Gail Alexan­der

Scor­pi­on Al­ley is de­mand­ing an apol­o­gy. But some Smith Hill res­i­dents are fi­nal­ly get­ting re­lief from a dai­ly di­et of gun­shots. The mixed re­views which the state of emer­gency has elicit­ed in "hot spot" ar­eas un­der cur­few are no dif­fer­ent from those of Scor­pi­on Al­ley and Smith Hill in Care­nage. The two ar­eas of Care­nage are atop par­al­lel ridges in the Diego Mar­tin (con­stituen­cy) hill­side. They boast mil­lion-dol­lar views of the west­ern penin­su­la, high­ly com­pa­ra­ble with, and prob­a­bly bet­ter than, the posh domi­ciles of their more af­flu­ent neigh­bours in Glen­coe and West­moor­ings. But the scenic views are where the com­mon sit­u­a­tion ends.

Both in the PNM strong­hold of Diego Mar­tin West, Scor­pi­on Al­ley and Smith Hill are de­pressed pock­ets where nar­row wind­ing roads give way to mod­est homes tucked pre­car­i­ous­ly in­to the wood­ed hill­sides.

One part of Smith Hill ap­pears to boast a con­crete "wa­ter­fall." But it's ac­tu­al­ly a cas­cade that re­sults when con­crete steps built over a nat­ur­al gul­ly car­ry the over­flow of wa­ter when it rains. It's steep, slip­pery, dank and mossy. But it's the on­ly way for res­i­dents to reach their homes. A re­cent in­ci­dent in the ar­eas which end­ed with protests and tyre-burn­ing is at­trib­uted by some res­i­dents to gang war.

Scor­pi­on Al­ley has been fight­ing a bad rep­u­ta­tion in re­cent times and youths in the area are more Put Out (to put it very mild­ly) by re­cent tele­casts dur­ing the state of emer­gency about this. At 6 pm on Sun­day, Scor­pi­on's boys were hang­ing out near the Blue Night Club and un­der the fa­mous tamarind tree.

Dub pumped loud­ly. A few guys were prepar­ing for a cur­few par­ty. Every­body re­lax­ing. It's a place where no­body's go­ing to give you a name in the state of emer­gency cli­mate. But they want to talk. Po­lice pa­trols have been "fly­ing" around the spot, they say.

"No army (shake-down) ent come yet...they ent hold no­body for guns or cur­few or any­thing...but we know they com­ing," mus­es a 30s-ish guy in a brown jer­sey. "Sin­gle moth­ers in the area who work­ing casi­no and restau­rants catch­ing hell to work prop­er­ly now with this cur­few. They can't go out, things clos­ing ear­ly," he added. Bev­er­ley, a small busi­ness­woman said: "It's not like if peo­ple come in here and will get kill dai­ly. I can't say if it have guns or not...they might have their lit­tle gun shots but up here have no killers. But lack of jobs is the biggest prob­lem. Andy, 22 and his 37-year-old part­ner hang­ing near a low stone wall, cups in hand, echo the vex­a­tion of Scor­pi­on youths at Ian Al­leyne's re­cent­ly tele­vised vis­it dur­ing cur­few.

"Scor­pi­on get an un­fair rap...Scor­pi­on prob­a­bly have its is­sues, but you can't stain every­body be­cause of talk. Laven­tille get a bet­ter im­age than Scor­pi­on af­ter that show," "Yeah! Yeah...Yeah," comes a cho­rus of agree­ment from oth­er youths. A well-built 30-some­thing guy in blue hood­ie, jeans and white sneak­ers adds, "Scor­pi­on de­mand­ing an apol­o­gy, sis­ter. I work­ing off­shore. If I have to get a nex job, I mightn't get it be­cause every­body see Scor­pi­on as a bad place." Well Built added: "I meet a young la­dy and I tell she where I from, she might run be­fore I get chance to tell her we have good peo­ple here. The day af­ter that show, three jeep of po­lice come down here."

A stocky well-spo­ken 26-year-old, adds "Talk to peo­ple, ask about things. Doh come when no­body out­side and pro­nounce death on the area be­cause some­body say ting just so." No­body that af­ter­noon is in­ter­est­ed in hear­ing PNM MP Kei­th Row­ley's name or for­mer COP can­di­date Rocky Gar­cia's. And the same ap­plies across the ridge in Smith Hill where some folks are hap­py for the state of emer­gency.

Mr B, 48 says, "I born here. Things be­gan go­ing bad about five years ago. It's about twice dai­ly we hear gun shots." "If the po­lice was polic­ing all the time, this might not have de­vel­oped. This state of emer­gency should have been done three years ago."

He added: "I work­ing near Sea Lots. Some­time they find bul­let shells on the com­pound but when I come home I can't rest-till now. They should keep up the state of emer­gency." His friend Brown-tall with plaits-adds, "This gang thing is more like a style the youths join­ing. Peo­ple copy it from Amer­i­ca and every­body want to be in fash­ion. Is an ego thing." We need things to keep youths busy. Once the state of emer­gency ends, things will lapse back in­to how it was." A bux­om young la­dy with braids says, "We live as one here, but peo­ple come in the area. I could sleep in the night now, no gun shots and dog bark­ing all the time be­cause peo­ple around."

An­oth­er woman, Mrs W takes is­sue with the area's treat­ment by both PNM and COP can­di­dates.

She adds, "The is­sues we now have, have wors­ened over the years. We were PNM but went COP, but COP has not got­ten back to us. Mr B adds, "We've had a PNM MP al­most 18 years. Diego West al­ways had big PNM deputies as MP-O'Hal­lo­ran, Hugh Fran­cis-yet we nev­er move up. When it go­ing to hap­pen?"