican ambassadors usually were accredited concurrently to several countries.
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Relations with Communist Countries
Jamaica had no formal relations with any communist state until Manley's government opened ties with the Soviet Union, Cuba, and China in 1972. The Manley government later developed diplomatic ties with Eastern European countries. In addition to his ideological sympathies with the socialist world, Manley sought new relationships of trade, technical assistance, loans, and direct aid from communist countries. He made his first visit to the Soviet Union in April 1979. While there, he signed a long-term agreement for Jamaican aluminum exports, as well as joint accords on sea navigation and fisheries. In addition, Moscow granted Jamaica a long-term loan to finance the purchase of Soviet goods. Manley also signed trade agreements with Hungary and Yugoslavia and established diplomatic and commercial relations with Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).
Manley's government developed particularly close relations with Cuba during the late 1970s. Manley visited Cuba in July 1975 and sent a PNP delegation to the First Congress of the Cuban Communist Party in Havana that December. Cuban President Fidel Castro reciprocated Manley's visit by going to Jamaica in October 1977. Numerous Jamaicans, including members of the Manley government, were sent to Cuba for ideological indoctrination and paramilitary training as members of "brigadista" groups. According to the State Department, by 1980 nearly 500 Cubans were working in Jamaica.
Having made Jamaica's relations with Cuba a major issue during the 1980 election campaign, Seaga, in his first official act as prime minister, terminated the "brigadista" program with Cuba in January 1981. He also expelled most of the Cubans, including Ambassador Armando Ulises Estrada, identified by the State Department as a Cuban intelligence operative. Although the Seaga government stopped short of severing diplomatic ties with Cuba at that time and allowed a few Cuban Embassy officials to remain, it broke diplomatic relations with Cuba on October 29, 1981, in an unprecedented move of major significance in Jamaica's foreign relations. Havana's refusal to extradite three Jamaicans wanted on murder and other charges served as an apparent pretext. In a speech to Parliament on November 1, 1983, Seaga announced the expulsion of a Cuban journalist and four Soviet diplomats, whom he identified as operatives of the Committee for State Security (KGB), for espionage and conspiracy to murder a protocol officer at the Jamaican Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Jamaican-Cuban relations have remained severed under Seaga's government.
The Seaga government has maintained correct but limited relations, mainly of an economic nature, with other communist governments, mostly with the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and China. The Soviet Union and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) have maintained embassies in Kingston. Under Seaga Jamaica has not had any military relations with communist countries.
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Relations with Latin American and Caribbean Countries
Jamaica joined the OAS in 1969 in an effort to overcome the tradition of mutual indifference between the English-speaking Caribbean and the Hispanic countries. It and Mexico were the only countries to speak out in OAS meetings in the early 1970s in favor of normalization of relations with Cuba. In addition, Jamaica made a number of exchanges and agreements with Hispanic countries in the 1970s, particularly with Mexico and Venezuela; it also established a shipping line with seven Latin American countries. Jamaica was one of the signatories to the treaty establishing the Latin American Economic System (Sistema Economica Latino Americana--SELA) in 1975 and has been an active member of the IDB. Jamaica supported Panama in the Panama Canal dispute with the United States in the 1970s, and in 1986 the Seaga government sought and received assistance from Puerto Rico, with which it signed a trade agreement. Jamaica's closest non-English-speaking neighbors in the Greater Antilles--Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic--were not a significant factor in its foreign policy, with the exception of Cuba during the Manley administrations (1972-80). Jamaica did, however, play a key role in negotiating the exit of President-for- Life Jean-Claude Duvalier from Haiti in late 1986.
The Seaga government's position on the Central American crisis has been that it can best be resolved on the basis of peace initiatives introduced by the Contadora Group, which initially consisted of Panama, Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela, whose representatives first met on the Panamanian island of Contadora in January 1983 to address the problems of Central America. The Contadora negotiating process later expanded to include five Central American countries. Jamaican relations with Nicaragua were not nearly as controversial as those with Cuba. Jamaica's deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs and foreign trade received the first ambassador of Nicaragua to Jamaica on September 19, 1984. Seaga's government has been concerned, however, about the authoritarian nature of the Sandinista regime.
Jamaica has been an active member of the Commonwealth of Nations. It hosted a conference of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in 1964 and became the first Caribbean country to host a Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference in 1975. Jamaica's relations with other Commonwealth Caribbean members have been determined more by the nation's incorporation in the British West Indies than by geography. Jamaica has preferred to cooperate more with these members than with its closer Hispanic neighbors; the Manley government's close relations with Cuba in the 1970s were an exception. An advocate of regional economic integration with the other English-speaking Caribbean countries, Jamaica in 1968 joined the Caribbean Free Trade Association (Carifta). On July 4, 1973, Carifta merged with Caricom, formed by Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, and Guyana. Jamaica also joined several institutions associated with Caricom, including the Caribbean Development Bank, Caribbean Examinations Council, Caribbean Investment Corporation, Caribbean Meteorological Council, Council of Legal Education, and the Regional Shipping Council.
Jamaica's diplomatic ties with the Commonwealth Caribbean increased during Seaga's administration. For example, having supported the right of the Belizean people to self-determination and independence, Jamaica welcomed Belize's independence, which was granted on September 21, 1981. The Seaga government declared its solidarity with Belize in the event of an armed attack against it and opened diplomatic relations with Belize in late October 1984. Jamaica also developed closer ties to the Eastern Caribbean microstates. Jamaican-Trinidadian ties, which had long been relatively close, increased. In return for a visit to Jamaica by Prime Minister George Chambers in November 1985, Seaga visited Trinidad and Tobago on March 1-4, 1986.
Jamaica was not close to all of the Commonwealth Caribbean members, however. Jamaica's relations with the Cayman Islands were poor. The islands were close when they were ruled, along with the Turks and Caicos Islands, under the same protectorate from the midnineteenth century to 1962. They drifted apart, however, after Jamaica received independence. As Jamaica suffered financial hardships as an independent state, the Cayman Islands prospered as a tax haven and banking center. In 1985 Jamaica reportedly had a negative image in the Cayman Islands because of Jamaican higglers (street vendors), marijiana, and marriages of convenience entered into by Jamaicans seeking residency status in the Cayman Islands.
Although Jamaica avoided any formal political or military integration with the other Commonwealth Caribbean islands, it actively sought regional cooperation in these areas in the 1980s. At a meeting of regional prime ministers and other high government officials held in Kingston in January 1986, Seaga fulfilled a longheld dream by forming a conservative regional organization called the Caribbean Democratic Union (CDU) to provide a forum for exchange of views on political matters of a regional and international nature. A regional affiliate of the International Democratic Union (IDU), the CDU included the ruling centrist parties of seven other Caribbean countries: Belize, Dominica, Grenada, St. Christopher (St. Kitts)-Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Montserrat. The prime minister of Bermuda attended the inaugural meeting as an observer. Seaga, who was elected CDU chairman, described the organization as an attempt to revive a regional political alliance similar to the West Indies Federation (1958-62).
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Other Third World Relations
After independence Jamaica's foreign policy increasingly emphasized the nation's connection with Africa and issues such as colonialism, racism, and South Africa's apartheid system. These concerns reflected the African ethnic origin of about three-fourth of Jamaica's population. In recognition of the political importance of the Rastafarians, who actually constituted less than 5 percent of the Jamaican population, the government of Prime Minister Shearer hosted a state visit by Ethiopia's Selassi I on April 2, 1966. Jamaica opened low-level diplomatic relations with black African states in 1968, but established an embassy only in Ethiopia. Shearer and Manley, the leader of the opposition, made extended tours of Africa in 1969, including visits to Addis Ababa. In the early 1970s, Jamaica opened resident missions in Algeria and Nigeria.
Jamaica's UN voting in the 1960s reflected its pro-African stances on four issues: Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Namibia, African territories under Portuguese administration, and apartheid in South Africa. Since independence Jamaica's voting record on these issues has closely followed that of other Commonwealth Caribbean and other nonwhite states. Until 1973 Jamaica gave only verbal and moral support to the anti-apartheid and -colonial causes. That year, however, Prime Minister Manley visited several African countries on his way to the Nonaligned Movement (NAM) summit conference in Algiers and pledged material support for guerrillas seeking to overthrow the white-dominated regime in Southern Rhodesia. In 1976 Jamaica signed the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. The Seaga government continued to support UN resolutions and actions against apartheid and for the independence of Namibia, rejecting the view that Namibia's independence must be conditioned on the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola.
Jamaica, which had become a full member of the NAM by the time of the Belgrade Conference in 1968, began playing a prominent role in that organization after Manley became prime minister in 1972. Saying he was trying to find a "third way" between capitalism and communism, Manley emphasized nationalism and railed against what he called United States imperialism. He headed a high-level Jamaican delegation to the NAM conference in Algiers in 1973, traveling to the meeting by airplane with Fidel Castro. In addition to its leading role in establishing the IBA early 1974, Jamaica was involved in the international negotiations that led to the signing of the Lomé Convention in early 1975. A Jamaican delegation also played a key coordinating role in promoting a "new international economic order" at the 1976 UN Conference on Trade and Development.
Seaga's government continued the nation's nonaligned status on key political and economic issues before the UN. Jamaica generally continued to vote with the positions of the NAM. For example, in 1986 Foreign Minister Shearer advocated a comprehensive settlement of the problem in the Middle East and the right of the Palestinian peoples to a homeland. He also called for Israel to pull back to its 1967 borders, but, at the same time, stressed the right of the Jewish state to exist. The Seaga government advocated the UN as the best forum for negotiating a solution to Middle Eastern conflict. Although Seaga expanded his nation's relations with Third World countries in the 1980s, he lowered its profile as an advocate of NAM causes.
In addition to participating in the UN, Jamaica has participated actively in international institutions such as the World Bank, IMF, General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), Group of 77, EEC, IBA, Intelsat and the International Seabed Authority (ISA), which made Kingston its headquarters.
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NATIONAL SECURITY
During its long history as a British colony, Jamaica looked to London for its defense and security needs. Unlike many Hispanic countries of Latin America, including nearby Cuba and the Dominican Republic, Jamaica remained immune from foreign military intervention while under British protection. Jamaica reciprocated by supporting Britian's war efforts. As a member of the British West Indies, Jamaica participated in World War I by sending over 10,000 men to the front.
With the outbreak of World War II, the United States became the recognized protector of the British West Indies, acquiring a ninety-nine-year lease for base rights in Jamaica and other islands under the Lend-Lease or Bases-for-Destroyers Agreement of 1941 (see The Strategic Setting, ch 7.). Jamaica also became a part of North Atlantic defense preparations, hosting United States naval and air bases. Many volunteers from Jamaica joined the various services, particularly the Royal Air Force; the Jamaica Contingent of the First Battalion of the Caribbean Regiment went overseas in May 1944. With the close of the war, the United States deactivated its bases in Jamaica, and Britain reassumed responsibility for Jamaica's defense and foreign affairs until independence. On August 7, 1962, the day after independence, Bustamante announced that the United States was free to establish a military base in Jamaica without any obligation to provide aid in return, but the offer was declined. Nevertheless, as the Castro regime consolidated its power in Cuba during the 1960s and the Soviet military presence in the region expanded, Jamaica's importance to United States national security interests grew.
Jamaica experienced no direct military threat during its first twenty-five years as an independent state; in the early 1980s, however, it had to deal with indirect threats to its national security interests posed by Cuban activities in Jamaica and by the events in Grenada. The Seaga government handled the issue of the Cuban presence in Jamaica by expelling the Cubans and breaking diplomatic relations (see Relations with Communist Countries, this ch.). Seaga's concerns about Grenada's undemocratic practices in the 1979-83 period and its close ties to Cuba and the Soviet Union also prompted his government to take a more active regional security role. Jamaica did not, however, sign the 1982 memorandum that established the Regional Security System (RSS) in the Eastern Caribbean (see Appendix E; A Regional Security System, ch. 7). When Maurice Bishop was overthrown and assassinated by the short-lived Coard-Austin regime in October 1983, the Seaga government's concern turned to alarm. Jamaica joined several members of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS--see Glossary) in an appeal for United States military intervention in Grenada to restore order and democracy, and then participated in a joint United States-Caribbean military operation in Grenada (see Current Strategic Considerations, ch. 7). Jamaica, whose population favored the joint military action by a 56-percent majority, also provided the largest Caribbean contingent (250 troops) to the peacekeeping force in Grenada from late October 1983 to June 1985. The Seaga government continued actively to support security cooperation among the Commonwealth Caribbean islands by having Jamaican troops participate in regional military exercises, such as "Operation Exotic Palm" in September 1985. In addition, Jamaica cooperated with the United States and RSS-member states on regional security matters, by holding joint military and narcotics interdiction exercises and by offering some training and technical assistance to the Eastern Caribbean.
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The Public Security Forces
Jamaica has endorsed measures to ensure security of the Western Hemisphere but has not participated in any formal defense agreements. Despite its proximity to Cuba, Jamaica has not felt a need to maintain a large defense force, perhaps because it has always had powerful protectors. Even with the support of the police, the armed forces would be totally inadequate to resist foreign military aggression, especially from Cuba. Like the other English-speaking island-nations in the Caribbean, Jamaica would have to rely on the assistance of a powerful ally in the event of outside military aggression. The nation's combined forces also would be inadequate to control a significant internal disturbance. Jamaica has not been threatened by military or mercenary invasion or internal insurgencies, however, in part because of its powerful allies, but also because of its traditional political stability and its relative isolation from mainland countries and the more vulnerable Eastern Caribbean microstates.
In 1987 the Ministry of National Security (which had included the Justice portfolio during 1974-86) remained responsible for maintaining the internal and external security of the island, but it no longer administered justice. In 1987 this ministry oversaw the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF), Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), and the correctional programs and institutions. The Ministry of National Security's 1986 budget allocation was approximately US$69 million for recurrent expenses and US$6.5 million for capital works, accounting for 5.9 percent of the central government's budget. In 1984 US$38 million of this ministry's budget was allocated to the police force. The JDF budget declined in the 1980s for budgetary reasons; it was approximately US$20 million in 1986, as compared with US$25,430,000 in 1985 and US$38,880,000 in 1984.
Although traditionally apolitical, both the JDF and JCF were subject to governmental policy directives. Their commanders--the JCF commissioner and the JDF chief of staff, respectively--were responsible for managing their respective forces on a day-to-day basis. JCF and JDF commanders explained in December 1986 that the minister of national security could make suggestions or recommendations to either force, and the JDF or JCF high commands could consider them as they saw fit.
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The Armed Forces
In late 1987, Jamaica's combined armed forces, the JDF, consisted of a ground force supported by small air and coastal patrol contingents. Although not strictly an army, the JDF is referred to as such in common parlance. Its mission was to defend the country against aggression and to support the JCF, as required, in maintaining essential services and in protecting the civil population in the event of a disaster. The JDF also was responsible for coastal surveillance and air-sea rescue operations. In addition, the JDF has supported antidrug operations; since early 1982, JDF Eradication Units have helped to destroy marijuana crops and illegal air strips. Since the minister of defence portfolio was dropped in the 1970s, the JDF has been under the minister of national security. As in the other West Indian islands, the prime minister is the de facto head of the defense forces.
