Pubdate: Fri, 28 May 2010
Source: Wall Street Journal (US)
Copyright: 2010 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.wsj.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/487
Author: Nicholas Casey
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Jamaica

AFTER JAMAICAN SIEGE, A BIGGER BATTLE

KINGSTON, Jamaica -The government here defended its actions after a 
three-day siege in search of an alleged drug lord in a Kingston 
shantytown claimed at least 73 lives. But many Jamaicans questioned 
the deadly cost of the raid-while police said their target, 
Christopher "Dudus" Coke, was nowhere to be found.

Police did claim victory Friday in taking control of the Tivoli 
Gardens slum, Mr. Coke's stronghold, saying it marked the most 
significant attack Jamaican police have dared to take on one of 
Kingston's "garrisons" where powerful crime bosses hold sway.

The raid could mark a turning point on the island. For more than a 
generation, men like Mr. Coke took charge of much of Jamaica as 
"dons"-kingmaking political patrons, organized-crime bosses and 
figureheads of Kingston's neglected slums, where they distributed 
food and justice. Now, it appears the Jamaican government wants that 
control back-a fight that won't be easy.

"Jamaica has been riding a tiger that now threatens to consume it," 
says Trevor Munroe, a Jamaican public intellectual and former 
senator, of the dons. "This conflict dramatizes the need for society 
as a whole to prevent the state from being captured."

On Friday, Tivoli Gardens looked like a section of an occupied city. 
Soldiers stood with assault rifles and machetes. One bored soldier 
kicked at a few spent rounds on the street. Some residents were 
unable to leave their streets, penned in by barbed-wire blockades set 
up by security forces. "We're starving here," said Elva Williams, 52 
years old, standing next to soldiers. Mr. Coke is wanted in the U.S. 
on drug-trafficking charges. Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding 
balked at an extradition request late last year, but was criticized 
by Washington and opposition politicians in Jamaica for trying to 
shield the alleged drug lord. Tivoli Gardens has been a reliable 
bastion for Mr. Golding's Labour Party.

Last week, Mr. Golding issued a warrant for Mr. Coke's arrest. 
Violence erupted Monday, soon after police went to capture the 
41-year-old. Col. Rocky Meade, who coordinated the military arm of 
the operation, said Friday that while the problem of organized crime 
had grown in Jamaica for years, this week's action was necessary 
because this was the first time a group had presented such a threat 
to the government. "What we're seeing is organized crime taking over 
the state," Col. Meade said. Police Commissioner Owen Ellington said 
more than 700 people had been arrested in the raid, in which three 
members of the security forces died. The affair left many Jamaicans 
frustrated. "They went about it all wrong," said Horace Pinnock, a 
retired mechanic in Kingston. "If you're going to go after somebody, 
you don't tell him you're coming before." Many Tivoli Gardens 
residents say the army and police used indiscriminate force in trying 
to subdue Mr. Coke's followers.

Apo Morrison, 46, leaned on a pair of crutches outside her sister's 
home on Friday where she had taken refuge after she says her house 
was ransacked by soldiers at least three times. She returned to the 
building Thursday to find her living room covered with a large amount 
of an unknown person's blood. "The entire place stinks, stinks," she 
said. "They must have killed someone up in there. They have killed innocents."

The government said it took pains to avoid casualties of bystanders. 
It said most of the victims appeared to be men under the age of 30, 
and that two women were killed.The government also revealed the 
extent to which Tivoli Gardens had armed itself for war.

The neighborhood had its own closed-circuit television cameras. The 
gang linked to Mr. Coke had police uniforms and underground tunnels, 
and had installed improvised explosive devices in buildings, police 
said. During the fighting, gang members used manhole covers as 
shields, police said. Even as some here urge on a fight against the 
crime bosses, others urge caution. Former deputy police commissioner 
Mark Shields says the country's security forces aren't ready to take 
on the dons. "They're a force that's ready for peacetime security, 
not this," he says.

While Mr. Coke's influence in Jamaica is rarely disputed, his 
biography remains full of holes. His grand jury indictment cites a 
number of nicknames, some of them cryptic: "President," "General," 
"Shortman," and "Paul Christopher Scott."

Mr. Coke was raised in Kingston in the 1970s at a turning point in 
Jamaican history when politicians began yielding authority to 
neighborhood bosses in Kingston who said they could deliver votes. By 
the 1980s, these dons began raising money for political campaigns by 
trafficking cocaine into the U.S., solidifying their power by arming 
neighborhood militias. A new shantytown unit, known today as the 
"garrison," was born. The dons formed "a kind of state within the 
state," says Theodore Leggett, a drugs expert at the United Nations. 
"Wealth from the cocaine trade essentially liberated these men from 
their political masters."

Mr. Coke's father was believed to be one of these bosses, leading the 
"Shower Posse," a fierce gang that operated in New York and Kingston, 
and got its name from "showering" crowds with bullets to kill rival 
drug lords. The elder Mr. Coke's power grew, and so did the influence 
of his garrison, Tivoli Gardens, a long-neglected shantytown a short 
distance from Bob Marley's fabled Trench Town. Through Mr. Coke's 
political patronage, Tivoli Gardens's pull in Jamaica's Labour Party 
increased; politicians soon knew they were unlikely to win elections 
without the district. The senior Mr. Coke's reign was cut short by an 
extradition request from the U.S. Then his body was found charred 
after a fire in a Jamaican jail cell where he was awaiting 
extradition. The mysterious fire was unsolved but many believe it was 
carried out by a rival garrison.

The younger Mr. Coke took charge of his father's business, according 
to U.S. authorities.

In Tivoli Gardens, Mr. Coke cuts a mysterious figure-feared, revered 
and rarely sighted. In late December, city residents gathered for a 
"passa passa"-an outdoor party popular in Tivoli Gardens. Disc 
jockeys played reggae tunes elbow-to-elbow with dozens of dancers.Mr. 
Coke decided to make an unannounced appearance.

The music stopped, the crowd parted. "You could hear everyone's heart 
beating. It was almost as if they were watching a mirage," said 
Anicee Gaddis, a writer who was there. Mr. Coke took the stage. Blood 
wars were rending Jamaica apart, he said. He appealed for unity and a 
truce between the garrisons, Ms. Gaddis recalls.

But violence in Jamaica was already reaching all-time highs. The flow 
of cocaine into the U.S. had shifted to Central America as Mexican 
drug lords took over trafficking and Jamaican marijuana lost market 
share to Mexican cannabis. The Jamaican dons were "fighting over a 
shrinking pie," says Mr. Leggett of the U.N. Jamaica ended 2009 with 
1,674 murders, making it one of the world's most dangerous places.

Prime Minister Golding's move against an alleged drug lord, under 
political pressure, echoes an effort nearby, in Mexico. In 2006, 
after a narrow election victory, President Felipe Calderon began a 
battle with drug traffickers by sending soldiers and federal police 
to combat a cartel in his home state of Michoacan.

The war rapidly expanded across the nation and Mr. Calderon found 
himself without adequate police forces for the fight. An effort to 
decisively fulfill a campaign promise had turned into a quagmire. Mr. 
Leggett says it is a problem the region must grapple with to 
establish law and order. "Many Latin American countries need to 
address organized crime before it becomes a threat to the state, and 
particularly before these groups become institutionalized," he says. 
"In both Mexico and Jamaica, this time has long passed."
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake