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<H1>Jamaica and several other Caribbean locations are struggling to be ready for event that starts next month</H1><DIV class=storybyline>By Carol J. Williams, Times Staff Writer
February 13, 2007 </DIV>
<DIV class=storybody>KINGSTON, JAMAICA — Behind orange net fencing that cordons off much of Norman Manley International Airport, the skeletal frame of a new terminal looms as a nagging reminder that this host nation of the Cricket World Cup has only a month to go before 15,000 fans descend on this city.
Across Kingston Harbor, the Sabina Park stadium also is a work in progress, with a moat-like trench encircling the playing field and blocked-off streets littered with earthmovers, loaders, bulldozers and piles of pipes for a much-delayed sewer and water project.
Depressed and dilapidated, downtown Kingston was supposed to be the main beneficiary of a $10-million government outlay last year for an island-wide beautification program to show Jamaica's best face to the world of cricket. But St. William Grant Park remains a malodorous refuge for the homeless and drug-addicted, waterfront flower beds and park benches never materialized, and gang violence has killed more than 100 people nationwide since New Year's Day, most of them in Kingston.
Jamaica is not ready for its close-up. As host of the prestigious event's opening ceremony in Trelawny on March 11 and semifinals here in late April, Jamaica is probably the most laggard of the Caribbean venues involved in the International Cricket Council's most logistically challenging and costly tournament ever staged: 67 matches spread over 54 days at 12 venues in Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago — none said to be fully ready.
Even the opportunity to showcase Jamaica before the Cup's expected 2.2 billion global TV viewers apparently hasn't been enough to spur builders and organizers off what residents call "island time."
"I don't know if Houdini or Mandrake are going to suddenly appear and wave a magic wand and bring Kingston and its environs up to speed to host the cricket," Kingston Mayor Desmond McKenzie said at a recent meeting of fellow politicians from the opposition Jamaican Labor Party. He deplored the state of his city as "a national disgrace" and said only about a third of the planned face-lift projects were likely to be completed on time.
The official line at Jamaica Cricket 2007 Ltd., the national organizing entity, is that the bare essentials will be ready. But they concede that the face Jamaica will show to the world may not be pretty.
"The requirements of the World Cup have brought out our deficiencies as a city and a country," said Robert Bryan, executive director of the national organizing firm. "It would have been a great opportunity to do something special, given the enormity of the World Cup, and we are in danger of missing this opportunity."
Despite the botched face-lift and tardy infrastructure improvements, Bryan exudes confidence that Jamaica can still carry off a successful tournament. His staff is scrambling to relocate tour groups to safer enclaves outside Kingston, to schedule daily Air Jamaica shuttles from coastal resorts to the capital, and to reroute traffic from the potholed roads that will be overwhelmed by buses stuffed with fans converging on the stadium.
"The stakes are quite high, economically, because we are a tourism country. Our ability to take care of visitors is of utmost importance," said Bryan, noting that Jamaica had a record 3 million visitors last year, with few of them touched by the country's notorious rates of violent crime.
Overall security for the islands has been stepped up with a special training course run by the Organization of American States in St. Lucia and a new visa requirement for Third World cricket patrons.
For the tournament, only citizens of the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, I
February 13, 2007 </DIV>
<DIV class=storybody>KINGSTON, JAMAICA — Behind orange net fencing that cordons off much of Norman Manley International Airport, the skeletal frame of a new terminal looms as a nagging reminder that this host nation of the Cricket World Cup has only a month to go before 15,000 fans descend on this city.
Across Kingston Harbor, the Sabina Park stadium also is a work in progress, with a moat-like trench encircling the playing field and blocked-off streets littered with earthmovers, loaders, bulldozers and piles of pipes for a much-delayed sewer and water project.
Depressed and dilapidated, downtown Kingston was supposed to be the main beneficiary of a $10-million government outlay last year for an island-wide beautification program to show Jamaica's best face to the world of cricket. But St. William Grant Park remains a malodorous refuge for the homeless and drug-addicted, waterfront flower beds and park benches never materialized, and gang violence has killed more than 100 people nationwide since New Year's Day, most of them in Kingston.
Jamaica is not ready for its close-up. As host of the prestigious event's opening ceremony in Trelawny on March 11 and semifinals here in late April, Jamaica is probably the most laggard of the Caribbean venues involved in the International Cricket Council's most logistically challenging and costly tournament ever staged: 67 matches spread over 54 days at 12 venues in Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago — none said to be fully ready.
Even the opportunity to showcase Jamaica before the Cup's expected 2.2 billion global TV viewers apparently hasn't been enough to spur builders and organizers off what residents call "island time."
"I don't know if Houdini or Mandrake are going to suddenly appear and wave a magic wand and bring Kingston and its environs up to speed to host the cricket," Kingston Mayor Desmond McKenzie said at a recent meeting of fellow politicians from the opposition Jamaican Labor Party. He deplored the state of his city as "a national disgrace" and said only about a third of the planned face-lift projects were likely to be completed on time.
The official line at Jamaica Cricket 2007 Ltd., the national organizing entity, is that the bare essentials will be ready. But they concede that the face Jamaica will show to the world may not be pretty.
"The requirements of the World Cup have brought out our deficiencies as a city and a country," said Robert Bryan, executive director of the national organizing firm. "It would have been a great opportunity to do something special, given the enormity of the World Cup, and we are in danger of missing this opportunity."
Despite the botched face-lift and tardy infrastructure improvements, Bryan exudes confidence that Jamaica can still carry off a successful tournament. His staff is scrambling to relocate tour groups to safer enclaves outside Kingston, to schedule daily Air Jamaica shuttles from coastal resorts to the capital, and to reroute traffic from the potholed roads that will be overwhelmed by buses stuffed with fans converging on the stadium.
"The stakes are quite high, economically, because we are a tourism country. Our ability to take care of visitors is of utmost importance," said Bryan, noting that Jamaica had a record 3 million visitors last year, with few of them touched by the country's notorious rates of violent crime.
Overall security for the islands has been stepped up with a special training course run by the Organization of American States in St. Lucia and a new visa requirement for Third World cricket patrons.
For the tournament, only citizens of the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, I
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