The predominant element in the JDF is the Jamaica Regiment, whose origins go back to the West India Regiment that was founded in 1798 and used by the British in the American War of Independence and various colonial campaigns in West Africa, as well as during World War I. The West India Regiment formed the core of the defense force of the short-lived West Indies Federation in 1959-61. After the federation disintegrated, the First and Third Battalions became the First and Third Battalions of the Jamaica Regiment. In 1962 the Jamaica Local Forces (JLF) was formed as one of the conditions under which Jamaica was granted independence. The JLF soon evolved into the JDF, but the First and Third Battalions of the JDF retained their historical designations.
In the mid-1980s, the JDF's predominant ground force element consisted of the First Battalion and a support and service battalion. The First Battalion included the Air Wing and Coast Guard, as well as a headquarters unit at Up Park Camp in Kingston, an engineering unit, and other supporting units. Detachments were stationed at the JDF camp in a facility first established by the British in the mid-nineteenth century at Newcastle, high in the Blue Mountains, and in "outstations" located in various parts of the island. The Third Battalion, consisting of part-time volunteers, constituted the ground force reserve, called the Jamaica National Reserve (JNR). Commanded by a lieutenant colonel, the JNR, which had 1,030 members in 1986, consisted of a ground force supported by air and coastal patrol elements organized into an infantry battalion.
Once the sole operational element of the former Ministry of Defence, the JDF, together with the police, was placed under the Ministry of National Security and Justice in 1974. The prime minister commanded the JDF through a major general. In 1986 the JDF had a complement of 1,780 officers and men. In addition, a civilian staff of about 360 included functional and administrative personnel.
By 1986 JDF ground force equipment was almost exclusively of British origin and included the SLR rifle, Sterling submachinegun, general-purpose machinegun, and twelve 81mm mortars. The army also had a small number of Ferret scout cars, supplemented by fifteen Cadillac-Gage V-150 Commando wheeled armored personnel carriers received from the United States.
The JDF's Air Wing, which was formed in July 1963, was headquartered at Up Park Camp, with a base at Montego Bay. Expanded and trained successively by the British Army Air Corps and Canadian Air Force personnel, the Air Wing had a strength of 250 officers and personnel in 1986. It was equipped for ground force liaison, search and rescue, police cooperation, survey, and transport missions. In 1986 its inventory included predominantly Americanmade aircraft, but also some Canadian, British, and French models: five Bell 206A, three Bell 212, and two Aerospatiale Alouette II light helicopters; two of the Britten-Norman Islander light transports of the short-take-off-and-landing (STOL) type; one each of DHC-6 Beech KingAir 90 and Beech Duke DHC-6 light transport models; and four Cessnas, including two 185s and two light transports: the 210 and 337. The aircraft were well adapted for use in areas of the hilly interior of the country, where there were few landing fields.
The JDF's coastal patrol element, the Coast Guard, was established at independence. In 1986 it had a complement of about 150 active personnel, including 18 officers and 115 petty officers and personnel under the command of an officer with the rank of lieutenant commander. It had an additional sixteen personnel in its reserve and thirty in other ranks. Equipped with predominantly American-made equipment, the Coast Guard modernized its three 60- ton patrol vessels in 1972-73 and augmented them in 1974 with the 103-ton multi-purpose transport/patrol vessel HMJS Fort Charles. The Coast Guard operated from its base at Port Royal in cooperation with the harbormasters and the harbor patrol of the JCF. A Coast Guard unit was responsible for maritime antismuggling operations. The JDF's Coast Guard was too small, however, to patrol adequately the island's 1,022 kilometer-long coastline.
Following independence, Jamaica retained a British training mission for the three JDF components; all JDF officers were trained in Britain. Canada later took over Air Wing training functions. All Coast Guard officers received training at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. The United States Navy also has provided training assistance for Coast Guard officers and other ranks. After a fouryear lapse (mid-1980 to 1984), the British Army and JDF resumed their program of reciprocal defense exercises in June 1984. In addition, a group of 140 JDF soldiers was flown to Dover for a month of training. Jamaica signed a new military training agreement with Canada in 1985, replacing the one in effect since 1965. Over 250 JDF candidates trained in Canada during the 1965-85 period.
The United States began providing some military assistance to Jamaica's small defense force after Jamaica requested training and equipment assistance in 1963. Jamaica's military aid allocation, however, was zero in the last year of the Manley government in 1980, partically because of the government's close ties to Cuba. The United States resumed military assistance to Jamaica after Seaga took office, and in 1986 assistance totaled US$8.275 million, mostly for enhancing the JDF's narcotics interdiction and marijuana eradication capabilities. Jamaica was scheduled to receive a total of US$6.3 million in United States military assistance in 1988, including US$300,000 in International Military Education and Training (IMET) funds. Under the Seaga government, the JDF had received heavy equipment, including jeeps, trucks, and patrol boats from the United States.
Jamaica's military recruitment was entirely voluntary. Young men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four who had left school at the secondary and postsecondary levels were required to register for two years of public service work as members of the National Youth Service. This service could be performed in the JDF, an all-volunteer force, and prospective registrants were encouraged to consider a service in the JDF with an eye toward making it a career. JDF personnel were eligible for retirement under the Government Pensions Scheme.
The Jamaica Combined Cadet Force (JCCF) was a uniformed training contingent founded in 1943. Funds provided by the prime minister's office covered expenses for training, uniforms, equipment, travel and subsistence, and pay of salaried personnel. JCCF operations were substantially expanded in 1972, and in 1973 the organization consisted of some 2,000 officers and cadets in 33 post-primary school units in all parts of the island, together with an independent unit and a small headquarters unit at Up Park Camp. Its mission was to provide youths with training, discipline, good citizenship, and leadership. Although not a part of the JDF, the JCCF provided a substantial reservoir of young men who had undergone some military training.
Apart from its training assignments, the JDF was active principally in support of the larger Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF). A mobile reserve unit, the JDF was called on when a local police detachment was too small to deal with an incident such as an unauthorized strike or a riot. It also furnished manpower for patrols during civil unrest, search-and-rescue missions, and searches for firearms or marijuana. The Air Wing gave mobility to ground detachments, and the Coast Guard acted in cooperation with harbormasters and the police harbor patrol.
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The Police
The major police force is the JCF, which was established in 1867 shortly after the institution of crown colony government. Generally viewed as poorly trained, underpaid, and overburdened, the JCF generated the country's most persistent human rights concerns in the 1980s. Police auxiliary reserve units included the 1,500-member Island Special Constabulary Force (ISCF), which assisted the JCF in large operations; the 1,700-member Special District Constables, who served as local police in smaller localities when called on to assist the JCF or ISCF; Police Mobile Reserve Division (PMRD), whose duties included controlling or suppressing civil disturbances, providing security for parades and rallies, and conducting raids related to marijuana and the Firearms Act; Parish Special Constables, who served in the regular force on special occasions; and Authorized Persons, with limited police powers. Larger cities had municipal police forces, but their functions were restricted to enforcing municipal regulations and guarding municipal property. A senior superintendent of police headed the JCF's narcotics unit, which has been the lead agency for combatting drug trafficking since 1974.
The JCF was reorganized in 1984. At that time, a Police Staff College was created to provide higher training and education. The school was located at Fort Charles near Port Royal at the end of the Palisades Peninsula. New recruits, called cadets, were required to take written, oral, and medical tests before being admitted to the school. They received an eighteen-week basic course in police law, self-defense, first aid, and drill. Usually, they were sent to a rural post for ten months of on-the-job training and returned to the school for a six-week senior recruit course before becoming constables. More advanced training was provided for constables, corporals, and sergeants in such areas as pathology, sociology, and political science. Completion of the advanced courses was required before being considered for promotion to a higher rank. Some officers and men received advanced training in other countries.
In 1986 the JCF had an authorized strength of 6,317 and an actual strength of 5,601, which was 3.9 percent below that of 1985. This figure represented a ratio of police to population of about 1 to 400. Despite an attrition rate in 1986 of 6.1 percent, the recruitment rate was 7.5 percent below that of 1985. The continuing decline in the number of recruits was attributed largely to attempts by the JCF high command to attract a higher level of recruits by raising educational and mental aptitude criteria. In 1985 only 181 of 5,418 applicants were accepted for training. Applicants had to meet height, age, and literacy requirements, as well as produce a certificate of character from a magistrate or person of similar standing and pass a medical examination. Constables were enrolled for five years, and spent the first six months in a probationary capacity. Reasons for the JCF's failure to attract qualified individuals included relatively low salaries, the high levels of risk facing the police, and significant reductions in the size of the police cadet corps, a major supplier of recruits in previous years.
In late 1987, the JCF comprised four branches: Administration, Services, Security, and Special Operations. Each was commanded by an assistant commissioner, with the exception of the Security Branch, which was headed by a deputy commissioner. In addition to providing physical security to visiting dignitaries, the Special Operations Branch was responsible for the Criminal Investigation Department; Police Marine Division (in charge of harbor patrol), located in Newport; and the PMRD, which was quartered at Harman Barracks, and made up of a Mounted Troop, the Patrol Section, Traffic Department (including the Radio Patrol Division), and the Women Police. Under a December 1984 reorganization, the Special Operations Branch also was tasked to combat hardcore criminal groups and individuals who target the security forces.
The JCF's Security Branch handled immigration and passport services. The Police Marine Division's harbor police operated in Kingston Harbour and a few other seaports, enforcing harbor regulations and carrying out rescues, as well as fighting crime on the waterfront. Customs Protective Officers (CPOs) checked the documents of goods going in or out of the customs areas at Kingston Harbour, called Western Terminals, and at the two international airports.
Under the Suppression of Crime (Special Provisions) Act, in effect since 1974, the JDF was authorized to conduct joint operations with the JCF in order to maintain the peace. The Act permitted the JDF to cordon off any area on the island while police conducted house-to-house searches within those areas without warrants. Police forces relied on the Act extensively, and detention of suspects "reasonably" suspected of having committed a crime occurred regularly without a warrant, particularly in poor neighborhoods. Almost all detainees were released eventually without being charged.
Until the 1970s, the police generally had a good reputation and were supported by the mass media and the middle and upper classes. The rural peasant and urban lower classes, however, generally mistrusted the police. Public esteem for police morality was lowered in the 1970s by increased newspaper reportage of allegations of police improprieties and brutality. An Americas Watch report documented an average of 217 police killings a year from 1979 to 1986, representing one-half of the country's total killings. The Jamaica Council of Human Rights reported that police killed 289 persons in 1984. Adverse public opinion resulting from charges of human rights abuses by the police prompted Seaga to reshuffle his cabinet on October 17, 1986. In the process, Winston Spaulding was dropped as minister of national security and justice. The public also increasingly questioned police competence as a result of the growing number of unsolved crimes in the country, particularly those involving members of political parties.
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The Penal System
To combat an increase in crime, judges began imposing stiffer prison sentences and an average of twelve death sentences annually. Penal administration also was improved in the mid-1970s. The JCF, JDF, and other elements in the legal and penal systems were placed under the Ministry of National Security and Justice, which had been formed in 1974. Although the judicial portfolio had been separated from the ministry in 1986 when it became the Ministry of National Security, it retained responsibility for Jamaica's prisons, Probation Department, and reform schools through its Department of Correctional Services. That department also operated a training school for prison guards, called wardens, in methods of supervision and correctional control of prison inmates and their rehabilitation.
Prison conditions also posed a problem in Jamaica. The parliamentary ombudsman reported in 1986 that prison conditions had deteriorated further since 1984, when he had released a study detailing the deplorable facilities and degrading conditions. Overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, inadequate food, and limited medical care for inmates were the principal problems in the nation's two maximum security prisons and in its many police stations, where conditions were generally the worst. A Corrections Bill was introduced in Parliament in 1984 to cope with the problem, but little had resulted by the mid-1980s because of lack of funds for expanding prison facilities.
In 1986 Jamaica had eight correctional centers: the General Penitentiary, St. Catherine District Prison, South Camp Rehabilitation Centre (also known as the Gun Court prison), Fort Augusta, Tamarind Farm, New Broughton, and St. Jago Women's Centre. In 1986 these prisons had a total inmate population of 3,452 (rated capacity: 2,861). Female admissions increase stood at 129, a 10- percent increase over the 1985 figure. Approximately 32 percent (954) of the 1985 total were incarcerated for major offenses such as murder, robbery, and felonious wounding, and the rest for minor offenses such as larceny. Over 70 percent of those imprisoned were under the age of thirty, whereas 47 percent were twenty-four years or younger. The average age group for females ranged from thirty to thirty-nine, whereas males averaged twenty to twenty-four.
The country's principal maximum security prison, the General Penitentiary, was located in downtown Kingston near the harbor. Designed for 800 inmates, it had long been overcrowded and was scheduled for eventual replacement by a newer building. In 1986 it held 1,601 prisoners, including habitual male adult offenders serving long sentences. The St. Catherine District Prison, another maximum security institution for habitual male offenders serving short sentences, held 1,056 prisoners in 1986. The facility served as the site of death row, where condemned persons awaited execution. Projects for improving the General Penitentiary and other correctional centers were undertaken in 1985, and others were being planned.
The South Camp Rehabilitation Centre housed 320 prisoners in 1986. Open to public view, the steel-meshed, gun-turreted facility was located in central Kingston. Fort Augusta Prison, located in a fortress built in 1970 to guard Kingston Harbour, was used as a minimum security facility; it held 105 inmates in 1986. Selected persons who had responded favorably to liberal treatment were transferred there from the General Penitentiary to finish their sentences. Tamarind Farm Prison held 134 first offenders and some selected recidivists serving short sentences. The Richmond Farm Prison was a maximum security prison housing first offenders serving long-term sentences; its inmate population in 1986 was 119. New Broughton and St. Jago Women's Centre had 12 and 104 prisoners, respectively, in 1986. Adults held in remand were placed either in police lock-ups distributed nationwide or in the adult remand centers administered by the Correctional Department. The number of persons admitted to the adult remand centers in 1985 declined by 3 to 1,274.
In order to reduce the rate of recidivism, the Legal Reform Division drafted the Criminal Records (Rehabilitation of Offenders) Bill and the Corrections Act, which was enacted on December 2, 1985. Under this act, the label "prisoner" was changed to "inmate"; "prison officer" to "correctional officer"; and "prison" to "adult correctional centre." The act also established gainful employment programs for inmates, pre-release and after-care hostels for the rehabilitation and social integration of inmates, and provisions governing the standards and inspection of correctional institutions. In addition, it permitted temporary absences of inmates from correctional institutions for specified periods.
