(From "The Militant", 2004.60
Police banned a Saunaer mareh® of jobless called by the Unemployed Workers Council which was to have been held in kingston on March 31. Special troops were moved into Kingston during the last week in March to intimidate the workers and enforce the ban. Earlier in the month, Leonard Soloman, 26 year old member of the UWC, was arrested on trumped-up charges of sedition.
The Unemployed Workers Council held a mass protest meeting in the face of the government's show of force, on March 31. Over 4,000 workers present ratified a resolution declaring : "Be it resolved that the Unemployed Workers Council, having the support of hundreds of thousands of Jamaicans, protests against government suppression of the rights of citizens to peacefully demonstrate and express their will as a shameless...suppression of democracy and civil liberty".
Leonard Soloman was arrested on March 7. The government claims that he made "seditious" remarks at three street meetings held by the UWC . At these meetings Soloman demanded that the government take steps to deal with the nation's severe unemployment problem.
The condition of the Jamaican people is critical. Although the island was granted political independence from Britain last August, it is still dominated economically by British and American capit— alists, who siphon off the wealth of the country.
Jamaica has a population of 1,700,000. Of the work force of 700,000 there 500,000 unemployed or underemployed, living at near=-starvation level.
At present 45% of the country's farm lands are owned by 350 people, equivalent to eight-tenths of one percent of the farming population. On the other hand 77% of those engaged in farming own only 14% of the land. The infant mortality rate is staggeringly
Against this background of extreme poverty and exploitation the Unemployed Workers Council was born in May 1962. The Council began in West Kingston in the struggle of the unemployed against the government's practice of political discrimination in the hiring of labour at an oil refinery project. A whole series of militant actions and demonstrations by the UWC,which were attacked by the police, forced some concessions from the government. In carrying out the fight at the oi1 refinery project, the UWC reached out for support among the unemployed nationally.This in turn led it to formlate a programme for a general solution of unemployment secross pa Peet island. And the UWC became the spearhead of action by the jobless.
The “hunger march",..was called to demand the end to unemplojy-- “ment on a national seale.The prospect of tens of thousands of angry jobless panicked the government and the march was banned and the troops called in. The UWC called upon students,intellectuals and democratic forces to support the workers in opposing the undemocratic acts of the government.