A motorcade, which its organisers say will carry a message of peace and hopefully inspire a halt to violence, is to snake its way through inner-city communities between Kingston and May Pen on Sunday, urging those who kill to put down their weapons - at least for the day.

The anti-violence initiative, organised by a committee chaired by University of the West Indies (UWI) anthropologist, Professor Barry Chevannes, and including mainly entertainment industry figures, is timed to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the birth of Bob Marley, the Jamaican reggae star who died in 1981.

Marley's birthday is officially marked in Jamaica but his year is being given recognition by the African Union with several functions in Ethiopia, the headquarters of the AU and the spiritual home of members of the Rastafarian religion of which Marley was a member.

"We are appealing to everyone not to kill on Bob Marley Day," Chevannes explained to 60 inner-city community leaders at a forum at the Jamaica Conference Centre in downtown Kingston yesterday.

". If there is no killing on that day (maybe) we can extend the one day into two days and the two days into five days, by which time we may well see that we have no need to kill at all and can settle our disputes in peaceful and respectful ways," he added.

Jamaica has one of the world's highest murder rates, having, in recent years, averaged just under 1,000 homicides a year. But the figure rocketed last year to more than 1,400 murders and a homicide rate of over 56 per 100,000 population.

The new year has also started badly for murders, with more than 120 cases reported so far in January, causing the experts and societal leaders to scramble for initiatives to slow the bloodletting.

Sunday's motorcade, which will start at the National Stadium in Kingston, will travel through several of the capital's toughest communities and into Spanish Town, St Catherine, where there has recently been several gang-related killings.

The motorcade will then head to May Pen in Clarendon before heading back to the capital for a peace rally at Emancipation Park in New Kingston.

"We need to appeal to all the 'shottas' not to kill on that day," Chevannes said. "We must have hope and have faith in the future, and Jamaica will bounce back to be violence-free. We have to have faith because humans can have the will not to kill."

It is expected that the governor general, Sir Howard Cooke, will tomorrow formally proclaim February 6 a violence-free day and that the proclamation will be relayed to the custodes of the island's 14 parishes by a team of up to 50 bicycle riders.

During yesterday's discussions, proposed solutions for ending violence in Jamaica ranged from the enforcement of capital punishment, to political leaders reasserting the leadership role in communities that they ceded to "dons" as well as parents and communities to end their cover-up of crime.

"If this covering up is stopped we would not have the need to be calling now for a violence-free day," said one participant. " So, cut out the blood thicker than water thing and expose the killers whoever they are."

Said another man: "We need government to reintroduce capital punishment which in my opinion will prevent so much murder. We must send a message to them that enough is enough."

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