Queens, NY (PressExposure) May 23, 2010 -- Embattled Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding declared a state of public emergency over the capital city, Kingston and neighboring St. Andrew effective Sunday at 6:00 p.m. Open warfare between gunmen and security forces has precipitated because Golding signed an extradition warrant for alleged gun and drug trafficker Christopher "Dudus" Coke.

Coke is the reputed don of West Kingston's infamous Tivoli Gardens garrison. Coke, counted among the world's most dangerous narcotics kingpins" by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), has been charged with conspiracy to traffic firearms and to distribute marijuana and cocaine.

Since Golding's signing, West Kingston has become a war zone as gunmen roam sections of the area, manning fortified roadblocks in to the Tivoli and neighboring garrisons to stop police who are attempting to enter to serve the arrest warrant on Coke. The Jamaica Observer reports:

Cooking gas cylinders were placed in the barricades around the community, while barbed wires were thrown on high voltage Jamaica Public Service electrical wires and attached to metal objects in the rubble, as they vowed not to allow the security forces to enter the community.

The Jamaica Defense Force has mobilized its Army Reserves and U.S. gun ships are docked in a Kingston Harbor. Despite urgings to turn himself in to the nearest police station, Coke has maintained complete silence and his lawyers are presently in talks with security representatives and the U.S. Embassy.

Members of a JDF team in an armored vehicle, attempting to enter a blockade entrance of an adjacent garrison, was met with a fusillade of bullets from high-powered weaponry. One police station has been set ablaze and several have come under heavy attack by gunmen who have defiantly engaged police who have been attempting to dismantle the barricades.

Gunmen from other areas - and the opposition party - have been mobilized to provide reinforcements in a highly organized, relentless show of will and fire power. Mounted sand bags, cemented refrigerators, tires and old vehicles mark the entrance and exit points to several communities.

Fearing that the violence could spread to other areas, the U.S. State Department has issued a travel alert, warning citizens of the risks associated with travel to and within the greater Kingston metropolitan area. The U.K. and Canada have similar warnings in effect.

In a weekend address to the nation, Golding stated that the security forces will be able to restrict freedom of movement, search premises and detain suspect persons without warrant. The security forces will be moving swiftly to bring the current situation under control. Criminal elements bent on violence and mayhem will be detained, and processed. The criminal element who have placed the society under siege will not be allowed to triumph.

In a reflection of his loss of power, Golding's calls for calm have fallen on deaf ears in his constituency as the neighborhood continues to protect its own version of government.

Once news of Golding's signing spread, area businesses and schools shuttered and locals scurried from the downtown area to avoid the highly anticipated violence. Golding has steered the country toward a calamitous showdown that pits the island against - not just the United States - but its own people. Now a pregnant tension hangs over the capital as security forces prepare for battle with gangsters from Coke's Tivoli Gardens base. If they can find or reach him.

What a Tangled Web We Weave

After months of denials, the besieged Prime Minister admitted sanctioning the hiring of the U.S. law firm Manatt Phelps & Phillips to lobby the United States to drop its extradition request for Coke. In his disingenuous prevarication, Golding told Parliament that he "sanctioned the initiative, knowing that such interventions have, in the past, proven to be of considerable value in dealing with issues involving governments of both countries." But to an incredulous country and the dogged Opposition Party, his mea culpa came with the caveat that hired Manatt as leader of the Jamaica Labor Party, not as head of government.

Two heads, one serpent. Branded a liar, with credibility and reputation in tatters, Golding has asked forgiveness in a nationwide address, begging for an opportunity for a new way forward, but no one seems to be listening. The Private Sector Organization (PSOJ) and the opposition People's National Party (PNP) have refused to accept his apology, dismissing it as one of politically expediency. The PNP Deputy General Secretary Julian Robinson says He has done irreparable damage to the Office. The difficulty with accepting his apology is that the full facts have not been brought to the table for all Jamaicans to see. Each day brings new discoveries that contradicts previous statements.

But the truth is more than an offense, it's an abomination: It is unprecedented in Jamaican history that a Prime Minister has become intimately involved in blocking the extradition of a wanted man. As angry PNP members sought to illicit answers, the Prime Minister cowered behind the Standing Orders of Parliament, which tables inquiries that are not government-related, and dismissed calls for answers to the Manatt/Dudus scandal as a party, not government affair.

