'You couldn't pay me to go to Jamaica'
published: Thursday | October 13, 2005

THE EDITOR, Sir:

GUNMEN, GUNMEN, gunmen. Murder, shootings, death. How do you explain this to your sons, Jamaica? Are you going to tell them it's just part of a life they have to get used to? How proud you must be of yourselves!

Every day that's all we read and hear in the news, and the truth, whether Jamaicans realise it or not, nothing else that's done there really matters. When are they going to get tired of it? How do they reconcile gunmen and tourism? Does it make their government officials feel like they are a big man's nation, or what? When is it all going to stop? It's already gone too far; what if it's too late?

I used to want to live and work in Jamaica, because I loved the place and its people. But today, even if I could ride to and from work in an armoured car, or sit on a beach at an enclaved hotel while shotgun-armed police kept out the criminals, you couldn't pay me to go there, and I'm not alone. It's true. Every year, more and more people are turning away from Jamaica. Soon, there will be no one left there but the gunmen and their victims, the dead and the enslaved.

Hoy now mon! What do you tell your boy when he says he wants to be a 'gunman' when he grows up? Are you going to tell him how proud you are of him? Ah-true?

I am, etc.,

ED McCOY

mmhobo48@juno.com

Bokeelia, Florida