For those of you who are unfamiliar with the layout of Kingston, we have a harbour. There is a strip of land called "Palisadoes" which is where Norman Manley International Airport is located. There is only one road leading to the airport after the Harbour View roundabout ... but the place where the police were shot last night is on Mountain View Road - one of the roads that gives access to the Harbour View Roundabout. Almost all International Media has reported the police shooting as though it was on the sole road leading to the airport - this is not accurate, as you will see from the map below.
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=18.000121,-76.781216&spn=0.079671,0.135784&t=h&z=13&pw=2
Security forces came under heavy fire on Red Hills Road. The news footage this evening showed the police and army clearing the road blocks and returning the fire of the gunmen in the area. This is good number of miles north of the barricaded areas.
Coronation Market has been set on fire by "thugs" (report from TVJ). We could see that fire from Long Mountain. A bigger fire rages close beside it - which verbal reports claim are the Denham Town Basic (or Primary) school. The discussion amongst people who were looking at the scene from the hills suggested these fires had been set by gunmen on the ground in order to prevent the helicopters from dropping explosives on the blockaded areas.
From Long Mountain we could also see what appeared to be smaller fires in the areas of Spanish Town; there are few media reports and little camera footage from these areas; this might be because most media personnel are focused on the action in the Kingston area.
Although our local media has identified pathways (via Industrial Terrace) for persons residing in the areas that have been barricaded, a news report on TVJ tonight had a lady speaking from within Tivoli Gardens, claiming that she could not safely leave her home to get to the government provided transport, due to all the gunfire around her. She was in her home with her son. We could hear the gunshots in the background of her call, and she said explosives were being dropped on the area, blowing up places close to her. The media referred to this as an unconfirmed report - perhaps because it is happening in an area of Tivoli Gardens where the media houses currently have no access.
From where I am right now, sporadic gunshots can be heard to the north. The blockaded areas of the city are to the south of where I am. Helicopters are flying fairly low every so often. We are about ready to tuck in for the night - it's amazing how exhausting a day of following news like this can be, and I am sure our exhaustion is incomparable to that of the innocent residents of West Kingston who are perhaps too intimidated to even try to leave their homes to get to safer areas.
My nieces' school (which is north of the Tivoli Gardens / Denham Town area) has sent out word to the parents that they will be closed "until further notice". My sister's business place will not open tomorrow. These despite the Prime Minister claiming tomorrow will be "business as usual." Of course, one might debate what is usual for a Prime Minister who has been through all that Bruce Golding has been through since the extradition order came for Christopher "Dudus" Coke from the US Government in 2009 August. An extradition order that was only signed officially early last week.
There have been conflicting reports in the media about meetings between Dudus' attorney and the US Embassy here. Some claims were made of a meeting that should have happened this morning; counter claims were made by someone from the US Embassy that no such meeting had been scheduled. The US Embassy is about five minutes walk from my family home.
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