Young persons under the age of seventeen charged with committing offenses were generally, but not always, tried before a juvenile court. While awaiting trial, which may occur up to three months after the charge, they were detained in "places of safety" where they received classroom and vocational training. Places of safety may be operated by the government or charitable and religious institutions or hospitals. If found guilty by the court, juveniles could be placed on probation or sentenced either to reform schools, called juvenile correctional centers (approved schools), or to a children's home. Juveniles receiving custodial sentences were committed to four special rehabilitation institutions: Hilltop (maximum security) in St. Ann and Rio Cobre Community School (open) in St. Catherine, for boys; Armadale (open) in St. Ann and Lower Esher (open) in St. Mary, for girls. In 1985 these facilities, with a combined capacity of 318 (218 males and 100 females), held 230. The only juvenile remand center, the St. Andrew Remand Center for Boys, was located in Stony Hill, St. Andrew, where thirty-five were held in remand in 1985.
Most of the work of the Probation Department consisted of juvenile cases. Generally, at least one-third of all juvenile court cases ended with the offender being placed on probation. Probably fewer than 20 percent of the adults sentenced every year were placed on probation. Each parish had a Parish Probation Committee to oversee the work of individual probation officers, who were assigned to every court in the country.
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Incidence of Crime
Jamaican national security concerns under the Seaga government have focused on countering three growing threats: crimes involving firearms, gunrunning, and narcotics production and trafficking. Although violent crime had become a major social problem, none of these phenomena appeared to pose a major threat to Jamaica's national security in 1987. The government was mainly concerned about the adverse impact that violent crime against tourists could have on the tourism industry, on which the island was dependent economically.
The number of reported crimes, especially crimes of violence involving firearms, began growing during the 1960s and escalated sharply in the early 1970s. According to the Planning Institute of Jamaica, however, in 1986 the number of reported crimes decreased for the first time in several years, going from 53,066 in 1985 to 49,511 in 1986. Although violent crimes against individuals declined from 21,123 in 1985 to 19,301 in 1986, reported murders increased slightly, going from 434 in 1985 to 449 in 1986. Shootings declined in 1986 by about 100; there were 1,050 reported cases during the year. The majority of murders in 1986 (46 percent) resulted from domestic disputes. Other murders in 1986 were perpetrated under circumstances that included the following: 18.7 percent in association with other crimes such as robberies; 10.9 percent in revenge or reprisals (as compared with 6.9 percent in 1985); and 3.8 percent in drug-related activities (as compared with 2.3 percent in 1985).
Violent confrontations between police and crime suspects were frequent, and criminals often possessed firearms. Breaches of the Firearm Act (illegal possession) continued to increase in the early 1980s, from 842 reported cases in 1982 to 1,312 in 1985; incidents declined to 1,258 in 1986. Security forces recovered more than 2,700 firearms, including 126 M-16 and 7 M-14 assault rifles, in 1977-84.
In the 1980s, violent crime continued to be most intense in the Kingston-Saint Andrew district, which usually accounted for about half of all reported cases. In general, law enforcement agencies did not adequately control crime. Beginning in the late 1970s, mob killings or lynching of thieves increased, especially in rural areas. In 1982, 226 cases were reported; prosecution of vigilantes was rare.
Much of the increased crime, particularly petty theft and pilferage, was attributed to poverty and unemployment. Gasoline price rises in January 1985 led to riots that left ten dead and fifteen shot and wounded. Although Seaga dismissed the protests as the work of extremists, 53 percent of Jamaicans and 66 percent of Kingston residents who were polled sympathized with the rioters. Violent crimes against tourists in the north coast increased dramatically during the 1986-87 tourist seasons, with most incidents involving armed robberies.
An increasing number of crimes, including major offenses such as breaking and entering, larceny, and felonious wounding, were being committed by juveniles or teenagers (those between the ages of fourteen and seventeen). The number of juveniles brought before the courts in 1985 increased by 9 percent to 2,599. Those in need of care or protection (1,004) comprised the largest group brought before the courts, whereas those charged with wounding and assault (571) and larceny (516) comprised the other categories. Some juveniles were tried in regular courts rather than in juvenile courts.
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Political Violence
Although the political system has enjoyed a tradition of stability, a darker side of politics--endemic violence--intruded increasingly on public consciousness after the mid-1970s. Violence has characterized Jamaican politics since the slavery era and has surfaced at times of protest or repression. Almost every general or municipal election since independence has been preceded and followed by gang warfare, street outbreaks, and occasional assassinations.
The first use of guns in Jamaican politics reportedly took place in Seaga's West Kingston constituency in the months before the 1967 election between Seaga and PNP politician Dudley Thompson. The political tension heightened after Walter Rodney, a Guyanese university professor and Black Power movement advocate (see Glossary), was banned from Jamaica in October 1968. The government of Prime Minister Shearer suppressed the riots that ensued.
The level of political violence escalated dramatically in the 1976 election campaign, in which 162 persons were killed. The political disorder and rising crime caused the Manley government to declare a state of emergency that remained in effect until June 1977. Some observers blamed the JLP for the sharply increased political violence in the late 1970s, but others attributed it to PNP militants linked to Cuba. More likely, extremist elements of the three parties--PNP, JLP, and WPJ--all bore some responsibility for the increase. These parties are all known to have employed and armed thugs and criminals at election time. In 1979-80 Estrada, Cubia's Ambassador to Jamaica, aided an extreme left PNP faction in smuggling an estimated 600 M-16 assault rifles into Jamaica from Cuba. Some of these automatic weapons originated from former United States stockpiles in Vietnam; others may have been obtained from black-market sources by JLP extremists. Their use during the ninemonth 1980 election campaign escalated the level of violence in Jamaican politics. Rampant electoral violence during that period left 745 persons dead, including one member of Parliament.
In contrast with 1980, the 1983 and 1986 elections were generally peaceful. Whereas political and gang feuds had accounted for 19 percent of all murders in 1984, this percentage declined to 12.2 in 1986. At the inauguration of the new Parliament in January 1984, however, Manley led about 7,000 PNP supporters in demonstrations against Seaga's snap elections, resulting in 4 persons killed and 160 arrested. A municipal election code of conduct between the JLP and PNP minimized violence in the local elections of July 29, 1986. Nevertheless, there were some reports of beatings of electoral clerks, the seizure of polling stations by armed men, harassment of voters, and a mob killing.
By raising popular expectations and not fulfilling them, Jamaica's political parties and governmental leaders were partly responsible for the alienation and protest that surfaced in violence. Until Manley's tenure at Jamaica House in the 1970s, each party in power had followed cautious policies designed to maintain the status quo, so as not to lose domestic or foreign sources of funds. In addition, on several occasions governments formed by each party attempted to use repression to control violence, thereby setting up a chain reaction. The legal system was not effective in dealing with politically motivated violence because suspects, victims, and witnesses remained silent and because police were reluctant to get involved in political disputes. In the interests of security, governments resorted to armed police, martial law, or emergency powers, practices which sometimes resulted in violent protests.
The nation's political violence derives from the socioeconomic structure of Jamaican politics, that is, social stratification along racial and economic class lines. Increasing political, social, and economic polarization in Jamaica has contributed to both political and criminal violence. According to Stone, it is rooted in what he has called bullyism, or a propensity to resort to violence, that is deeply ingrained in Jamaican culture. For example, since 1960s armed gangs have "ruled" some ghetto areas of Kingston, using violence and intimidation against anyone suspected of sympathizing with a rival party. These and other gangs, consisting of hardened criminals and numbering up to 3,000 members, have been blamed by observers for much of the street and electoral violence in Kingston since the late 1960s. Some groups believed or were led to believe that their sectional interests, such as race identity, would not be served by either of the two political parties and that violent expression of demands was an alternate form of participation in the national political process. Violence also erupted occasionally as a result of trade union rivalries, which were underscored by the affiliation of the major unions with political parties. In a speech given at the PNP annual conference on September 20, 1987, Manley made an emotional call for an end to "political tribalism" in Jamaica.
No known armed terrorist or guerrilla group was active in Jamaica in the first half of 1987, but there had been occasional subversive incidents on the island in the 1980s and several armed groups had been linked to such activities. The Seaga government tied several subversive and criminal activities in Jamaica to Cuban-trained extremists. In a speech to Parliament in 1984, for example, Spaulding, then minister of national security and justice, blamed the violence against policemen on the Hot Steppers Gang. The minister described gang members as "specially trained and highly motivated persons who constitute a special threat to Jamaica's security," and he linked the group to drug trafficking and Cuba, which, he alleged, provided guerrilla training for gang members. Spaulding also charged that the gang had political links with people in the top echelons of the WPJ, as well as with PNP activists. Although security forces dispersed the gang from its camps in the Wareika Hills in 1984, in 1985-87 there were several armed attacks by unidentified groups against police stations, from which weapons were stolen. The Seaga government blamed the WPJ for several bank robberies.\
As of 1987, Jamaica had not been subjected to any significant acts of international terrorism. Nevertheless, the country has expressed concern about the potential threat of terrorism and has subscribed to the principal international antiterrorism conventions. In a UN speech in October 1986, Foreign Minister Shearer called for a strengthened international law against hostage-taking, as well as consideration of a UN convention on the suppression of international terrorism. The Suppression of Crime Act empowers the government to combat terrorism. At the request of the Seaga government, the House of Representatives has extended this Act at six-month intervals.
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Narcotics Crime
According to the New York Times, reporting on information from a United States and British law enforcement conference held in Miami in July 1987, a widespread Jamaican criminal organization consisting of about twenty gangs of illegal aliens was operating in fifteen metropolitan areas in the United States and trafficking in firearms and drugs between Florida and Jamaica. A United States government official described the gangs as the fastest growing and most violent of the criminal groups operating in the United States. Between 400 and 500 homicides in the United States in the previous two years were attributed to these self-described "posses." Seaga government officials have stated publicly that many of the guns in Jamaica were flown in by narcotics traffickers from Florida and other Gulf Coast locations and landed on illegal airstrips or deserted roads.
Marijuana production in Jamaica, especially western Jamaica, has increased dramatically since the mid-1960s, even though production of the drug has been illegal since 1913. As the major illicit drug activity on the island, cannabis cultivation has been of particular concern to the Seaga government. By the mid-1980s, an estimated 20 percent or less of the marijuana produced in Jamaica was consumed locally; the rest was smuggled to other countries. Jamaica was supplying an estimated 10 to 15 percent of the total amount of marijuana smuggled into the United States each year. Marijuana traffickers included members of every ethnic group in Jamaica, as well as "United States citizens," according to the minister of public utilities and transport. Moreover, the minister reported in late 1984 that more than 50 percent of the people involved in marijuana also were involved in cocaine. Jamaica was rapidly becoming a major cocaine transshipment point for Latin American suppliers to the North American market.
The Jamaican government has been firmly committed to reducing marijuana cultivation. In 1972 a special JCF narcotics squad began combatting the growing use and illegal export of drugs. After three police members were killed and mutilated by marijuana growers in December 1983, the government began cracking down harder on cultivators by stepping up eradication and confiscation efforts. Although limited by a lack of equipment and other resources, the thirty-three-member squad and JDF Eradication Units carried out many successful operations against marijuana traffickers in the mid-1980s. The security forces also have attempted to damage illegal air strips with explosives (twenty-three damaged in 1986), but in many cases they were quickly rebuilt by the traffickers.
In the mid-1980s, the United States urged Jamaica to undertake large-scale eradication using "slash-and-burn" methods and chemical weed-killers, but these proposals met with growing resistance in a country where marijuana is referred to as "the poor man's friend." In May 1985, the Jamaican government asked for increased United States assistance in combatting drug production and in assisting farmers to introduce alternative high-yield crops. Seaga also announced in December 1986 that the country would begin herbicidal backpack-spraying in order to avoid jeopardizing United States economic aid to Jamaica. The 1986 eradication figures of 2,756 hectares were a record, but that year smugglers exported twice as much marijuana to the United States as normal. In the mid-1980s, the United States increased aid to Jamaica's narcotics interdiction and eradication programs, earmarking more than US$2.6 million in 1986 for this purpose, as compared with US$45,000 in 1985.
The narcotics squad has cooperated with United States law enforcement officers. Jamaican authorities have alerted United States authorities about vessels and small aircraft suspected of carrying narcotics directly from Jamaica or in transit from other Latin American countries. The United States Coast Guard has stopped and searched those carriers whenever possible. Commercial airlines flying between the United States and Jamaica incurred millions of dollars in fines in the 1985-87 period as a result of substantial quantities of marijuana being discovered aboard their aircraft.
In 1986 a total of 4,123 persons, including 782 foreigners (608 Americans, 78 Canadians, and 50 Britons) were arrested for various breaches under Jamaica's Dangerous Drugs Act. Measures used by the security forces to reduce the extent of trafficking included road blocks, surveillance of air and sea craft, and the use of trained dogs at international airports and sea terminals.
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The Criminal Justice System
Jamaica's legal system, including much of the substantive and procedural criminal law, derives from Britain's legal code. The relevant statutes are those in force at the time of independence, including a number enacted by the British Parliament in London, and those subsequently enacted by the Jamaican Parliament. As in all countries with roots in the English system, a body of case law governs the interpretation and application of statutes; some issues may be resolved by common law.
The Jamaican Penal Code and the Prevention of Crime Law of 1963 established minimum penalties for certain crimes. Minor crimes are prosecuted in the courts of petty session, headed by justices of the peace, who are also called lay magistrates. The Resident Magistrate's Court and the Supreme Court hear both civil and criminal cases (see Government and Politics, this ch.). The more serious criminal cases usually are tried in the circuit courts of the Supreme Court. All circuit court trials are jury trials; the jury is composed of seven persons except for homicide cases, which require twelve jurors. A majority of jurors may render verdicts, except in capital cases in which unanimity is required. The resident magistrate, petty sessions, and gun courts hold trials without juries. Most trials, with the exception of the Gun Court, are open to the public.
The Gun Court was established on April 2, 1974, as a combination court and prison to combat the increase in violent crimes involving firearms. It operates as an extension of the Supreme Court and deals with crimes involving guns. The Gun Court Act allowed detention and prosecution of subjects and authorized a single resident magistrate's court to issue prison sentences to those convicted of illegal possession of firearms or ammunition. In July 1975, the Privy Council in London ruled that the Gun Court Act was constitutional. The Privy Council held, however, that mandatory sentences of indefinite detention with hard labor could not legally be imposed by the resident magistrate presiding over the Gun Court. The 1983 Gun Court Amendment Act enabled the resident magistrate courts in all parishes except Kingston, St. Andrew, and St. Catherine to decide whether a particular charge would be dealt with in the Resident Magistrate's Court or should be referred to the Gun Court.
