Crying out for Peace in Jamaica: The Extradition of Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke

Christopher "Dudus" Coke arrives in New York to face drug trafficking charges on Thursday June 24, 2010. (AP Photo/ Louis Lanzano)

In Jamaica farce, intrigue and tragedy remain inextricably intertwined. The fugitive don, Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, on the run since May 24th, is finally in the United States where he arrived earlier this evening (see photo above). Coke was intercepted on the outskirts of Kingston on June 22nd by the Jamaican police while they were supposedly conducting random spot checks on passing motorists. There was a J$5 million dollar bounty for information leading to his arrest.

We’re told that he was being escorted by charismatic preacher Reverend Al Miller to the US Embassy in an abortive attempt at surrendering to American authorities who were clamouring for his extradition. We’re also informed that he was sporting a curly black woman’s wig when the police stopped the car and that he thanked them for sparing his life. These are titillating details but who knows if we’ll ever know the whole truth?



Meanwhile jokes abound about the principals in this sordid drama with imaginary headlines such as “Miller to be charged for attempting to export Coke!” being bandied about the public sphere. The irrepressible Reverend has subsequently been charged with harbouring a fugitive but didn't let that prevent him from going to watch The Karate Kid this evening.

In an irreverend post titled Bad Man Nuh Dress Like Girl Kei Miller ruminated on the reports of cross-dressing by gunmen and dons:

That’s why this sentiment of ‘bad man nuh dress like girl’ is always kind of funny – because in a country where Dudus and the dear departed Natty could wear wigs and frocks whenever their minds took them to do it; and in a country where any tour of dancehall will feature a few male dance crews who always offer, on public display, the most profound and sometimes magical performances of Jamaican queerness; and in a country where bad men run across garrison communities – one hand holding onto their uzi guns, and the other lifting up the hem of their frocks so as not to trip, then we know the real truth – that bad man dress however de rass him want to dress. And that’s exactly what makes them de real bad men.

In a matter of weeks Coke has gone from being the most feared gang leader or strongman in Jamaica to a figure of scorn and ridicule after Police released photos of him wearing a wig and looking like an earnest church-going matron. Many are convinced that the police deliberately placed the wig on his head before photographing him in order to humiliate him and raise doubts about the awesome powers he is supposed to possess.

This morning Coke appeared before a Jamaican Resident Magistrate at a maximum security facility in Kingston. At 2 pm he was flown out of Norman Manley International Airport to New York to face charges of drug and gun running there. The nation which had waited with bated breath to see if Coke would actually leave the island alive heaved a sigh of relief. His ill-fated father, the legendary Jim Brown, was set ablaze in his Kingston cell on the eve of his extradition to the US for similar charges. That was in the nineties.

After the intense military and police activity of the last few weeks, with violent raids being conducted all over Kingston while security forces were desperately seeking Dudus, his final capture and impending extradition seem almost anti-climactic. Only in March this year the Police had worried aloud that the country's 268 gangs might act in concert to create incidents throughout the country to distract lawmen if there was any attempt to capture Coke. The violent reprisals that accompanied the raid into Coke’s stronghold, Tivoli Gardens, on May 24th have not recurred since his arrest two days ago.

Coke himself seems surprised and grateful at the restraint shown by Jamaican Police when they intercepted the car he was travelling in with Reverend Al Miller on May 22nd. The Police, once famously described by Bob Marley as being “all dressed in uniforms of brutality” seem to have finessed a textbook arrest of the country’s Public Enemy Number One with no shots fired and not a drop of blood shed. This is contrary to the way they normally deal with suspected criminals.

The unexpectedly peaceful capture of the country’s most wanted man, the sustained assault on criminal gangs and their leaders, and the cautious upward movement in the value of the local dollar have given Jamaicans cause for optimism about the future. If there are any successors waiting to pick up the reins after Coke’s departure they have yet to appear. A large number of dons and gang leaders have prudently turned themselves in to police custody since the State of Emergency which has now been extended for another month, was first declared.

Ultimately leaders such as Dudus Coke derive their power from catering to the needs of impoverished communities by providing them with versions of ‘local government’ that the elected government seem disinterested in or unable to supply. If Jamaicans want to prevent their country from slipping back into the clutches of the narco-trade they have to figure out how to deliver democratic governance to all their citizens instead of a chosen few.

Everyone is crying out for peace yes, none is crying out for justice sang Peter Tosh in his famous song Equal Rights. Ultimately its only equal rights and justice, yoked together for all citizens, that will deliver lasting peace in Jamaica.

In the meantime questions linger over why Christopher Coke didn’t turn himself in to Jamaican authorities before May 24th thus saving the 74 lives expended in the military operation to take back Tivoli from the ‘rebels’ who had barricaded it supposedly to defend Coke. It was their alleged attack on four police stations that provoked the intense assault by the Jamaican armed forces in which so many lives were lost in West Kingston.

