by DAVID CUPPLES
Jamaican singer/musician Bob Marley
Two nights before a much awaited national show, two carloads of armed men drove into Marley’s Hope Road yard and shot up the place. Whether the CIA was connected to the attack is unclear. But Marley was stirring up the populace with lyrics of resistance and revolution, inciting the people to think breaking from “the system” was a good idea.
Forty years ago, on Dec. 3, 1976, Bob Marley was shot in a gangland assassination attempt in the heat of a contentious Jamaican election campaign pitting the United States’ favorite (Edward Seaga) against the incumbent prime minister (Michael Manley). The shooting in Marley’s Kingston home—which also wounded his wife, Rita, and at least two others—occurred 12 days before the scheduled elections and two days before a free concert Marley had agreed to play in hopes of bringing the people together and cooling the violence that had been occurring.
The events surrounding the “Smile Jamaica” concert make it one of the 20th century’s key moments in developing countries of the Third World. There are indications that the United States was running a destabilization program against the democratic socialist administration of Michael Manley—Manley writes about it and former CIA case officers Philip Agee and John Stockwell have said explicitly that such a program existed. Agee even named the CIA case officers stationed in the U.S. Embassy in Kingston. (My novel “Stir It Up” comprehensively summarizes in narrative form the evidence for the destabilization program, including typical CIA methods described by Agee.)
Cuba, the United States’ archenemy in the Western Hemisphere, had been invaded with U.S. backing and subjected to a crippling embargo that would continue to the present moment. Now here was Manley buddying up to Fidel Castro and implementing socialist programs that were benefiting the Jamaican people rather than American companies and investors—interests to which Manley’s challenger, the Harvard-educated Seaga, was more favorably disposed.
A destabilization program, in the immortal words of Richard Nixon, who was directing CIA efforts (via Henry Kissinger) to undermine Salvador Allende in Chile, is intended to “make the economy scream” so the people will suffer and rise up to vote, or otherwise boot out, the culprit—such as an Allende or a Manley. It’s not a Nobel Peace Prize-worthy endeavor, and if it doesn’t work, more serious action might be considered, such as assassination or military invasion (see the Agee hyperlink).
For various reasons in Jamaica—including poverty and political cronyism after four centuries of colonial rule—street gangs became affiliated with the two major political parties: Manley’s Peoples National Party (PNP) and Seaga’s Jamaica Labor Party (JLP). To call the gang lords unofficial enforcers for the parties would not be much of a stretch. As the 1976 elections neared, the rivalry between PNP and JLP toughs escalated. The streets and tenement yards of Kingston ran red with blood, causing international airlines to cancel flights to the island.
Bob Marley and the Wailers were riding the crest of international fame on the strength of the “Rastaman Vibration” album and tour. Rolling Stone named the group the band of the year, and Time called Marley “a political force to rival the government.” The former barefoot country boy and big-city “rudeboy” had become a populist champion of human rights and an international symbol of struggle against the lingering structures of colonialism. His growing fame put him in danger. The gang lords on both sides desperately wanted him as their own.
‘Smile Jamaica’ and the assassination attempt on Bob Marley
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