If the conviction occurs in a resident magistrate's court, the accused party may often obtain bail while his case is being appealed. If the conviction is in either a circuit court or the gun court, there is no bail during appeal proceedings, except under certain special considerations. Appeals to the Privy Council in London can take up to a year. No bail is permitted in gun court cases even before conviction; all persons convicted receive an indeterminate jail sentence of up to life, with release given only when these cases are reviewed by the Privy Council. The 1983 Gun Court Amendment Act eliminated the previously mandatory sentence of life imprisonment. It also removed to juvenile courts the hundreds of cases involving youths under the age of fourteen, who had been given life prison sentences before its enactment; many were paroled. In addition, the Amendment Act allowed resident magistrates greater leeway to set trial dates, grant bail, etc., and gave magistrates outside the Kingston area discretion in referring non-capital offense cases to the Gun Court. The number of new gun cases filed in 1986 rose by 30 percent to 536.
The Suppression of Crime Act limits the period a person can be detained before being charged formally with a crime to "a reasonable time." The detainee must be brought before a court "without delay," or within twenty-four hours; in the past, however, some detainees have been held for two weeks or longer without being brought before a judicial officer. Individuals charged with a criminal offense may have access to legal representation.
Before independence the attorney general was in charge of prosecutions, but his court functions were dropped when he was made chief legal adviser of the government. Since then the official responsible for criminal prosecutions has been the director of public prosecutions, whose office may bring all legal proceedings except a court-martial against anyone in any court, take over criminal proceedings initiated by another authority, or terminate legal proceedings at any stage.
The Jamaican Penal Code provides for capital punishment, which was made applicable again in 1982, after a period in which executions were suspended while a parliamentary committee considered whether or not the death penalty should be abolished. Jamaica resorted to executions more frequently than did other Commonwealth Caribbean countries. In the late 1960s, about twelve executions were carried out annually. Between August 1980 and February 1987, fifty-four convicted murderers were executed, including fourteen in 1986. An extensive appeals system exists, however, and condemned persons may appeal to the governor general, the Jamaican Privy Council, and the Privy Council in London.
Amnesty International has criticized Jamaican policy on capital punishment, claiming that it contravenes the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified by Jamaica in 1975. In early 1987, 170 prisoners in Jamaica remained under sentence of death. Two Jamaicans who had been facing the death sentence for more than eight years won a further stay of execution in April 1987 after the UN Committee on Human Rights in Geneva ruled that a final appeal was admissible. As a result, the Jamaican government was required to show that the delays in judicial process were not a denial of the men's rights under the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Strict laws exist against the use of marijuana. As of 1897, possession led to a minimum jail sentence of eighteen months. Jamaica's Dangerous Drug Act of April 15, 1948, provides penalties for various offenses related to producing, using, and trafficking in drugs. Minor marijuana cases are dealt with by a resident magistrate's court, whereas serious offenses are adjudicated in a circuit court following indictment by the former. Circuit court judges have considerable judicial discretion regarding sentences.
An Act to Amend the Dangerous Drug Act was adopted in March 1987. It gave jurisdiction to the resident magistrate courts over offenses pertaining to cocaine and other hard drugs. It also increased the maximum penalties that may be imposed under the act by a circuit court, or on summary conviction in a resident magistrate's court. In the case of marijuana, it provided for the imposition by the courts of minimum fines based on the weight of the marijuana in the convicted person's possession. Under the amendment, a person convicted on a marijuana import or export offense by a circuit court may be sentenced to a fine of not less than US$500 for each 28 grams or to imprisonment not exceeding 25 years, or both. On conviction before a resident magistrate's court, a person is liable to a fine of not less than US$300 per 28 grams and a maximum of 3 years imprisonment, or both. Cultivating, selling, or transporting convictions in a circuit court may result in a fine of no less than US$200 per 28 grams and up to 25 years imprisonment, or both. A fine of no less than US$100 per 28 grams or imprisonment up to 5 years may be imposed for a conviction by a circuit court on a marijuana possession offense. There are slightly lower penalties for conviction in a resident magistrate's court.
The Civil Aviation (Control of Aerodromes and Airstrips) Regulations of November 1984 provided for increases in penalties for offenses related to illegal or unauthorized operation of aircraft, including confiscation of the aircraft. The act was amended in December 1984 to provide for additional restrictions against illegal air activity associated with narcotics trafficking. Under the act, penalties for landing and taking off in aircraft at locations other than licensed aerodromes and airports included a fine of up to US$100,000 or three times the value of the aircraft and its engine, accessories, and equipment, whichever is greater, or up to five years in prison. The same penalty applied to constructing an unlicensed aerodrome or preparing land for use as an airstrip. In order to facilitate United States efforts to prosecute narcotics conspiracies, the Treaty on Extradition Between the United States of America and the Government of Jamaica was signed at Kingston on June 14, 1983.
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Clinton V. Black's The Story of Jamaica: From Prehistory to the Present and Samuel J. Hurwitz's Jamaica: A Historical Portrait offer helpful overviews of Jamaica's history. A valuable description of the educational system can be found in Millicent Whyte's A Short History of Education in Jamaica.
The debate over the experience of the Jamaican economy in the postwar era has been quite prolific. Some of the better arguments include Owen Jefferson's The Post-War Economic Development of Jamaica, Norman Girvan's Foreign Capital and Underdevelopment in Jamaica, and various books and articles from the Caribbean's best-known economist, Sir Arthur Lewis. Mahmood Ali Ayub's Made in Jamaica: The Development of the Manufacturing Sector is rich in its analysis of not only the growth in manufacturing but also the use of industrial incentives and the dilemmas of import substitution policies. Michael Kaufman's analysis of the Manley experiment Jamaica under Manley - Dilemmas of Socialism and Democracy is well documented and insightful. Robert E. Looney's The Jamaican Economy in the 1980's: Economic Decline and Structural Adjustment offers an objective and quantitative analysis of the Jamaican economy. The most comprehensive statistical and analytical publication is the annual Economic and Social Survey of Jamaica, published by the Planning Institute of Jamaica. The best data available in Jamaica are located at the Statistical Institute of Jamaica, and the best analytical works can be found at the Institute for Social and Economic Research on the campus of the University of the West Indies in Mona, and through the institute's journal, Social and Economic Studies. Relatively few up-to-date books on Jamaica's governmental system, politics, foreign relations, and military and police forces are available. A useful and informative primer is John D. Forbes' Jamaica: Managing Political and Economic Change. For serious students of Jamaican politics, Carl Stone's Democracy and Clientelism in Jamaica is essential reading. His numerous articles in academic journals and in the Daily Gleaner, as well as his frequent polls, provide useful insights on Jamaican politics. Other useful articles include Anthony Payne's "Jamaica and Cuba 1959-86: A Caribbean Pas De Deux" and "From Michael with Love: The Nature of Socialism in Jamaica"; Carlene J. Edie's "Domestic Politics and External Relations in Jamaica under Michael Manley, 1972-1980"; and Michael Massing's "The Jamaica Experiment". (For further information and complete citations, see Bibliography.)
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CHAPTER 3. TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
COUNTRY PROFILE
TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
Official Name: Trinidad and Tobago
Term for Citizens: Trinidadians(s), Tobagonian(s)
Capital: Port-of-Spain
Political Status: Independent, 1962
Form of Government: Parliamentary democracy and republic
GEOGRAPHY
Size: 5,128 sq. km.
Topography: Mountains and plains
Climate: Maritime tropical, high humidity
POPULATION
Total estimated in 1986: 1,199,000
Annual growth rate (in percentage) in 1986: 2.0
Life expectancy at birth in 1986: 68.9
Adult literacy rate (in percentage) in 1984: 95
Language: English
Ethnic groups: Black (40 percent), East Indian (40 percent); remainder several other groups
Religion: Roman Catholic (33 percent), Hindu (25 percent), Anglican (15 percent), Muslim (6 percent); remainder other Protestant denominations and African sects
ECONOMY
Currency: Trinidad and Tobago dollar (TT$)
Exchange rate: TT$3.60=US$1.00
Gross domestic product (GDP) in 1985: US$7.7 billion
Per capita GDP in 1985: US$6,000
Distribution of GDP (in percentage) in 1985:
Petroleum 24
Public administration 15
Construction 11
Transportation and communications 10
Financial services and real estate 10
Distributive trade 9
Manufacturing 7
Agriculture 3
Electricity and water 2
Other 9
NATIONAL SECURITY
Armed forces personnel: 2,130
Paramilitary personnel: 0
Police: 3,000
TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO, an oil-rich nation, is nearer to mainland South America than any of the other Commonwealth Caribbean island countries. It has had one of the highest per capita incomes in the Caribbean and is a producer of oil, steel, and petrochemicals. Most of its population is descended from African slaves and East Indian indentured laborers, and the two-island nation has a rich and varied culture within which different races have lived together in relative harmony.
Trinidad and Tobago became independent in 1962, one of the first states of the Commonwealth Caribbean to do so. Transition to independence was quite smooth. The People's National Movement (PNM), a mainly black, middle-class party with Eric Williams as its leader, came to power in 1956, led the country into independence, and remained in office for thirty years. Trinidad and Tobago's independent history has been a relatively peaceful continuum, broken only in 1970 by Black Power movement (see Glossary) riots that threatened the government. There have been regular, free, contested elections every five years, and there have been no coups- -or attempted coups--since independence. After Williams's death in 1981, the PNM continued to rule until 1986. That year the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR), a recently formed coalition party led by A.N.R. Robinson, won the election by a large majority. The NAR differed from the PNM in that it included many East Indians among both leaders and members. In 1987 the NAR's greatest challenge was the revitalization of an economy depressed by the fall in world oil prices.
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HISTORICAL SETTING
Colonial Heritage
Spain received the island of Trinidad as part of the fief of Christopher Columbus and controlled the island for nearly 300 years (see The European Settlements, ch. 1). The Spaniards subdued and enslaved the native Caribs and Arawaks but until the late 1700s paid little attention to Trinidad as other ventures were more profitable. As a result, Trinidad's population was only 2,763 in 1783. Amerindians composed 74 percent of that total (2,032). Although African slaves were first imported in 1517, they constituted only 11 percent of the population (310) in 1783. Indeed, the slave total was barely larger than the 295 free nonwhites who had emigrated from other islands. The remaining 126 Trinidadians were white.
In an effort to make Trinidad more profitable, the Spanish opened the island to immigration in 1776 and allowed Roman Catholic planters from other Eastern Caribbean islands to establish sugar plantations. Because French Catholic planters on the islands that had been granted to Britain after the Seven Years' War (1756-63) were subject to religious and political discrimination, they were attracted by Spanish promises of land grants and tax concessions in Trinidad. In seeking immigrants, Trinidad linked landownership to the ownership of slaves; the more slaves, the more land. Land grants were also given to free nonwhite immigrants, and all landed immigrants were offered citizenship rights after five years. As a result of this new policy, thousands of French planters and their slaves emigrated to the island in the 1780s and 1790s. By 1797 the demographic structure of the island had changed completely. The population had expanded dramatically to 17,718, about 56 percent of whom were slaves. There were also 4,476 free nonwhites and 2,151 whites. The Amerindian community declined by 50 percent from the level achieved 14 years earlier and represented only 6 percent of the total population. As of 1797, there were hundreds of sugar, coffee, and cotton plantations producing for export (see Growth and Structure of the Economy, this ch.).
The British, who were at war with Spain and France, conquered Trinidad in 1797 during the Caribbean unrest that followed the French Revolution. Trinidad was formally ceded to Britain in 1802. After debating how to govern the new island, the British finally decided on crown colony (see Glossary) rule under a governor (see Political Traditions, ch. 1). As this was occurring, investors and colonists expanded the sugar plantations to take advantage of high sugar prices. During the first five years of British rule, the number of sugar estates increased markedly. The British census of 1803 counted 28,000 people, a tenfold increase in 20 years; of these, there were 20,464 slaves, 5,275 free nonwhites, and 2,261 whites. About half of the free people and most of the slaves spoke French, and the rest of the population was divided between Spanish and English speakers. The Amerindian population continued to decline, with several hundred members scattered in rural settlements.
A decade after slavery was abolished in 1834, the British government gave permission for the colonies to import indentured labor from India to work on the plantations. Throughout the remainder of the century, Trinidad's population growth came primarily from East Indian laborers. By 1871 there were 27,425 East Indians, approximately 22 percent of the population of Trinidad and Tobago; by 1911 that figure had grown to 110,911, or about 33 percent of all residents of the islands. Small numbers of Chinese, Portuguese, and other groups also immigrated, contributing to the multiracial character of the island.
Tobago, Robinson Crusoe's island, changed hands twenty-two times between 1626 and 1814, as various European countries tried to secure possession of its safe anchorages. Its population in 1791 was 15,102, about 94 percent of whom were slaves. The British finally acquired Tobago permanently in 1814, after several previous attempts to conquer the island. The British continued to govern through a local assembly that they had installed during an earlier conquest of Tobago in 1763. Under this arrangement, political control rested with a number of British civil servants and the assembly, elected by a tiny electorate and supported by the sugar plantations.
By the late nineteenth century, Trinidad and Tobago were no longer profitable colonies because sugar was being produced more cheaply elsewhere. In 1889 the British government united Trinidad and Tobago in an effort to economize on government expenses and to solve the economic problems of the islands. In 1898 Tobago became a ward of Trinidad, thereby losing its local assembly, which was not reinstated until 1980. Subsequently, Britain ruled Trinidad and Tobago as a crown colony until 1956. Between 1889 and 1924, the government of Trinidad and Tobago included, in addition to its governor, a wholly appointed Legislative Council. The first step toward self-government was taken in 1925 when there were limited elections to the Legislative Council and to the governor's Executive Council.
As noted, the populations of both Trinidad and Tobago owe their main origins to massive eighteenth- and nineteenth-century importations of African slaves and East Indian indentured servants who were needed to work on the sugar plantations. When the sugar industry declined, unemployment became widespread. In the early twentieth century, oil replaced sugar as the major export; oil is a capital-intensive industry, however, and it did not solve the problem of unemployment in Trinidad and Tobago.
The labor movement began to assume importance after World War I, spurred by the return of Trinidadians who had fought with the British armed forces. The most important of these was Captain Andrew Arthur Cipriani, a white man of Corsican descent, who had served as commander of the West India Regiment. Cipriani resented the fact that the West India Regiment was not allowed to fight for the British Empire but instead was sent to Egypt, where its forces served as labor battalions. Upon his return to Trinidad, Cipriani organized the masses, giving them national pride and teaching them to oppose colonialism. He revitalized the Trinidad Workingman's Association, which was renamed the Trinidad Labour Party (TLP) in 1934; by 1936 the TLP had 125,000 members. Because Cipriani was white, he was able to transcend the black-East Indian racial dichotomy and became known as "the champion of the barefoot man." In the first elections held for the Legislative Council, Cipriani was elected in 1925 and remained a member until his death in 1945. He was also elected mayor of Port-of-Spain eight times. In these two offices, Cipriani struggled against racial discrimination and fought for constitutional reform, universal suffrage, and better rights for workers.
