Gareth Manning, Freelance Writer

Jamaica's business leaders moot more employment oppourtunities as crucial to halting rampant crime.

"We need growth of real jobs, really moving to occupy time and to also have persons gainfully employed," said Mark Myers, president of the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce.

Myers admits that there are some private-sector firms that think they do not need to contribute to funding initiatives because they pay taxes, but says only a multi-dimensional approach could tame the crime monster.

"There needs to be a concerted effort - it could be a part of the overall (crime) plan. I can't see why the business community wouldn't want to help. In fact, some have done so, so many times," he added. "It just needs to be a bigger effort than it is at this point now."

Wave of attacks

Myers' comments come in the wake of fatal attacks on a number of businessmen this year, the most recent being the shooting death of 28-year-old Cleve Salmon by unknown men at his shop on Victoria Avenue, Kingston, about 12:10 Saturday afternoon.

Several other businessmen have gone down in similar fashion.

In Clarendon, for instance, in only a week, two well-known businessmen were slain in separate robbery-related incidents. On December 2, in the troubled community of Palmer's Cross, May Pen, Silbourn Douglas, an elderly grocery shop operator, was shot dead by gunmen in his yard. By December 10, the quiet district of Mocho also lost a popular businessman, Hibbert Simpson, who operated a service station there.

In St. Thomas, three business-men have been killed since January, while in Manchester at least six entrepreneurs have been killed in the last 12 months.

The soaring murders in Manchester have prompted the chamber of commerce, in partnership with the national training agency, HEART, and the Northern Carib-bean University, to fund an initiative to provide business training for young people, president Winston Lawson told The Gleaner.

Immediate past president of the Small Businesses Association of Jamaica, Oswald Smith, agrees. But he added that police-citizen cooperation was crucial to the cause.

"It (crime) is having a serious impact on the small business sector. The answer is not simple, but people need to take control of themselves and need to stop feeling that they need to rob and kill in order to survive," he noted.