One version of events has it that this happened just when the Reverend Al Miller was about to accompany Dudus Coke to the US Embassy on or around the 23rd of May. There were reports in the media of meetings between the US authorities and Dudus’s legal team that seemed to have fallen through.

The question is was there a deliberate attempt by interests unknown to sabotage an earlier, potentially peaceful surrender of Coke to the US authorities? By whom and to what purpose? Was there indeed a clash of differing agendas as Tom Tavares-Finson, once again speaking as Dudus’s lawyer today, has suggested? If so, what was the agenda? And whose agenda was it?

Meanwhile Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke remains an intriguing and tragic figure. Except for the unflattering bewigged photo circulated by the police after his arrest Coke was never shown in the Jamaican media wearing handcuffs or otherwise displaying signs of someone whose freedom has been severely curtailed. In contrast the very first photo of Coke after he landed in the US shows him with his arms handcuffed behind him (see photo above). The message is clear; as far as the United States is concerned Coke is a vicious criminal. In Jamaica however, his status is far more ambiguous.

Before appearing in a Kingston court today to waive his right to an extradition hearing in Jamaica Coke issued a statement to the Jamaican public asking them to pray for him:

I have, today, instructed my Attorneys that I intend to waive my right to an extradition hearing in Jamaica and to proceed directly to the United States under the terms of the Extradition Laws and treaty between Jamaica and the United States of America. I have taken this decision of my own free will and have done so even though I am of the belief that my case would have been successfully argued in the Courts of Jamaica. I take this decision for I now believe it to be in the interest of my family, the community of Western Kingston and in particular the people of Tivoli Gardens and above all Jamaica. Everyone, the whole country, has been adversely affected by the process that has surrounded my extradition and I hope that my action today will go some way towards healing all who have suffered and will be of benefit to the community of Tivoli Gardens. Above all I am deeply upset and saddened by the unnecessary loss of lives which could have been avoided, be it of members of the Security Forces and over eighty (80) residents of Tivoli or any other innocent Jamaicans that has occurred during this time. I leave Jamaica and my family in particular Patsy [Coke's mother] with a heavy heart but fully confident that in due course I will be vindicated and returned to them. Pray for me and God bless Jamaica.

- Christopher Coke

Post-script to Soldiers and Police in Jamaica

Well, the local media have been pipped once again. According to the Guardian (UK) in an article titled From Kabul to Kingston "Army tactics in Jamaica resemble those used in Afghanistan – and it's no mere coincidence."

"For two weeks, the Jamaican army and police have fought gun battles in Kingston. The many allegations of human rights abuses committed by the security forces – including extrajudicial killings and the disposal of bodies – have received almost no international attention. Nor have the linkages between the Jamaican crisis, the security establishments in the US, Britain and Canada, and the mutations of the "war on terror".

But strategy and tactics deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan are being applied in Jamaica. Drones fly over Kingston, and were used in the 24 May assault to select targets. On 7 June, Tivoli residents discovered that to enter or leave the area they had to produce "passes" issued by the police (revised, after protests, to restrictions on movement after dark). There is blanket surveillance of electronic communications in breach of Jamaican privacy protections – indeed, it was the illegal provenance of some of the evidence against Christopher "Dudus" Coke that initially held up extradition proceedings."

In fact in Hubert Neal's painting mentioned in the previous post he had included the figure of a triangular shaped plane hovering over Kingston Harbour and then attempted to erase it leaving a ghostly shape. The soldiers were quite excited to see this. "The spy plane! the spy plane!" they exclaimed.

One day hopefully we'll hear the whole nine yards. I've thought from the beginning that this was a well-executed plan, with outside assistance, designed to breach the fortress of Tivoli on grounds of capturing Dudus which would bloom into an all-out assault on Dons and their gangs.

The problem is that even in times of uneasy peace the human rights of the poor were routinely violated. How can we assure ourselves that they are not victimized in this so-called war on crime?

Meanwhile in Britain "David Cameron today (June 15) issued a formal, state apology for the "unjustified and unjustifiable" killing of 14 civil rights marchers by British soldiers on Bloody Sunday in Derry 38 years ago."

Will we ever have closure here on the killing of 73 civilians in Tivoli on May 24th?

The Don of a New Era Part 2: The Gideon continues

Sign in Barbados

Well, the Gideon (local slang for Armageddon) continues. Last night it seemed as if things in Kingston had simmered down but this morning i checked into Twitter to hear that the armed forces were lobbing grenades and perhaps bombs at a house in E. Kirkland Heights, a very upscale neighbourhood in Red Hills, Kingston. “The template of violence in jamaica has changed ova d las week. Its now an insurgency with all the relevant weaponry” tweeted one of the people i follow. “I wanna see the police deny this one. Grenades an bombs are the new weapon of choice for the state now.”