During the 1930s, Trinidad and Tobago suffered severely from the effects of the worldwide depression. Living standards deteriorated as workers were laid off from the plantations. The situation was aggravated by unjust labor practices. Wages on the sugar estates and in the oil fields were kept low while shareholder dividends in London rose. Workers moved away from Cipriani's moderate policies, and the labor movement became radicalized. Between 1934 and 1937, there were strikes and riots on the sugar plantations and in the oil fields throughout the Caribbean. Tubal Uriah Butler, a black Grenadian who had been expelled from the TLP for extremism, emerged as the leader of the black oil workers, who were the best paid and most politicized laborers on the island. Butler called for racial unity among black workers and organized strikes, heading a highly personalized party that was known as the "Butler Party." Although the British labeled Butler as a "fanatical Negro" during the 1930s, Trinidad and Tobago has since recognized him as a man who sensitized the common man to the evils of colonialism. The strikes in Trinidad and Tobago in the 1930s included many incidents of racial violence, culminating in twelve deaths and over fifty injuries in 1937.
The British responded by deploying marines from Barbados and appointing two successive commissions from London to investigate the causes of the riots in Trinidad and Tobago and elsewhere in the Caribbean. Both commissions noted the low wages and poor working conditions throughout the region. The second commission, chaired by Lord Moyne, which completed its report in 1940, was very critical of the British colonial system in the Caribbean and recommended housing construction, agricultural diversification, more representative government for the islands, and promotion of a middle class in preparation for eventual self-government (see Labor Organizations, ch. 1). Although the Moyne Commission's findings were not made public until after World War II, some of its recommendations were put into effect under the Colonial Development Welfare Act of 1940.
The British government had encouraged the formation of trade unions in the belief that labor organization would prevent labor unrest. After the islandwide strikes of 1937, Butler succeeded Cipriani as the leader of the Trinidadian labor movement. Butler's associate, Adrian Cola Rienzi, an East Indian, organized both oil workers under the Oilfield Workers Trade Union (OWTU) and the sugar workers under the All Trinidad Sugar Estates and Factory Workers Trade Union (ATSE/FWTU). Railroad and construction workers were organized under the Federated Workers Trade Union (FWTU), and a number of smaller unions were also formed.
Following a recommendation of the Moyne Commission, government was made more representative. Constitutional reform in 1925 had provided for six elected members on the twenty-five-member Legislative Council, but franchise restrictions limited voters in the 1925 election to 6 percent of the population. In April 1941, the number of unofficial elected members on the Legislative Council and the governor's Executive Council was increased, giving the elected members a majority. Some of these elected members were included on official committees and the governor's Executive Council, although the governor retained ultimate authority and veto power.
Trinidad and Tobago had been profoundly changed by World War II. For the first time since British annexation, the islands were widely exposed to another foreign influence. The 1941 Lend-Lease Agreement (also called the Bases-for-Destroyers Agreement) between the United States and Britain included ninety-nine-year leases of the deepwater harbor at Chaguaramas to the United States Navy and of Waller Field in central Trinidad to the United States Army (see Historical Background, ch. 7). Many United States and Canadian personnel were brought in to work at these bases, and thousands of Trinidadian workers were employed at the bases for higher wages under better conditions than ever before (see Patterns of Development, this ch.). As a result, by the end of World War II many Trinidadians had become used to a higher standard of living and wanted to keep it.
Although the election in 1946 was the first under universal adult suffrage, less than half of the registered voters cast ballots. The trade unions did not consolidate into a cohesive political entity. The labor vote fragmented, as blacks and East Indians divided and as racial slurs became a common part of campaign rhetoric. Butler, who had been detained throughout the war, was released from jail and campaigned for the Legislative Council, but he was defeated by Albert Gomes, a trade unionist of Portuguese descent. The labor movement was unable to gain a majority because no leader could command the widespread support of both the blacks and the East Indians, a pattern that continued throughout the ensuing forty years. The middle class--comprising primarily blacks and a smaller number of East Indians--came to dominate the political scene in the crucial elections that led to independence and has dominated it into the late 1980s.
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The Road to Independence
Self-government was gradually increased between 1946 and 1961. The elections of those years served as dress rehearsals for independence. From 1946 to 1955, East Indians were the best organized group in Trinidad and Tobago. Comprising only 35 percent of the population in 1946, East Indians united under the leadership of Bhadese S. Maraj and won almost half of the elected seats in the Legislative Council that year. They used their votes to finally secure the legal right to marry and bury their dead according to Hindu and Muslim rites. Since their arrival in Trinidad more than a century earlier, many East Indians had been classified as illegitimate because no unregistered marriage was considered legal for inheritance purposes (see Population, this ch.).
Political parties remained fragmented in the 1950 elections, often united, as one historian has put it, by nothing more than a "common passion for the spoils of office." One hundred forty-one candidates contested the eighteen elected seats; the single largest bloc of seats on the Legislative Council, eight out of twenty-six, was captured by an alliance between the "Butler party" and East Indian leaders. The British and the non-East Indians disliked the idea of having Butler and his supporters come to power. After the 1950 elections, none of Butler's party was chosen to sit on the Executive Council, the result being that Gomes practically ran the government. Within the restrictions of his semiautonomous government, Gomes tried to function as a mediator between capital and labor and to placate both Britain and Trinidad and Tobago. He had limited success, however, and constitutional reform was postponed until 1955, with elections scheduled for the following year.
The election of 1956 was a watershed in the political history of Trinidad and Tobago because it determined the course of the country for the next thirty years. Gomes was defeated, and a new party, the PNM, captured power and held it until 1986. PNM founder and leader Eric Williams dominated the political scene from 1956 until his death in 1981.
Williams was a native Trinidadian who had spent almost twenty years abroad in Britain and the United States. Although his family was poor, Williams had received a very good education by winning scholarships and had earned a First Class Oxford degree. Williams's academic prowess set the standard for all Trinidadian and Tobagonian political leaders through the late 1980s. While at Oxford, Williams was subjected to a number of racial slights, and he also suffered racial discrimination when he worked for the Anglo-American Caribbean Commission in Washington from 1948 to 1955, an organization created in 1942 to coordinate nonmilitary aspects of Caribbean policy. This discrimination profoundly and permanently affected Williams's outlook on life and his politics. He was a man who knew himself to be the intellectual equal of educated people in Oxford, London, and Washington, and he felt that he had not been accepted as such. Returning to Trinidad in 1948 as deputy chairman of the Caribbean Research Council of the Caribbean Commission, Williams involved himself in cultural, educational, and semipolitical activities and became well known. In 1956 he decided to enter politics and to forge a political party, the PNM. The PNM was created by middle-class professionals who were mainly but not exclusively black. Its main support came from the black community, although Williams was also able to attract some whites and East Indians. Williams gained a public constituency and a loyal party following by giving lectures in Woodford Square, the main square in Port-of-Spain. His lectures on Caribbean history were attended by thousands, and Williams dubbed his interaction with the crowd the "University of Woodford Square." There, Williams forged a bond with the people that remained even after his death twenty-five years later. Trinidadians and Tobagonians were proud to have an international scholar in their midst. Williams gave them a sense of national pride and confidence that no other leader was able to match. His charisma and leadership made it possible for the new party to be independent from existing political organizations and from trade unions. PNM leaders envisioned a broad national party that would include both capitalists and laborers; as such, the PNM rejected socialism and welcomed foreign capital investment.
In 1956 the PNM captured a slim majority of the elected seats on the Legislative Council, receiving 39.8 percent of the vote. Butler's party and the TLP split the other elected seats. The British governor, who controlled five appointed seats and two ex officio seats, filled all of these with men acceptable to the PNM, thus giving the party a majority of two-thirds of the seats on the Legislative Council. Because the British were hoping to form a Caribbean federation or, as a second choice, to launch viable independent countries, it was in their interest to support Williams, a charismatic black leader who had founded a strong political party, who had international education and experience, and who believed in private domestic and foreign investment. Between 1956 and 1962, Williams consolidated his political base and resolved two very important issues: federation and the presence of United States bases on Trinidad.
The British created the West Indies Federation in 1958 (see The West Indies Federation, 1958-62, ch. 1). During the next four years, ten island nations, including Trinidad and Tobago, struggled without success to make the federation into a government. The two largest nations, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica, had opposing viewpoints; the former advocated a strong federal government, whereas the latter preferred a weak one. Trinidad and Tobago, with its higher revenues, preferred representation according to financial contribution, but Jamaica, with its larger population, wanted representation on the basis of population. After Jamaica decided in September 1961 not to remain in the federation, Trinidad and Tobago also decided to withdraw, not wishing to be tied to eight small, poor islands for which it would be financially responsible.
Despite British assistance and Williams's compelling personality, the PNM did not come to rule Trinidad and Tobago without a struggle. A number of groups united to oppose the PNM in the federal elections of 1958 under the banner of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP). Once again the campaign became racially polarized as the DLP attracted the East Indians and others who were left out of the PNM. East Indians felt that their cultural identity might be lost if they did not stick together. They deplored marriages between East Indians and blacks because they considered blacks to have an inferior culture; East Indians were less hostile to marriage with whites. Blacks also looked with disfavor on intermarriage with East Indians. In addition, the East Indian middle class, which had developed since the 1930s, seemed a threat to the black professionals who were just coming to power. The PNM increased its share of the vote in the 1958 election from 39.8 percent in 1956 to 48 percent; under the winner-take-all rule, however, the DLP won 6 out of the 10 contested seats, as most of its victories came in regions where the East Indians had an absolute majority.
The PNM profited from the British policy of granting increasing self-government to Trinidad and Tobago. Cabinet government was introduced in 1959; the governor no longer presided over the Executive Council, the Executive Council and chief minister were renamed cabinet and premier (the preindependence title for prime minister), and the premier had the right to appoint and dismiss ministers. Mindful of their slim majority in the 1958 election, leaders of the PNM determined to take whatever steps were necessary to win the 1961 elections and be the party to lead Trinidad and Tobago into independence. The PNM decided to use the issue of the withdrawal of the United States from the Chaguaramas naval base to unify the country and solidify their political base. In party rallies in 1959 and 1960, Williams pledged that the flag of Trinidad and Tobago would soon fly over Chaguaramas and also declared independence from Britain and from the 1941 Lend-Lease Agreement. Declaring that Trinidad and Tobago would not exchange British colonialism for the United States variety, Williams rallied the country to oust the United States from Chaguaramas and to support the PNM.
When British prime minister Harold Macmillan came to Port-of- Spain in June 1960, he told the government that he would open negotiations between the United States and Trinidad and Tobago over Chaguaramas and that Trinidad and Tobago would be an independent participant. Once Williams had won the right for Trinidad and Tobago to sit as an equal with the United States and Britain, he cooled his anti-imperialist rhetoric. The December 1960 settlement gave the United States base rights until 1977 and granted Trinidad and Tobago US$30 million in United States Agency for International Development assistance money for road construction and education. The United States closed the naval base at Chaguaramas in 1967 (see Historical Background, ch. 7).
The December 1961 election, which took place after Trinidad and Tobago had received full internal self-government within the West Indies Federation, was characterized by the use of racial appeals by both parties. The main constitutional issue was the drawing of electoral boundaries. Pro-PNM supporters broke up DLP meetings with stone throwing; the government declared a state of emergency in areas where East Indians were a majority and called out 3,000 police. The PNM used its government leadership to good advantage. Responding to labor unrest, Williams gave all government workers a raise during the summer of 1961. He also moved politically to the right, purging some left-wing supporters who had been prominent in the Chaguaramas fight. The PNM profited from the fact that the DLP was not a unified party. Its leader, Maraj, had been ill, and younger East Indians felt that his lack of education was a liability when contrasted with Williams. During the DLP political infighting, the new generation of East Indian professionals chose R.N. Capildeo, a high-caste Hindu, to head the DLP. Although Capildeo was highly educated, a Ph.D. and a fully qualified barrister, he lacked Williams's ability to appeal to the masses. Eighty-eight percent of the voters turned out for the December 1961 election; in a vote that largely followed ethnic lines, Williams and the PNM won with 57 percent. Reflecting the ethnic split, Williams filled the twelve cabinet slots with eight blacks, two whites, and two East Indians--one Christian and one Muslim. Appointees for the newly created Senate followed similar lines. As Trinidad and Tobago faced independence, the black middle class was firmly in power.
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GEOGRAPHY
Trinidad and Tobago are the southernmost islands of the Lesser Antilles, located close to the South American continental shelf (see fig. 1). Trinidad lies 11 kilometers off the northeast coast of Venezuela and 130 kilometers south of the Grenadines. It is 60 kilometers long and 80 kilometers at its maximum breadth and comprises an area of 4,828 square kilometers. Trinidad appears rectangular in shape with three projecting peninsular corners. Tobago is located thirty kilometers northeast of Trinidad, from which it is separated by a channel thirty-seven kilometers wide. The island is 42 kilometers long and 13 kilometers wide, with a total area of 300 square kilometers. Tobago is cigar-shaped in appearance and has a northeast-southwest alignment.
Geologically, the islands are not part of the Antillean arc. Rather, Trinidad was once part of the South American mainland, and Tobago is part of a sunken mountain chain related to the continent. The islands are now separated from the continent of South America by the Gulf of Paria; a nineteen-kilometer-wide northern passage-- Dragon's Mouths; and a fourteen-kilometer-wide southern passage-- Serpent's Mouth (see fig. 6).
Trinidad is traversed by three distinct mountain ranges that are a continuation of the Venezuelan coastal cordillera. The Northern Range, an outlier of the Andes Mountains of Venezuela, consists of rugged hills that parallel the coast. This range rises into two peaks. The highest, El Cerro del Aripo, is 940 meters high; the other, El Tucuche, reaches 936 meters. The Central Range extends diagonally across the island and is a low-lying range with swampy areas rising to rolling hills; its maximum elevation is 325 meters. The Caroni Plain, composed of alluvial sediment, extends southward, separating the Northern Range and Central Range. The Southern Range consists of a broken line of hills with a maximum elevation of 305 meters.
There are numerous rivers and streams on the island of Trinidad; the most significant are the Ortoire River, fifty kilometers long, which extends eastward into the Atlantic, and the forty-kilometer-long Caroni River, reaching westward into the Gulf of Paria. Most of the soils of Trinidad are fertile, with the exception of the sandy and unstable terrain found in the southern part of the island.
Tobago is mountainous and dominated by the Main Ridge, which is 29 kilometers long with elevations up to 640 meters. There are deep, fertile valleys running north and south of the Main Ridge. The southwestern tip of the island has a coral platform. Although Tobago is volcanic in origin, there are no active volcanoes. Forestation covers 43 percent of the island. There are numerous rivers and streams, but flooding and erosion are less severe than in Trinidad. The coastline is indented with numerous bays, beaches, and narrow coastal plains.
Tobago has several small satellite islands. The largest of these, Little Tobago, is starfish shaped, hilly, and consists of 120 hectares of impenetrable vegetation.
