Jamaica: 20 Dead in Political Violence

K I N G S T O N, Jamaica, July 10 -- Soldiers in trucks and armored cars took to the streets with orders to halt violence between lawenforcers and opposition party supporters that has left at least 20 people dead in three days.

Prime Minister P.J. Patterson called out the army on Mondaynight.

"The government cannot stand idly by and allow criminalelements to hold this country to ransom," he told reporters.

"There must be full deployment ... to prevent anticipated problemsand to ensure the restoration of law and order."

Step One: Kingston

It was not clear how many soldiers were involved. They mainly moved into the streets in the capital, Kingston, as helicopters hovered overhead. Patterson said they also would deploy in other hotspots around the Caribbean country. The military was given police powers, mostly to maintain cordons and enforce curfews, he added.

Leaders of Jamaica's two main political parties — Patterson and Labor Party leader Edward Seaga — each accused the other of inciting the violence ahead of general elections scheduled to take place before the end of next year.

The violence grew out of more than two months of clashes between gangs with rival political ties. Thirty-seven people were killed in those fights.

But at least another 20 have been killed since Saturday, when police and soldiers moved into Kingston's notoriously dangerous Tivoli Gardens neighborhood, a Labor stronghold.

"The police are downtown killing people, but only Laborites," said 48-year-old Beverly Brown, among 30 protesters at a makeshift roadblock in the Grant's Pen neighborhood.

Police said snipers hidden in buildings strafed the streets with automatic gunfire, and some people attacked them with homemade bombs.

Demonstrators mounted roadblocks, including in the northern tourist resort of Ocho Rios. Many said they were protesting a police crackdown on opposition neighborhoods.

Those killed in the latest fighting included two police officers and a soldier, but police have not identified any of those killed since Saturday as gang members.