Stakeholders to stage peace march in Negril

WESTERN BUREAU:

Wary of the violence in Westmoreland, neighbourhood watch groups in the parish, in collaboration with the Negril Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and religious and civic organisations, will be staging a peace march in the tourist town of Negril tomorrow.

The march, which will commence at 11 a.m., will start at the Negril Community Centre and will cover areas such as the Negril roundabout, West End Road, Red Ground Road, Tank Hill Road, and end at Archer Road. The march is aimed at encouraging residents to seek non-violent ways to settle conflicts.

“This is the first in a series of peace marches being organised by the watch in towns where shootings are escalating across the parish,” said Lyndon Johnson, president of Westmoreland Divisional Neighbourhood Watch. “We will be in Negril on Thursday, then at some other times, we are going to be going into Grange Hill and several other towns that are being impacted negatively by gun violence.”

According to Johnson, over recent months Negril has been seeing a spate of shootings and murders, so out of concern, his group has joined forces with the police and other stakeholders to find creative ways to promote peace in communities that have been experiencing bloodshed.

WIDESPREAD VIOLENCE

According to Inspector Shaunjaye Mitchell who heads zone four of the Westmoreland Police Division, which covers Negril and Little London, this is the beginning of a sustained effort to encourage residents to give peace a chance as a part of the effort to put an end to widespread violence.

“Sometimes we just need to remind people that there are better ways to deal with issues and help them to find more suitable solutions to some of the issues they are having, as opposed to violence,” said Mitchell. “In recent times the Negril space has seen a few incidents of violence in different areas stretching from Whitehall to Red Ground, into the West End space.”

“We’ve had a few incidents and the community, and the neighbourhood watch decided that they need to remind residents of some of the positives that we can achieve together, if we work with the police, other civic groups, and business interests in the community to have positive outcomes,” added Mitchell.

Earlier this year, the Negril Chamber of Commerce invited National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang to meet with them in a closed-door meeting to have frank discussions about the upsurge in violence in the resort town and discuss possible solutions to end the carnage.

Based on feedback from the meeting, several initiatives aimed at arresting some of the more pronounced issues were placed on the table for discussion and possible implementation.