Trinidad and Tobago, well within the tropics, both enjoy a generally pleasant maritime tropical climate influenced by the northeast trade winds. In Trinidad the annual mean temperature is 26°C, and the average maximum temperature is 33°C. The humidity is high, particularly during the rainy season, when it averages 85 to 87 percent. The island receives an average of 211 centimeters of rainfall per year, usually concentrated in the months of June through December, when brief, intense showers frequently occur. Precipitation is highest in the Northern Range, which may receive as much as 381 centimeters. During the dry season, drought plagues the island's central interior. Tobago's climate is similar to Trinidad's but slightly cooler. Its rainy season extends from June to December; the annual rainfall is 250 centimeters. The islands lie outside the hurricane belt; despite this, Hurricane Flora damaged Tobago in 1963, and Tropical Storm Alma hit Trinidad in 1974, causing damage before obtaining full strength.
Because it was once part of South America, Trinidad has an assortment of tropical vegetation and wildlife considerably more varied than that of most West Indian islands. Tobago has a generally similar but less varied assortment.
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POPULATION
In the 1980s, Trinidad and Tobago was ethnically diverse and was experiencing a renewed period of relatively rapid population growth. According to the 1980 national census, Trinidad and Tobago's population was 1,079,791; of that total, 96 percent lived on the island of Trinidad, predominantly on the west coast. Interim estimates by the national government in 1985 and 1986 placed the population at 1,176,000 and 1,199,000, respectively. Average annual population growth in the 1980s, adjusted for migration, was 1.5 percent; it was 1.6 percent in 1985 and 2 percent in 1986. Population density in 1986 was estimated at 234 people per square kilometer.
Trinidad and Tobago's population in the 1980s illustrated the society's diverse cultural influences acquired during the colonial period and included descendants of emigrants from Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Population growth in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was the result of colonial powers importing unskilled labor to work the plantations. This was initially accomplished with African slaves, who were later replaced by indentured servants from India (and to a lesser extent China) following emancipation.
Trinidad and Tobago was also a leading destination of intraregional migration. From 1870 until 1910, an estimated 65,000 workers migrated to Trinidad and Tobago from British possessions in the Windward Islands and in other regions, contributing to approximately one-third of total population growth. Immigration to Trinidad and Tobago decreased in the twentieth century because of the discontinuation of indentured servitude and the expansion of other regional economies; as a result, population growth slowed during the first third of the century.
After 1930 mortality rates were drastically reduced by improved health and sanitation facilities. This caused the annual population growth rate to surge to an average of nearly 3 percent until 1960, a level that was for the first time considered detrimental to social development. The first privately run health clinic was established in the late 1950s, and initial efforts to enact a comprehensive family planning program were enormously successful at reducing population growth. By 1967 a nationally funded family planning program had been organized under the Ministry of Health, and the National Population Council coordinated both private and public clinics. By the late 1970s, about 95 percent of the female population was aware of contraceptive alternatives, and average annual population growth was reduced to slightly above 1 percent. As contraception became commonly accepted, family size shrank from an average of six children in the 1950s to fewer than three in the early 1980s.
The dominant ethnic groups in the 1980s were those of African (referred to as blacks) and Indian (known as East Indians) descent; the 1980 census revealed that nearly 80 percent of the population was almost evenly split between the two groups. Only 1 percent of the population was classified as white, and the pure Chinese element represented no more than 0.5 percent of the population; the remainder comprised mixed racial and ethnic elements, including small numbers of Portuguese, Syrians, and Lebanese.
Blacks by and large have adopted the European way of life. Although East Indians considered themselves culturally superior, blacks maintained a slightly privileged position in society because of their earlier arrival. Status within this group was determined by the shade of one's skin. The lightest-toned blacks traditionally were associated with the elite members of the social hierarchy.
Although East Indians represented the largest nonblack element in contemporary society, they were still accorded an inferior status and maintained their own social and religious customs. In the 1980s, East Indians made some strides at becoming more influential members of society, including accession to ministerial positions in government. Nevertheless, complete interaction with blacks still had not occurred.
Ethnic and cultural characteristics remained complicated components of society in the 1980s. Although a stratified social structure was passed on from the British, the society was not defined strictly along class lines. Numerous studies have demonstrated that Trinidadians have consistently differentiated themselves and their place in society based on their ethnic affiliation. To the extent that well-defined economic class distinctions may be made, there was a distinct lack of cohesion within each class. Although the major ethnic groups were represented in all classes of society, an informal ranking was also common within each class. Generally, blacks attained a preferred position at all levels within the stratified class framework, which led to a disunity in class structure. For example, it was observed that the protests of 1970, which were designed to force change throughout society, were unable to unify black and East Indian elements. In fact, the failure of the Black Power movement, as it became known, to effect more sweeping reforms was attributed in part to an inability to mobilize other segments of the population (see Political Dynamics, this ch.). Although there has been little overt racial disharmony, social stratification remained as much a cultural phenomenon as a socioeconomic one.
Religious distinctions in society paralleled the diverse cultural influences. According to the 1980 census, 33 percent of the population considered themselves Roman Catholics, including a large portion of the black population. Early Spanish and French influences were the principal reasons for the preponderance of Catholic worship. The East Indian population contained both Hindus and Muslims, who represented 25 percent and 6 percent of the total population, respectively. The British influence was also noticeably present, with 15 percent of the population claiming membership in the Anglican Church. Other religious affiliations included the Baptist, Methodist, and Pentecostal churches and also non-Christian sects, such as Rada and Shango.
By the mid-1980s, the national government had identified three disturbing demographic trends: excessive population growth, regional migration imbalances, and a gradual shift in the population toward urban centers. High fertility rates, which were curtailed in the 1970s, appeared to be a problem again in the mid1980s . The increased number of births indicated that an annual population growth rate of between 1.5 and 2 percent was again a long-term possibility. Some researchers have theorized that fears that one of the two principal ethnic groups would attain numerical superiority over the other prodded both to procreate at higher levels. The detrimental effects of high birth rates motivated the government to redouble its birth control efforts through existing programs, primarily by increasing public awareness of the burden of excessively large families on both individuals and society.
Government concerns were also directed at mitigating the effects of regional migration imbalances. Immigration of unskilled workers had been a problem for decades. The 1980 census estimated that 17,000 foreign persons had entered Trinidad and Tobago since 1970, mostly from neighboring Caribbean countries. Furthermore, the United Nations suggested that this number might be as much as 50 percent short of the real total because of misleading reporting. Emigration of skilled workers has also been a problem. Although the government actively supported emigration of unskilled workers, it had not developed a policy to entice educated and trained personnel to remain on the island. The so-called "brain drain" was addressed through pleas to nationalism, particularly to those who completed training and education with government subsidies. This migration imbalance was considered a significant factor contributing to welfare and unemployment problems.
By the mid-1980s, Trinidad and Tobago had become an urbanized society with approximately one-half of the population living in or near cities; this number was expected to grow to 65 percent by the year 2000. Urban areas had expanded beyond the ability of local governments to provide essential services to all: in addition, overcrowding was already taxing the limits of existing physical infrastructure. The development of new, smaller urban groups centered on untapped oil fields was a popular policy alternative. The construction of so-called "petro-poles" was seen as a means of alleviating urban stress as well as a necessary condition for further development of the economy.
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EDUCATION
Until the twentieth century, education in Trinidad and Tobago was designed primarily to prepare the elite for study abroad and the eventual assumption of political and economic leadership roles in the society. With the exception of a few missionary schools, slaves were discouraged from attaining even minimal literacy skills. Educational opportunities did not expand greatly following emancipation; the first teacher-training program was not begun until 1852, and the first public secondary institution did not open its doors until 1925.
The public school program, which was modeled after the British system, took form in the twentieth century and eventually opened up avenues for upward mobility to all elements of society. The East Indian population, because of its lower socioeconomic status, was the last segment of society to benefit from education, but it eventually became known as one of the most academically motivated groups on the islands.
In addition to government-sponsored schools, private denominational institutions were created to pass on cultural and religious instruction, as well as traditional academic knowledge and skills. Public financial assistance to Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Muslim, and Hindu institutions eventually evolved into the modern education system of the 1980s, which incorporated schools that were both publicly and privately administered.
Under the authority of the Ministry of Education, the school system in the late 1980s consisted primarily of government and publicly assisted denominational schools. The former were administered and financed under public supervision, whereas the latter were privately controlled by religious groups, yet financed with public funds. Both maintained a similar curriculum and were free to all students who could pass the admission tests. Approximately 27 percent of all primary students attended government schools; the rest were enrolled in denominational programs, most of which were Roman Catholic.
Formal primary education commenced at age six, although many parents elected to send younger children to readily available kindergarten programs for one or two years prior to entering the school system; education was compulsory through age eleven. In the 1982-83 school year, virtually all school-age children were enrolled in one of the 467 primary institutions. At that time, there were approximately 7,500 teachers, who instructed nearly 167,000 primary students, providing a student to teacher ratio of 23 to 1.
Successful completion of primary school, as determined by a national examination, permitted students to pursue instruction at the secondary level; those who did not pass were allowed to continue primary education for an additional two years, enter a private secondary institution, or leave the school system. Junior secondary education was also available at government and assisted schools, of which there were a total of twenty-three in 1983. Total enrollment was approximately 39,000 pupils with a teaching staff of 1,400. The program consisted of three years of study in general academic subjects. Virtually all those who finished were advanced to the senior comprehensive program, which afforded an additional four years of more specialized academic or vocational instruction. There were 18 such schools in 1983, employing roughly 1,600 teachers and instructing approximately 22,000 students.
Numerous options were available during the secondary-school years in the late 1980s. In addition to academic programs, students could enter five-year technical education or teacher-training programs at the Point Fortin Vocational Center, John S. Donaldson Technical Institute, San Fernando Technical Institute, or one of the five teacher-training colleges. Instruction was offered in mechanical repair, clerical skills, construction, and education. The Eastern Caribbean Institute of Agriculture operated a two-year program that graduated approximately fifty students each year. Students who completed the full seven years of secondary academic training were eligible for further instruction at the university level.
The St. Augustine Campus of the University of the West Indies was the only local institution of higher eduction in Trinidad and Tobago in the 1980s. It offered both graduate and undergraduate programs in liberal arts, agriculture, science, engineering, and law. Total enrollment, including foreigners, was between 2,000 and 3,000 in the mid-1980s.
Although education was looked upon as a way of achieving upward mobility and was generally admired in Trinidadian society in the 1980s, the education system achieved only partial success in meeting the needs of society. Despite increases in the national literacy level from 74 percent in 1946 to 95 percent in 1984 and expanded efforts to develop both academic and vocational programs, employment statistics suggested that significant gaps still existed in the 1980s between formal education and the needs of a developing society.
In the mid-1980s, some observers contended that vacillating employment figures were the result of simultaneous surpluses and shortages in the work force. Although additional statistical evidence was needed to determine detailed manpower trends, it was clear that the unemployment rate of unskilled workers had gone above 25 percent, while many skilled and professional positions could not be properly filled. This situation was attributed to a deficient education system (particularly the lack of vocational training), the emigration of trained personnel, and unrealistic expectations of unskilled job seekers. These observers also noted that the highest unemployment rate was among those who had attained between one and six years of education. Members of this group refused to take menial jobs held by less educated segments of the population, yet they were unqualified to fill positions requiring specific knowledge or skills.
Increased training of teachers, greater skills instruction for those students considered unlikely to complete the junior secondary programs, and realignment of expectations of both students and workers were thought to be critical improvements. Without these changes the education system would be unable to affect employment patterns and assist with national development.
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HEALTH AND WELFARE
Based on standard health care indicators, Trinidad and Tobago's medical system continued to improve in the 1980s. The mortality rate had been reduced from 18.9 per 1,000 inhabitants in 1930 to 7 in 1980. The infant mortality rate for the same year was 19.7 per 1,000 live births, reduced from 34.4 in 1970. Life expectancy at birth in 1986 averaged 68.9 years.
Morbidity indicators also improved but were nevertheless below expectations. In 1983 only 60 percent of children one year of age and younger had been immunized against measles, poliomyelitis, diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus. The implication of the deficient inoculation programs was evident in the 4.7 percent of total deaths resulting from infectious and parasitic diseases; this was significantly higher than on other English-speaking Caribbean islands.
Despite the fact that 95 percent of the population had access to potable water in 1984 and 100 percent was serviced by sanitary waste disposal, communicable diseases were still a problem. In 1983 dengue fever was endemic, venereal diseases were rampant, and tuberculosis was still a minor threat. As of 1986, there were 134 confirmed cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome in Trinidad and Tobago, 93 resulting in death.
Drug addiction and noncommunicable diseases were becoming increasingly prevalent in the late 1980s. A 1987 government report named alcoholism as the most serious drug abuse problem and also pointed to a noticeable rise in the use of marijuana and cocaine. Abuse of other drugs, however, had not yet become a serious problem. Drug abuse in general, and alcoholism in particular, was considered a significant contributor to the relatively high incidence of motor vehicle fatalities and the increasing suicide rate. Cancer, hypertension, and heart disease were the most common noncommunicable health problems.
The government redirected its national health strategy in the 1980s to reflect the Pan American Health Organization's emphasis on primary health care. The principal goal was to provide basic health care to all communities, utilizing a decentralized, public education format, and giving maternal and child health care priority status.
In the 1980s, the overall public health program was the responsibility of the Ministry of Health, Welfare, and Status of Women. It was divided into four divisions responsible for community services, environmental health, institutional health care, and epidemiology. Community services oversaw the primary (curative and preventative), secondary (hospitalization), and tertiary (specialized and long-term) community health service program. At the local level, each county had a medical officer responsible for the health care system, particularly primary health care.
Primary health care revolved around the 102 health centers located throughout the country. They provided outpatient services on a daily basis, which included the rotation of medical specialists. Public health nurses were also available to make house calls and visit schools. The health centers were the primary vehicles for extending the immunization programs. Secondary health care was available at eight district hospitals, as well as two large government hospitals in Port-of-Spain and San Fernando.
Tertiary health care was available only in Port-of-Spain. The main facility was the Mount Hope Medical Complex, which housed a 340-bed general-purpose hospital, 200-bed pediatric facility, and 110-bed maternity hospital. Other specialized facilities included the St. Ann's Hospital for psychiatric care, Caura Hospital for cardiology and pathology services, and St. James Infirmary for geriatric, oncological, and physical therapeutic care.
The total number of public hospital beds in 1986 was approximately 4,900; there were 15 private health institutions that provided an additional 300 beds. Private sector health services concentrated primarily on ambulatory care; some publicly employed physicians maintained separate private practices, however. In 1984 Trinidad and Tobago had 1,213 doctors, or a ratio of 10.6 per 10,000 inhabitants. At the same time, there were 104 dentists and 3,346 nurses, or ratios of 0.9 and 29.6 per 10,000 inhabitants, respectively.
In spite of noted improvements in health care delivery, serious deficiencies were still evident in the late 1980s. The ratio of population to health centers was twice as large as desired, requiring a long-term commitment to the construction of additional facilities. There was also a lack of critical medicines and trained medical personnel, particularly technicians. Physical facilities and equipment also required attention, as did the lack of dental care nationwide.
