he meaning in the number
published: Friday | December 20, 2002
THE EDITOR, Sir:
After 47 years vacationing in Jamaica, reading the Gleaner has become a must! And so, the Friday, December 6 issue carried the grim statistics that 960 people were murdered in Jamaica, in 11 1/2 months.
Here is the meaning of this number. Jamaica has approximately 2.5 million inhabitants. In the Middle East conflict there are close to 4.5 million Israelis and 3 million Palestinians. Total, 7.5 million, or three times more than in Jamaica. In a little more than two years, 700 Israelis and 2,000 Palestinians died due to war, about 1,350 people in one year. Comparing the respective size, here in Jamaica more than twice as many people died by violence than in the active conflict in the Middle East.
The Jamaican government and the people should urgently do whatever is necessary to stop this carnage.
