Bob Marley assassination attempt Bob Marley assassination attempt Michael Manley, son of former Prime Minister Norman Manley, was elected Prime Minister of Jamaica in 1972. To address growing inequality in Jamaican society, Manley embarked on several democratic socialist reforms of the state, including land ownership reform, free education from primary to university, and nationalization of certain industries. Such policies had massive popularity among many people in Jamaica, but there were others who either saw the reforms as contrary to their businesses or as a high precursor to a Cuban-style communist government. Beginning in 1974, he was also opposed by the more conservative Edward Seaga
Bob Marley assassination attempt by the CIA’s Jamaican station chief, Norman Descoteaux. According to Gary Webb’s book "Dark Alliance", “The campaign included covert shipments of arms to Manley’s opponents, the use of selective violence, bombings, and assassinations, covert financial aid to the conservative Jamaica Labour Party, the fomenting of extensive labor unrest, and bribery.” One of the CIA agents who would later play a key role in the Contra project, Luis Posada Carriles, a Bay of Pigs invasion and Operation Condor veteran, was spotted in Jamaica near the scene of one of the bombings. The Smile Jamaica Concert was held on December 5, 1976