The National Insurance Scheme acted as the equivalent of a social security system in the late 1980s. Welfare disbursements went to public assistance programs, food stamps, and retirement pensions and played a small role in health care by providing compensation for injuries and diseases acquired on the job.
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ECONOMY
In the 1980s, Trinidad and Tobago was an upper-middle-income, oil-exporting country that was highly dependent on the world price of oil for its economic growth. The nation displayed the largest gross domestic product (GDP--see Glossary) of the Commonwealth Caribbean, one of the highest per capita GDPs among the nations of the Western Hemisphere, and one of the highest standards of living in the developing world. The country's GDP in 1985 stood at roughly US$7.7 billion at current prices, or about US$6,000 per capita.
The major sectors of the economy were petroleum and petrochemicals, construction, services, and agriculture. Petroleum had fueled the economy since the early twentieth century and in 1985 still represented roughly 24 percent of GDP and 80 percent of exports. Oil reserves at the current rate of extraction were expected to last approximately ten years, but the islands enjoyed large reserves of natural gas. New petrochemical plants, utilizing the country's natural gas resources, came on-stream in the early 1980s and included ammonia, urea, and methanol. These large industrial projects were located at the newly built Point Lisas industrial park, which, along with the park's new iron and steel plant, provided Trinidad and Tobago with an industrial base that was unmatched throughout the Caribbean. Construction, the major employer in the economy and often considered the bellwether of general economic activity, expanded rapidly during the oil boom of the 1970s but contracted greatly in the 1980s. Services, such as financial services and utilities, also had expanded rapidly since the 1970s and played a major role in the economy; by contrast, tourism was rather undeveloped when compared with other Caribbean islands. The agricultural sector was suffering from a long-run decline, but growth in domestic agriculture in the 1980s helped to revive that shrinking sector, albeit only partially.
In the postwar era, the economy experienced two great boom decades, both of which were followed by decades of slow or negative growth. Real GDP growth averaged 8 percent in the 1950s as the economy diversified into manufacturing and construction through the use of import substitution industrialization (see Glossary) strategies. Growth in import substitution manufacturing and the economy as a whole waned in the late 1960s, exacerbating the social unrest at the end of the decade. The quadrupling of oil prices in 1973 revived the economy and created a 9.6-percent real annual growth rate from 1974 to 1979. Trinidadians and Tobagonians, nicknamed the "Arabs of the Caribbean," were known throughout the region in the 1970s for the carnival of consumption that they participated in with their instant oil wealth. The downturn in oil prices in 1982, however, plummeted the economy into a deep depression in 1983 from which the country had not emerged by 1987. Negative growth peaked in 1984, when the economy contracted by nearly 11 percent.
Even with cyclical growth, the citizens benefited from a quality of life that surpassed that of not only most other Caribbean islands but of other Western Hemisphere oil exporters such as Mexico and Venezuela as well. The country also enjoyed a literacy rate higher than Italy's, a per capita energy consumption rate that exceeded Britain's, a per capita newspaper circulation above that in several Western European countries, an income distribution comparable to that of the United States, and an access to electricity and potable water that was better than most developing countries. Nevertheless, the country also suffered problems associated with more developed societies, including pollution, obsessive consumption, entrenched labor disputes, and growing drug abuse. As in other Caribbean countries, chronic unemployment, which had climbed to 17 percent by 1987, was the major social problem. In addition, East Indians and women lacked the same economic opportunities as white or black males; these disparities were narrowing, however.
Unlike other Caribbean nations, Trinidad and Tobago benefited immensely from the energy crisis of the 1970s. The oil boom of the 1970s flooded the national treasury, cut the unemployment rate in half, created large balance of payments surpluses, and stimulated the economy at large.
Nonetheless, it also devastated the agriculture sector, which declined 25 percent because of the resulting shortages of laborers, who migrated to west coast cities for higher wages. Although the boom was reversed in the early 1980s, Trinidad and Tobago's accumulated wealth permitted it to weather the impact of the international recession better than most developing countries and avoid the debt crisis that confronted its neighbors. Although some charges of government waste and corruption were voiced during the 1970s and 1980s, sufficient discipline in public finance prevailed to allow the country to elude the fiscal crisis that confronted other oil-exporting, developing nations such as Mexico, Venezuela, and Nigeria.
In the late 1980s, Trinidad and Tobago displayed a mixed economy that allowed for a level of government involvement second only to that in Cuba among the countries of the Western Hemisphere. The large role in the economy of subsidies, transfers, and joint ventures between the government and the private sector created an intertwining of the public and private sectors that often blurred distinctions between them. During the 1970s, the government purchased a share in over fifty major companies in banking, insurance, agriculture, utilities, and manufacturing. As a consequence, the government also became the largest single employer in the country. Although Trinidad and Tobago was a country where capitalism generally flourished, free enterprise, especially the foreign sector, was highly regulated by the government.
Trinidad and Tobago was a very open economy, dependent on the export of oil to purchase large amounts of imported food, consumer goods, and capital goods. Oil represented approximately 80 percent of exports, whereas food accounted for as much as 20 percent of imports in the late 1980s. Trinidad and Tobago was the most important exporter of oil to the United States from the Caribbean Basin. The country supplied nearly 50 percent of that region's oil exports to the United States, as well as 18 percent of the region's total exports to that same market. Unlike virtually every other Caribbean country, Trinidad and Tobago generally enjoyed yearly trade and balance of payments surpluses. The country depended on the United States for roughly 50 percent of its trade, but the islands also maintained important trade relations with the European Economic Community (EEC) and the Caribbean Community and Common Market (Caricom--see Appendix C). Once a donor nation that aided its poorer Caribbean neighbors, Trinidad and Tobago in the late 1980s was increasingly in need of external financing to weather its economic adjustment period.
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Growth and Structure of the Economy
Trinidad was neglected by Spanish mercantilists until the late 1700s because it was perceived to be poorly endowed. In 1776 Spanish authorities finally allowed French planters from other Eastern Caribbean islands to enter Trinidad, stimulating the subsequent expansion of a sugar plantation economy based on slave labor (see Colonial Heritage, this ch.). After the creation of the first sugar plantation in 1787, agriculture expanded so rapidly that a decade later there were 159 sugar plantations, 130 coffee estates, 60 cacao (the bean from which cocoa is derived) estates, and 103 cotton estates. The rapid success of the French planters attracted the interest of the British, who captured the island in 1797.
In the early 1800s, Trinidad's agricultural economy was based on highly productive cane fields and on coffee, cacao, and other export crops. Trinidad's average sugar plantation (over 240 hectares) was larger than that in other Commonwealth Caribbean islands. Unlike smaller islands, such as St. Christopher and Antigua, Trinidad was less dependent on sugar for its labor and exports, as other export crops held relatively important economic roles. Agricultural estates were worked by slaves imported from West Africa until 1807, when the British abolished the slave trade. After complete emancipation in 1838, freed blacks played a decreasing role in agriculture because of the annual importation of about 2,000 indentured East Indians, more than in any other Caribbean island. At a time when other English-speaking islands were suffering declines in sugar production, Trinidad's quadrupled from 1828 to 1895, mostly as a result of the imported East Indian labor force. Although sugar wages were low, wages of Trinidadian sugar workers in the 1800s already surpassed those of their Caribbean counterparts.
Tobago, officially linked to Trinidad in 1889, was traditionally neglected by both the Spanish and the British in economic terms. Nevertheless, Tobago was one of the top sugar producers in the West Indies in the early 1800s. Tobago's agricultural production was characterized by the French métayer system, a form of sharecropping, imported with French planters from St. Lucia. As late as 1839, the island registered an annual trade surplus as large as 20,000 British pounds sterling. As its sugar industry declined in the late 1800s, however, it received less and less attention from the British, preventing significant infrastructural development. Economic neglect continued for decades, so that by 1946 Tobago was the most underpopulated island in the British Caribbean.
Trinidad and Tobago entered the twentieth century with the fortuitous discovery of oil in 1907. The discovery changed Trinidad's patterns of economic development and further differentiated it from other English-speaking islands in the Caribbean. Exports of oil left the island for the first time in 1909, but production did not drastically increase until the British Royal Navy converted to oil during the following decade. During World War I, Trinidad and Tobago became the major source of oil for the navy. As oil output skyrocketed from 125,000 barrels a year in 1910 to over 2 million barrels by 1920, so did the number of foreign oil companies competing for control of the precious resource. The oil boom during the second decade of the 1900s was not experienced in the rest of the economy, however, which was depressed.
As the decade came to a close, two events changed Trinidad's economic future. The termination of East Indian indentureship in 1917 created greater economic demands from the agriculture labor force, whose wages had hardly increased over a century. The other major event was the return of Trinidadian soldiers from World War I who served in the West India Regiment. Exposed to greater personal freedoms and workers' rights, as well as prejudice, these veterans were at the forefront in organizing for greater economic benefits for labor from foreign sugar and oil companies.
The first visible signs of Trinidad's growing labor movement appeared in the aftermath of the riots of 1919 when Cipriani assumed the clear leadership of the movement. The Cipriani-led labor movement in the 1920s fought for a minimum wage, eight-hour day, child labor laws, compulsory education, heavier taxation of foreign oil companies, and general social reform. A moderate, Cipriani tempered the burgeoning labor movement under British colonial rule until the early 1930s, when the labor movement was radicalized by the advent of the Great Depression.
The economic hardship of the depression resulted in fewer jobs, poor health conditions, low wages, and growing resentment of wealthy, foreign ownership in the oil and sugar industries. The decline in sugar that accompanied the depression, severe droughts, and disease of the cacao crops drastically increased rural unemployment in the early 1930s. The downturn in sugar, in particular, led to the consolidation of the landholdings of the dominant British firm, Tate and Lyle, which continued to pay its London stockholders handsome dividends. Decreased economic opportunities in the countryside sparked widespread demonstrations in the sugar belt by 1934. Meanwhile, health conditions remained poor, as many Trinidadians suffered from malaria, ancylostomiasis, tuberculosis, and yellow fever. As unemployment remained high, wages were kept low--only US$0.72 a day for an unskilled oil worker and US$0.35 a day for an unskilled sugar worker in 1937. Large profit remittance continued in the oil industry as well as in the sugar industry, causing growing worker resentment of foreign ownership; this resentment culminated in the riots of 1937.
Butler emerged from the islandwide strikes of 1937 as the undisputed successor to Cipriani as the leader of the Trinidadian labor movement. Butler, more radical and uncompromising than Cipriani, continued to forge a strong trade union movement in Trinidad and Tobago. Rienzi, Butler's associate, was another rising labor leader who came to lead the powerful OWTU and later presided over the FWTU, an umbrella labor organization. The labor movement in the 1930s was also marked by the growing participation of East Indians, most notably through the ATSE/FWTU. Although by 1940 Trinidad and Tobago had extensive and relatively responsible trade unions, it was not until 1943 that they possessed the procedural framework to negotiate industrial disputes effectively with the British. Nonetheless, Trinidad and Tobago generally enjoyed strong negotiating power with the British because of the colony's vital oil resources.
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Patterns of Development
World War II profoundly transformed the economy and society of Trinidad and Tobago. As in World War I, World War II produced an oil boom as the nation fueled the Allied forces' war efforts, causing oil to replace sugar as the most important sector in the economy. A more profound social and economic transformation, however, resulted from the new military presence of the United States in Chaguaramas, Trinidad, as an outcome of the 1941 LendLease Agreement between the United States and Britain (see The Road to Independence, this ch.; Historical Background, ch. 7). The building of a United States base in Trinidad created a strong upswing in construction activity, directly employing approximately 30,000 workers, or between 15 and 20 percent of the labor force. The United States presence had many spin-offs, both economic and social. The Americans, having no colonial relationship with the Trinidadians, generally saw them as their equal and were willing to pay them relatively high wages. Real wages rose, employment improved, ports were upgraded, and the economy was stimulated by greater consumption from high wages. Higher urban wages, however, accelerated rural-urban migration, causing a shortage of agricultural labor as sugar employment dropped from 30,000 in 1939 to 18,000 in 1943. The Americans' fewer class prejudices also helped dispel myths of white supremacy as they, too, performed manual labor and consumed their earnings alongside Trinidadians. The United States presence also caused a greater penetration of American culture and consumption habits, which unrealistically increased the economic expectations of many Trinidadians.
The diminished world trade resulting from the war changed the production patterns in Trinidad and Tobago. Decreased markets for traditional agricultural exports and declining food imports caused total land under food production to more than double during the war. Although high urban wages resulting from the United States presence were a drain on the rural labor supply, food production actually increased as output shifted from export agriculture to domestic agriculture. Domestic agriculture was also bolstered by guaranteed prices for farmers, price controls, and government "back to the land" slogans. The fall in imports had a similar effect on Trinidad's small manufacturing sector, which previously was limited to the processing of export crops. Shortages in consumer goods during the war stimulated the import substitution of those products most easily produced domestically, such as edible oils, fats, matches, some textiles, and other consumer necessities.
In the 1950s, the economy of Trinidad and Tobago experienced a postwar boom unprecedented on both islands. Real GDP increased an average of 8.5 percent annually from 1951 to 1961; in the second half of the period, from 1956 to 1961, growth averaged 10 percent annually. In spite of rapid population growth during this period, real per capita income increased 15 percent. The evolving structure of the economy was characterized by the rise of industry and services and the decline of agriculture. Oil, construction, and manufacturing emerged as dominant industrial sectors. In 1956 a United States oil company, Texaco, entered Trinidad and Tobago and consolidated several holdings of other companies. Oil production jumped from under 60,000 barrels per day (bpd) prior to 1950 to 80,000 bpd toward the end of the decade. In addition, the price of oil continued to rise, allowing for increased oil earnings and growing government revenues. Early self-government in the 1950s launched extensive infrastructure projects, causing construction to more than double in over ten years. Manufacturing's output, encouraged by generous fiscal incentives since 1950, also increased rapidly, although its share of GDP rose only slightly from 11 to 13 percent. In terms of services, the banking industry enjoyed the fastest growth in the whole economy, and tourism was stimulated by new fiscal incentives as well. Agriculture, by contrast, decreased as public finance favored industry. During the 1950s, agriculture's share of total output dropped from 17 to 12 percent. Domestic agriculture, emphasized during World War II, shrank after the war and was the main reason for the sector's decline. Export agriculture, although faced with serious challenges, such as continued cacao diseases and changes in British agreements on sugar, was generally able to maintain production levels.
In the early 1960s, Trinidad and Tobago's tremendous growth spurt slowed, and the economy entered a ten-year period of sluggish growth. By the 1960s, the islands' labor force was highly unionized and urbanized, many belonging to the middle class, a situation unknown in most developing countries. As economic growth slowed, increased demands were voiced for adequate housing, better labor rights, more jobs, improved living and working conditions, more equitable distribution of wealth, and national ownership of resources. Despite these demands, the socioeconomic problems present in Trinidad and Tobago were hardly as acute as in other Caribbean countries; nonetheless, such issues as negative attitudes toward foreign ownership tended to dominate. The key sectors of the economy--oil, sugar, and banking--were dominated by multinational corporations. Growing resentment over foreign control of national resources intensified as the economy deteriorated in the late 1960s. The high unemployment rate of 15 percent tended to increase the number of industrial disputes and fortify union militancy. These events, culminating in the Black Power movement of 1970, set the stage for increased nationalization of resources during the 1970s.
