High Wind in Jamaica

Warm afternoon sunshine slanted through the windows of Kingston's 19th Century stone House of Representatives building. In the tiny, paneled chamber, the Opposition representative from East Westmoreland was attacking the land-development policy of His Majesty's Executive Council. In the course of his speech, he referred to Jamaica's Minister of Communications as "good to twist" (Jamaican for corrupt).

In a flash, the Hon. William Alexander Bustamante--Minister of Communications, pistol-toting boss of "Bustamante's Industrial Trade Unions," and leader of the majority Labor Party--was on his feet, his white mane bristling. "I appeal to Mr. Speaker," he roared, "for the withdrawal of the word twist. I refuse to allow anyone to make an imputation against my irreproachable character!"

"Goodbye." The speaker mumbled a ruling. "Mr. Speaker has ruled that the word is in order," snapped Bustamante, glowering at the member from East Westmoreland. "There is only one twisted person here. You. Goodbye." As he strode from the chamber, he called on his party's eight representatives to follow him. All except Education Minister Jehoida Augustus McPherson did.

"McPherson," Bustamante called, "come out or leave my party." McPherson hesitated. "McPherson!" bellowed Bustamante. "I said come out or leave my party!" McPherson gathered up his papers and obediently scurried out.

"God & Me." Jamaicans had long since learned to expect such antics from their gaunt, cyclonic Communications Minister. Once a Manhattan waiter, he returned to his native island to win fortune as a moneylender and fame as the rabble-rousing leader of dock-wallopers and cane-choppers.

His followers learned to obey him unquestioningly in the bloody hunger riots of 1938, which he organized with his Oxford-educated cousin, brilliant, socialist Barrister Norman Washington Manley, K.C. At rallies, Busta had only to raise his hand to get either wild cheering or deadly silence. "If there is anyone infallible," he once told his followers, "it is only me--only God and me."

"I Am Rich." By last week, however, a good many Jamaicans had concluded that infallibility is a big word. Busta had promised more jobs, better prices, and increased incentives for farm production. Instead, while the cost-of-living index zoomed (up 300% since 1939), wages lagged. Last week some 150,000 Jamaicans (total population: 1,320,000) were unemployed, and many poor families had taken to living in old automobile bodies.

Worst of all, Barrister Manley, with whom Busta had split a decade ago, was seriously threatening both his unions and the Labor Party. Bustamante's unions had sagged from 75,000 to 45,000 members. Manley's anti-Communist People's National Party was openly boasting that it would sweep Busta out of office in next year's elections, and Manley himself seemed to rate high with the British Labor government's Colonial Office.

Worried, Busta huffed about Manley's "Communist monsters," then grew indifferent and plaintive by turns. "If I am not returned," he told the House disdainfully, "I will retire and get rid of all this bother, because I am rich."

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