Violence Mars Jamaican Paradise : Caribbean: In a country that tries to entice tourists, what is most notable about its capital city are gangs and guns.

The first few “pops” could barely be heard over the music, and few people in the Baltimore Bar even looked up. But when the automatic rifle fire began, indifference turned to terror.

Two outsiders dived for cover under a table, but the 20 or so other patrons headed to the street--all, it seemed, carrying guns. Within seconds, it was all over. The shooters had disappeared, no one was hurt and everyone was back in the bar sipping Red Stripe beer and sucking on sticks of ganja , the potent Jamaican marijuana.

“Ah, it happens all the time,” said Chubby, the Baltimore’s glassy-eyed owner. “They weren’t after me or the bar. Probably only one guy taking out after someone who had cheated him on a crack deal. It just happened here. It could have been anywhere.”

“That’s so,” said police detective Walcott Brown when told about the incident and Chubby’s reaction. “These shootings go on all the time and all over the city. Everyone has a gun and is willing to use it.”

That is only a slight exaggeration. Cab drivers have them. A guitar player in a reggae band keeps one in his music case, a foreign diplomat carries a loaded pistol in his briefcase. A woman leaving a seminar on hair styling showed a reporter a .38-caliber revolver in her purse. “I’m not taking any chances,” she said. “No one is left alone here.”

According to Jamaican military officials and diplomats, guns are second only to drugs in the smuggling trade here. “They bring them in by the barrel,” said one diplomat. “AK-47s, M-16s, 9-millimeter Glocks, Uzis, anything you want.”

In a country that tries to entice tourists by labeling itself paradise, what is most notable about its capital city are crime and gang violence. “We have one of the most violent cities in the world here,” said Carl Stone, Jamaica’s best-known social scientist.

Even though attacks on foreigners have increased lately, they have not yet seriously affected tourism, Jamaica’s largest earner of foreign currency. One reason is that the crime is largely concentrated in the Kingston area, which has few tourist attractions.

Another reason is the growth of so-called “all-inclusive” resorts on Jamaica’s north and west coasts. These are fenced-in and virtually self-contained facilities that provide tourists with so many amenities that few guests ever venture out to meet the local population.

Once, crime and violence here were generally limited to gangs in the fetid slums called “garrison neighborhoods” and, oddly, were defined in terms of Jamaican politics.

The gangs were the creations of the country’s two major parties, and they used violence mostly to sway voters and promote political programs.

That has largely changed. While the gangs still define themselves in terms of parties and still control patronage and other political spoils, most of their work and money comes from the cocaine trade.

And in what is an old story in the impoverished Caribbean, a collapsing economy has created a near-permanent underclass of uneducated, untrained and unemployable young people who increasingly prey on the island’s rich and on the unwary tourist.

For instance, a poll by social scientist Stone shows that 40% of Kingston’s middle- and upper-middle-class households have been struck by crime this year, a 9% increase in the past two years.

At the same time, Stone’s survey indicates that violent crime in the city’s poorest areas also increased by 7% but affected only 26% of the residents.

The fear of spreading crime can be seen in New Kingston, a pleasant area of banks, insurance companies, embassies and upscale hotels previously considered safe.

Hotel doormen warn foreigners against walking in the streets even in broad daylight, and every building lobby is guarded by armed security men. Entering a bank requires passage through double locked chambers. Homes in the area and in the wealthy hillside neighborhoods overlooking New Kingston are encased in razor wire. Neighborhood watch signs are everywhere.

Even if the rich are afraid, and even if statistics say they are victims in greater numbers than the poor, the real sign of Jamaica’s violence is found in the garrison neighborhoods.

In Trench Town, one of the most gang-ridden regions in downtown Kingston, some of the streets are barricaded with sheet metal. Graffiti warn against entering.

Idle men who call themselves the “sufferers” sit with glassy eyes on curbs, hissing at outsiders, calling out insults. Cab drivers won’t enter Trench Town or Denham Town, another of the garrison towns. One Kingston resident who agreed to drive into the slums keeps his window rolled down, in spite of the stench, to avoid showing any sign of fear or enmity.

“This is the center of the violence,” the driver said. “I can come down here because I work here and they know I’m not the police.”

Violence is a theme of life in much of Kingston. With nearly 800,000 residents, more than a third of the nation’s population, it is a teeming place where unemployment is the norm.

But it goes beyond crowded slums and lack of jobs. The local patois is full of violent images, as is Jamaica’s famous music--reggae and dance hall, the latter a form of rap that speaks of such things as rape and murder.

“The idea of violence is part of Jamaica’s history,” said a European diplomat. “There were constant uprisings by slaves and revolts against the British. Everyone carried a weapon and still does.”

Under pressure from business interests and growing public discontent, the government and the political opposition are beginning to move for control of the violence.

Currently under way is a joint police-army sweep called Ardent. It is aimed at gangs in such numbers that special detention camps have been built to hold hundreds of suspects.

The program has been greeted with enthusiasm but, in its early days, appears to have accomplished little. Since Nov. 1, only 79 suspects have been arrested; four others have been killed.

But to many, neither a new security force nor better social conditions is the answer. Government violence is. Carl Stone’s poll showed that in the opinion of 34% of the respondents, the best way to deal with crime is to hang the criminals. No other solution came close.