Gareth Manning, Sunday Gleaner Reporter

Following a recent flare-up in political violence in sections of the Corporate Area, the Peace Management Initiative (PMI) and the police are keeping a close eye on other communities where political tensions could boil over.

Expectations of a general election have triggered violence in both Olympic Gardens and Mountain View, experts say, and raise the spectre of political violence in other war-torn communities in the Corporate Area and a few rural communities, although most are relatively calm at present.

Among some of the communities on the PMI watch list are Grants Pen in north St. Andrew, Tel-Aviv in central Kingston, Kintyre, Red Hills Road, Bull Bay and Spanish Town.

A close watch is also being kept on Chapelton in Clarendon, where the political temperature has been broiling in recent weeks.

Things have been generally calm in Tel-Aviv and Grants Pen since the last general election in 2002, Sunday Gleaner investigations show. Grants Pen, for example, has had only one murder over the last year. But, there are fears that a dawning general election could break the peace in these communities. In the central Kingston communities of Tel- Aviv, Spoilers and Southside, where gang feuds have left some 20 people dead over the last year, there is fear the violence could shift into a political mode.

"We haven't had any real political violence since 1980 and there is no reason why we should go back to it now. Probably what is provoking it in one or two areas is the closeness of the election and the consequences perhaps of a loss for the party and the leadership that loses," argues PMI board member and social worker, Horace Levy. "That is motivating perhaps the tendency ... of a few to want to go back to the old violence."

Mr. Levy says the PMI has already worked out a series of actions it will carry out to solidify peace in the communities as election approaches. These include peace walks with the political candidates, and setting up monitoring units to scrutinise unfolding events in the communities.

Declining to say whether the peace in these communities would hold as a general election approached, Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of crime, Mark Shields, says the police would be keeping a close watch on the communities.

"All have the potential to explode. What we will continue to do is focus on the intelligence, so where we believe there is a threat rising significantly, policing will be increasing accordingly," he explains.