In late 1973 world oil prices quadrupled and rescued Trinidad and Tobago from the decaying economic and political trend of the late 1960s and early 1970s. During the rest of the decade, the economy experienced rapid growth and was drastically transformed. In the 1970s, the country enjoyed its second major economic boom in only thirty years. At a time when many of the world's economies entered a deep recession, Trinidad and Tobago's economy experienced real annual growth of 9.6 percent from 1974 to 1979. Unemployment declined to a low of 8 percent by 1980. Government revenues from oil increased from a level equal to 20 percent of GDP in the early 1970s to 41 percent by 1980, fueling 65 percent of government revenues by the end of the decade. Escalating government revenues heartened Prime Minister Williams to remark that "money is no problem," epitomizing the nation's feel of instant wealth. Money was indeed no problem; the government spent more than US$120 million to purchase shares of over fifty major companies in the country, including majority or minority ownership in oil, gas, aviation, agriculture, utilities, and banking. Major new government investments, such as the multibillion-dollar industrial park at Point Lisas, low-cost housing projects, and expanded utility services, caused the construction industry to soar. Free-flowing petrodollars spawned strong consumption that, in turn, stimulated local manufacturing to grow at an annual pace of 9 percent. In contrast, agriculture was severely neglected and shrank by 25 percent during the oil boom. The decline in agriculture was symbolized by the 1984 sugar harvest, the country's worst in fortyfive years. Increased consumption and declining agricultural production made the economy much more import intensive as higher oil prices temporarily footed the import bill.
The sharp fallout in oil prices in the early 1980s forced Prime Minister George Chambers in 1983 to state bluntly that "the fête is over." From 1983 to 1986, the economy experienced strong negative growth: negative 2.6 percent in 1983, negative 10.8 percent in 1984, negative 6.5 percent in 1985, and negative 5.1 percent in 1986; continued negative growth was estimated in 1987. The islands' international reserves, which soared from a low US$34 million in 1973 to US$3.3 billion in 1981, had declined to under US$500 million by 1985. As a result of deteriorating economic conditions, the Trinidad and Tobago dollar was devalued by 50 percent in December 1985. Worth double the United States dollar in the 1970s, the Trinidad and Tobago dollar was valued at less than a third of the United States dollar by the mid-1980s. The unemployment rate crept as high as 17 percent by 1987. As the economy continued in a deep recession in the late 1980s, there was growing evidence of increased underground economic activity linked to cocaine trafficking (see National Security, this ch.).
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Role of Government
Government involvement in the economy increased rapidly with early self-government in 1950. Spurred by the economic decision making of Gomes, the young government embarked on an "industrialization by invitation" strategy in an attempt to emphasize manufacturing (see The Road to Independence, this ch.). The strategy was a natural outgrowth of the success of import substitution manufacturing that had occurred during World War II. The most significant pieces of legislation that changed the government's stance on the economy were the Aid to Pioneer Industries Ordinance and the Income Tax Reform Ordinance to Benefit Industry, both enacted in 1950. These measures provided wide- ranging fiscal concessions for infant industries. Similar measures were also developed for tourism. Fiscal incentives permitted new investment to benefit from accelerated depreciation allowances, duty-free importation of machinery and raw materials, and provisions for the repatriation of profits. These fiscal measures marked the first time Trinidad and Tobago sought foreign capital outside of Britain. In 1962 drastically increased tariffs complemented the fiscal incentives of encouraging manufacturing and protecting it from outside competition. Although tourism did not receive the attention of manufacturing, it did signify a renewed interest in Tobago, the island traditionally neglected by Port-of- Spain officials.
These policies, bolstered by an expanding world economy, proved a general success as the unprecedented growth of the 1950s included the establishment of over 100 pioneer industries by the mid-1960s. These comprised basic manufacturing, such as bricks, beer, textiles, glass, cement, paints, and chemicals. Although incentive legislation helped expand output in manufacturing, many expectations for the sector were not met. Although manufacturing's share of GDP did rise, the sector never obtained the dominance it held in Jamaica. Employment expectations were also not met as foreign investment brought industries that were more capital intensive than anticipated. In general, there were few economic linkages forged between the oil and manufacturing sectors in the 1960s. The employment absorption of new manufacturing generally went unseen as Trinidadian society experienced its fastest population growth rate ever, increasing over 50 percent from 1940 to 1960.
The government's industrial push in the postwar era also included heavy investments in the islands' physical, social, and organizational infrastructure. To meet growing commercial and residential demands, the country's water, electricity, communication, and transportation systems were expanded. Likewise, self-government emphasized the need for improved social services such as medical and educational facilities. Beginning in 1958, the government issued the first in a series of five-year plans. The last five-year plan (1974-78) was never completed, as expectations of continued oil wealth apparently precluded the need for further plans.
The role of the government in the economy increased drastically during the 1970s. The move toward increased government involvement in the economy was the direct result of the Black Power movement of 1970 and the long-term consequence of decades of trade union criticism of foreign ownership. Some foreign firms were nationalized with compensation; the government typically acquired only a 51-percent equity share of these companies. Other firms were simply localized in ownership via the purchase of a majority of shares by private Trinidadian citizens. In 1971 the government bought a 51-percent share of the Caroni Sugar Company, which controlled over 90 percent of sugar activity in the country. The banking industry underwent a nationalization and localization process in 1972. In that year the government purchased a 51-percent share of the Royal Bank of Canada, subsequently renamed the Royal Bank of Trinidad and Tobago. Meanwhile, Barclays Bank (renamed the Republic Bank), the Bank of Nova Scotia, and numerous insurance companies were localized in ownership. Although the government's prominent entrance into the economy predated the oil boom, increased government revenues from oil accelerated the process. Between 1968 and 1974, the government entered the oil industry in force, purchasing the oil holdings of the British Petroleum Company and Shell Corporation and integrating them into the newly established Trinidad and Tobago Oil Company (Trintoc). In the same year, Texaco's gas stations were localized islandwide. By the late 1970s, the government had become the largest employer in the country.
Petrodollar revenues expanded the state's range of activities in the economy from nationalization and localization to the introduction of widespread subsidies and large-scale public works programs, the creation of numerous state-owned enterprises, and the implementation of huge industrial projects. Like other oil economies, Trinidad and Tobago suffered from the "Dutch disease," the process by which oil-wealthy nations tend to subsidize non-oil sectors of the economy. During the 1970s, subsidies and transfers represented the greatest share of current government costs, moving from 25 percent of government expenditure in 1977 to 36 percent by 1980. Subsidies alone more than tripled during this period. For example, subsidies on gasoline allowed prices to remain the same throughout the decade, when market prices more than quadrupled. Although subsidies were primarily redistributive in their intent, they also handsomely benefited the private sector, whose inputs such as water and electricity were also supported. Ambitious public works programs, developed to alleviate unemployment, employed some 50,000 citizens but were largely inefficient and unclear in their objectives.
The multibillion-dollar industrial park at Point Lisas, more than any other single activity, symbolized the thorough role of government involvement. The park was constructed, in part, with revenues from the so-called Special Funds for Long-Term Development, consisting of over forty different funds. Cost overruns were so prevalent during the construction of the park that no final cost was ever obtained. The park sought to use the country's oil and natural gas reserves for a well-integrated petrochemical industry, alongside heavy industries like steel. Most of the site's plants came on-stream in the early to mid-1980s, including steel, urea, ammonia, cement, and methanol plants and an oil refinery. Although these plants were still young in the 1980s, concerns existed that some of these projects could turn into white elephants. Also considered, but not constructed as of the late 1980s, were an alumina (see Glossary) smelter (Trinidad is a bauxite [see Glossary] transshipment site) and a plant to process liquefied natural gas.
The government's attitudes toward its role in the economy remained unchanged in the 1980s. Despite minor policy differences, both Prime Minister Chambers (1981-86) and subsequently Prime Minister Robinson (1986- ) continued to perceive an extensive role for the state in the country's mixed economy. One significant change enacted by the Chambers government was to reduce the number of bids offered to foreign contractors for large industrial projects. After a Ministry of External Affairs report concluded that these foreign firms had financially exploited the arrangements and hurt local competitors, the process was changed to favor locals.
Chambers, however, confronted much more devastating economic difficulties as a result of the deep recession brought on by the sharp fall in oil prices in 1982. Decreased oil production lowered government revenues, a sizable portion of which were derived from the petroleum industry. Growing fiscal deficits prompted the Chambers government to pursue unpopular domestic policies, such as decreased subsidies, increased utility rates, an increased tax base, and, most important, deep reductions in capital expenditures, thereby eliminating most funds for economic development. To stabilize the country's deteriorating balance of payments position, the government opted for equally unpopular trade policies. These measures included a new import licensing system and a dual exchange rate, both of which drew the ire of other Caricom nations. To help smooth the adjustment period, the Chambers government invited William Demas, a well-known Trinidadian economist and president of the Caribbean Development Bank, to write a broad "Imperatives of Adjustment Plan" to help stabilize the country's accounts and work toward a recovery.
A recovery, however, never materialized under Chambers, and the Robinson government was faced with the same task of reversing the recession, reducing budget deficits, and stabilizing the balance of payments, but with fewer resources. In 1987 the Robinson government proposed few policies that diverged widely from those of Chambers. A major goal of the Robinson government, however, was to improve relations with Caricom trading partners, which had soured because of Trinidad and Tobago's protectionist policies in the early to mid-1980s. The unification of the country's exchange rate in January 1987, followed by the removal of a 12-percent import duty for most Caricom countries in July, did help to revive regional integration. On the budgetary side, Robinson continued to reduce capital expenditures; unlike Chambers, however, he attempted deep cuts in current expenditures, most notably the cost of living allowances of civil servants. That proposal was withdrawn, however, after a storm of protest. Nonetheless, the issue was important in that it symbolized the difficulty the Robinson government might face in seeking economic concessions after a decade of great wealth. In his 1987 budget speech, Robinson warned of the possible divestment of some state-run enterprises, thus earning his government an early reputation as pro-business. In the late 1980s, the NAR government's main economic objectives remained economic recovery and diversification; nonetheless, the new government cautioned that its economic program would require ten years to be completely effective.
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National Income and Public Finance
Trinidad and Tobago's GDP in 1985 totaled US$7.7 billion at current prices, a figure that had declined in real terms every year since the country's peak performance of 1982. In 1985 the petroleum industry continued to dominate the country's production, contributing 24 percent of national output. This was followed by public administration (15 percent), construction (11 percent), financial services and real estate (10 percent), transportation and communications (10 percent), distributive trade (9 percent), other services (9 percent), manufacturing (7 percent), agriculture (3 percent), and electricity and water (2 percent) (see fig. 7). The most prominent changes in the structure of the economy occurred in the petroleum and construction sectors, which had contributed as much as 36 and 14 percent, respectively, to national output during the first five years of the decade. The largest sectoral increases occurred in government, up 7 percentage points, and other services, up over 3 percent.
The fiscal year in Trinidad and Tobago in the late 1980s was the same as the calendar year. The budget was listed by ministries and various government agencies, often broken down by subunits. There were both current and capital accounts, but capital expenditures were not listed in detail.
The national accounts of Trinidad and Tobago were affected greatly by the oil boom of the 1970s and then by the subsequent decline in the 1980s. Because of the increase in oil prices, government revenues tripled in 1974 and expanded rapidly thereafter until they peaked in 1982. Expenditures also expanded rapidly, but less rapidly than revenues, creating budget surpluses every year except for a slight deficit in 1979. Over half of government oil revenues went into the Special Funds for Long-Term Development. In contrast to the 1970s, budget deficits occurred every year in the 1980s, beginning in 1982. A record budget deficit of approximately US$766 million was recorded in 1986. Budget deficits in the 1980s were financed primarily by borrowing from the Central Bank with minimal external lending. In addition, revenue shortfalls were financed by transfers from the Special Funds for Long-Term Development, which generated roughly US$3 billion during the 1970s. These funds, however, were depleted by the mid-1980s from project and deficit spending. Reductions in expenditures in the mid-1980s were attained almost exclusively by deep cuts in capital expenditures. In the late 1980s, the Robinson government planned to curtail current account spending, make state enterprises more accountable, and possibly divest certain government entities. Robinson chose to avoid what he termed the "debt trap and dependence on the IMF" (International Monetary Fund--see Glossary) in favor of belt tightening, reducing expenditures, and increasing revenues through higher taxation.
The public sector investment program that had evolved in the 1970s involved a budgetary process that caused concern in the following decade. As the state took on a greater role in the economy with its oil windfalls, there was less discipline in the establishment of cost restraints for large investment projects, making many capital outlays open ended in terms of expected final costs. In 1987, however, the Robinson government called for the review of the organization and structure of each state enterprise and announced that there would be an in-depth study of the viability of state enterprises. Likewise, Robinson announced that state-owned corporations would need to improve their internal financing and auditing procedures. As part of a plan of capital restructuring, Robinson noted in his 1987 budget speech that most current expenditures that continued to go to these enterprises would be transferred to the capital account.
Expenditures
Total government expenditures in 1985 reached approximately US$3.2 billion, US$380 million more than revenues. Government expenditures peaked in 1982 after a decade of rapid growth that was paid for by increased revenues from oil. As oil revenues increased, so did the government's role in the economy, causing government spending as a percentage of GDP to increase from 20 percent in the early 1970s, to 35 percent by 1980, to approximately 40 percent by 1985.
Current expenditures in 1985 totaled US$2.5 billion, or 78 percent of total expenditures. Current expenditures experienced an average annual increase of 40 percent from 1973 to 1976, decreased slightly in 1977, and then expanded 32 percent annually from 1978 to 1981. Expenditures grew more slowly than revenues, however, generating annual surpluses on the current account from 1974 to 1979 that averaged 18 percent of GDP. The fastest growing portion of current expenditures in the 1970s was subsidies and transfers, which tripled from 1977 to 1980, increasing from 5.4 percent of total expenditures to 12 percent in that same period. Ninety percent of subsidies went to agricultural production, food, and cement. Although total expenditures decreased after 1982, current expenditures decreased only slightly, peaking once again in 1986.
The current account in 1985 was broken down into five functional categories: general services, community services, social services, economic services, and unallocated expenditures. The largest share of current expenditures, 44 percent, went to social services, comprising health, education, welfare, and housing. General services trailed social services with 21 percent, including fiscal services, economic regulation, defense, justice, and police. Unallocated expenditures followed with 17 percent, generally for public debt servicing and payments to local government. Economic services accounted for 11 percent, primarily toward agriculture, energy, and transportation. Community services accounted for the balance of 7 percent, the majority g |