With the egregious lack of respect Golding has shown for the fundamental laws of governance and statesmanship, he appears oblivious to the burgeoning crime situation and willing to sacrifice the image and reputation of a country. Fact is, the Coke quagmire is the inevitable culmination of the decades-old chickens coming home to roost. His costly political blunder can be partially blamed on short-sightedness. He and his cronies undoubtedly thought this scandal would be a mere blip on the U.S. radar, who already had it's hands full with two protracted wars, a new President and a blistering recession.

The stench of corruption emanating from the underskirts of the Jamaica House has now become increasingly unbearable. To wit, Coke's attorney and Member of Parliament Tom Tavares-Finson has resigned as his legal representative and peculation runs rife about whether he holds Coke's fabled recordkeeping secret journal.

If Golding resigns, he is faced with two choices: He will be replaced by whoever wins the Party's leadership competition or he can instruct the Governor General to call a new Election - an option no party member could stomach. But even if Golding resigns, who among his complicity court jesters would replace him? To unearth one bad apple is to reveal the tree's rotten roots and everything thereof is fruit of the rotten tree.

No JLP Member of Parliament has come forward to renounce or even question the Prime Minister's actions or his silence. Instead, they pretend to be perplexed by the hullabaloo, inured as they now are to the smell of entrenched corruption that sticks like a second invisible, indivisible skin.

Golding's administration has only been in place for 2 years. Despite the PNP'S protestations, Coke and others of his elk have operated with impunity during the 14 years of their administration.

To render a Prime Minister schizophrenic and to silence the consciences of his Members of Parliament is no easy feat. The unfolding saga is but the tip of a melting iceberg, with each day revealing more disquieting questions:

• Why would a party leader be involved in matters concerning two states and who are the "party financiers" eager to squash the extradition warrant? • Who owns the Nova Scotia bank account on which the $50,000 down payment to Manatt was drawn? • How would the government pay the balance of the $400,000 Manatt contract when they're unable to pay salaries, build infrastructure, fight crime and provide fundamental social services? • How/Why is Mr. Coke allowed unmitigated access to a warehouse and port wharves. But who has the power to have government officials lobby on their behalf?

The helicopters buzzing above is the closest police can get to the impenetrable community. Jamaicans everywhere are sounding a death knell to the garrison-style political system and to politicians more committed to maintaining their seats and mansions than to campaign promises.

The government has outsourced their duties to criminal elements and now has to pay the piper. Robinson says the PNP recognizes "the demand for new viable alternatives for the challenges that afflict garrisons. Social services, education and employment opportunities and the common amenities that majority of Jamaicans enjoy. In the absence of an organized social system, criminal elements will flourish."

Death Before Dishonor

For his part, Coke has provided tangible answers to the teeth-baring poverty and hopelessness that has prevailed in Jamaica - something successive governments have failed to do.

The full extent and magnitude of the decades-long link between Jamaican government and don power is on unprecedented display as lays siege to terrified city. Organized gunmen have crossed party lines in to defend their territories and sphere of power and influence in a battle that pits secutity forces against its people in a battle that leaves them outmatched and outgunned. Which begs the question, how have non-military entities been able to amass high-powered weaponry without alerting law enforcement or port and government officials of the present or past Administration? Now cornered and mired in a mess of its own creation, the government has now mobilized the military to do its dirty work, putting the citzenry at risk and leaving the nation's reputation in shreds. Barricades and road blocks are now being constructed and reinforced deeper into Kingston in garrisons adjoining suburban neighbourhoods.Coke is no fool. His father, Lloyd Lester "Jim Brown" Coke died in a suspicious prison fire just a day before his own U.S. extradition. Many regard Coke Sr's death to be a government-sanctioned murder and with that consideration, this siege has been months in the planning. Coke's lawyers are said to be discussing his surrender with the US Charge d'Affaires. Purportedly, his supporteres and their communties are fortifying themselves against the possibility that he could be killed by government-directed security forces ostensibly in the course of a gun battle while attempting to serving the extradition warrant, but which also - in fact - ties up quite a bit of untidy loose ends for the government. Make no mistake, with the exception of the Jamaican people, it is in no-one's best interest for Coke to be taken into custody. This is a cautionary tale for politicians who empower and utilize criminal elements to control impoverrished segments of the populace.

By all accounts, Coke is a shadow, a phantom. One word from him would be sufficient to remove the barricades, to silence the guns and to institute a church-like calm over this besieged city. Women in white came out to protest Coke's extradition, elucidating his beneficence, vowing they would die for him. His hands are clean, he is next to God, they chant. For now, Coke, aka the President, is silent, out of sight, protected, content to pull the strings of a government willing to dirty its hands for him.

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Originally published for http://www.bvblackspin.com/2010/05/24/jamaica-news-christopher-dudus-coke/

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