SOLDIERS SEEK TO END JAMAICA VIOLENCE

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) -- Backed by helicopter gunships, soldiers deployed
in a troubled Kingston neighborhood Tuesday, patrolling streets blocked
with debris from days of gunbattles between police and government opponents
that have killed 22 people.

Crouching low with machine gun at the ready, a trooper passed the body of
an elderly man sprawled face down in a pool of dried blood, apparently from
a bullet in the back. Residents of Tivoli Gardens, the besieged
neighborhood, said the man was killed Sunday.

"Anyone who tried to move got shot at. It's pure murder from both ends ...
the police and the gangs," said Claudia McKay, a 23-year-old seamstress.

The violence has been concentrated in the capital, Kingston, in southeast
Jamaica, though there have been isolated protests and roadblocks that
police quickly dismantled in the northern resort towns of Montego Bay and
Ocho Rios.

There were no reports of tourists leaving, but a new U.S. travel advisory
against western and downtown Kingston raised worries the disturbances could
hurt Jamaica's vital $1.3 billion tourism industry.

Prime Minister P.J. Patterson ordered Jamaica's entire army -- more than
3,000 troops -- to deploy Monday night to reinforce security forces trying
to put down fighting between gangs affiliated with the two main political
parties.

"The government cannot stand idly by and allow criminal elements to hold
this country to ransom," Patterson said.

On Tuesday, there was only sporadic fighting after troops moved in.

"It's an unpredictable situation ... the police and the army are
maintaining a heavy presence," said police spokeswoman Dahlia Garrick.

But the opposition Labor Party says authorities have been targeting only
its followers in the crackdown launched Saturday. Since then, at least 22
people have been killed, including three police officers and one soldier.
One of the police deaths came Tuesday when an officer was hit in the head
by a rock thrown by protesters 40 miles from Montego Bay.

Still, travel agents said tourists were not alarmed. "Most of our travel is
into Montego Bay which is nowhere near Kingston ... so we haven't had any
cancellations," said Joanie Waskevich of the Caribbean Travel Network.

Britain, the former colonial ruler, said it was reviewing its travel
advisory for Jamaica, though Prime Minister Tony Blair will still visit the
island at month's end.

Commerce is hurting since the fighting and roadblocks shut down banks,
stores and other business, and a few shops were looted, police said. The
nation's blood bank is out of blood and the cemetery is closed by the unrest.

Anthony Chang, president of Jamaica's Chamber of Commerce, predicted that
the economy would be damaged. "It's too early to tell, you need some time
to gauge these things, but this not good," he said.

However, Carnival Cruise Lines said its tours to Jamaica would continue.
Jamaican tourism officials advised the cruise line that "everything is
normal in Montego Bay," spokesman Tim Gallagher said.

"It's not affecting tourists in any way," said Dawn Sharp, a Montego Bay
resident who arrived in Miami on Tuesday. "Everywhere you have ghettos so
it's just a specific location where you have problems."

In Tivoli Gardens -- a Labor Party stronghold -- police Constable Cecil
Walker described how he was walking down a street in plainclothes Sunday
beside a girl of 7 or 8 who was killed when police opened fire.

"She got shot down and I had to run -- I barely made it alive," Walker
said. "The police were shooting at us."

Hundreds of people poured out Tuesday into streets littered with burned-out
cars, hundreds of bullet shells and stained with blood. They were taking
advantage of heavy security surrounding a visit from opposition Labor
leader Edward Seaga, a Kingston legislator.

"Shower! Shower!" they yelled, making the two-finger victory sign of the
notorious Shower Posse drug gang, which the FBI blames for 1,400 murders on
the U.S. east coast at the height of the 1980s cocaine wars.

Saturday's police crackdown was launched after more than two months of
fighting between gangs in western Kingston that killed 37 people. Police
say the gang war was triggered by the killing of a Kingston gang leader.

Seaga has said the fighting is a plot by Patterson's party to embarrass
him. Patterson supporters charge Seaga is orchestrating the violence to
force an early election while he's ahead in the polls. General elections
are due before the end of next year.

Jamaica, with 2.6 million people, has one of the highest murder rates in
the world, with 530 this year. That does not include 75 people killed by
police between January and last week -- deaths police said were self-defense.

Patterson mounted a similar crackdown two years ago. Jamaica's political
history is intertwined with the gangs the two main parties helped organize
and arm in Kingston's poor neighborhoods in the 1970s. The gangs control
the streets and intimidate voters at election time.