No idea whether the Police suspect that Dudus is holed up in there or some other Don. Things unravelled very quickly. On May 17th Prime Minister Bruce Golding addressed the nation saying apologetically that he was finally giving the go-ahead for the signing of the papers to extradite Dudus to the US, something he had resisted for 9 months. To many of us it was clear that the US had made him an offer he couldn’t refuse; pressure from the local media, business and other interest groups had also mounted in the weeks leading up to this astonishing about-face.

As i said before Dudus’ lawyer Tom Tavares-Finson was furious. He would take the matter to court the next day he said but the following day we heard that he had removed himself from the team representing Dudus due to conflict of interest issues; issues however that had always existed. All I can say is, do not use this as an excuse to slaughter innocents in Tivoli, an angry Finson was heard saying in interview after interview on radio and tv. His words would prove prophetic.

The day after Golding’s speech it was announced that a warrant had been issued for Dudus’s arrest. That would have been on May 18th. The rest of the week was tense with everyone expecting the Police and Army to invade Tivoli at any minute but the armed forces seemed unusually tolerant, waiting patiently for Dudus to turn himself in. Actually they were waiting till the weekend of the 21st, a long weekend with the 24th being a holiday in Jamaica--Labour Day--to make their move.

On the 23rd a number of colleagues and i were at the airport waiting to catch a flight to Barbados to attend the Caribbean Studies’ Association's 35th annual conference presciently titled “The Everyday Occurrence of Violence in the Cultural Life of the Caribbean” when i saw a tweet saying that shots were being fired in the vicinity of Tivoli. It’s going down i said to one of my colleagues, a leading Jamaican criminologist, the war is beginning.

I wouldn’t say so he said calmly, assuring us that his information was that Dudus was willing to turn himself in to the US authorities and was expected to do so any minute now. Well, that turned out to be misinformation of the highest quality. By the time we reached Barbados we heard that a state of emergency had been imposed and I’ve literally been glued to Twitter and online media ever since.

In fact I’m happy to report that my tweets were actually picked up by the New York Times blog The Lede in an article called Following Jamaica’s State of Emergency Online. Channel 4 in London contacted me to see if i could write a piece for them on Dudus which i did. My comments appeared in their story Jamaica death toll rises as unrest continues.

Here is an excerpt from it:

Dudus has been an extraordinary provider for the inhabitants of Tivoli.

What makes him exceptional is that he has also managed to forge coalitions between gangs across party lines and across the country when needed because of the respect he commands. His reach extends beyond his immediate community across all kinds of borders and is a testament to his abilities as an astute leader.

Had he been legit and able to run for election he would have probably created a modern, efficient Jamaica the likes of which have yet to be seen, but of course one where personal freedoms may have been more circumscribed than they are today.

The problem is his links to the underworld do not permit the state to continue the tacit alliance with him and others like him that have persisted to this day.

The question is how do you take the milk out of the coffee once the two have been mixed. That is the predicament Jamaica finds itself in.

Meanwhile the Gideon continues and while many of us would like to comfort ourselves by thinking that this is a necessary bloodletting, a purge of the criminal elements in society, the truth is otherwise. Discriminating between criminals and law-abiding citizens is not as easy as we think particularly for the Police force, members of which are known to wield their ‘license to kill’ with wanton disregard. i received a heartbreaking message from a friend about the execution of a young man she personally knew, by the police, a story which was reported in the media under the headline “Cops kill three men in Back Bush.”

One of the men was well-known to my friend and no criminal. Here is part of the heartbreaking message i received from her this morning:

"Picked up one of my neighbours on the road only to hear that Ian Gordon, a sweet young dread who ran a little "venue" in Irish Town square was killed by the police. Hard to believe he would be involved in anything - he would always ask me if I had dominos, or other games, that I could give him because he liked to have lots of games for people coming to his place. On Sundays I would sometimes take him down to town and he always said he was going to visit his 2 daughters. He had a lovely girlfriend, also a dread, and it was a joke in Irish Town how they were always together. Anyway I'm sure this Observer story of how he died is accurate, and this is probably happening to young men all over Kingston. Very depressing. "

It turns out also that the early morning raid on Red Hills i mentioned earlier was in pursuit of Dudus who was believed to be holed up in a house there. In the process of flushing him out the armed forces have killed another innocent man, Keith Clarke, the brother of former minister Claude Clarke, who lived nearby, by mistake.

Mr. Seaga, former Prime Minister is also concerned about the safety of the residents of Tivoli Gardens, his former constituents and has broken his silence. I conducted an interview with him in January this year in which i asked him about his relationship with Dudus and the fact that he had once placed him at the top of a list of wanted men that he provided the Police with in 1994. I'll post relevant portions of the interview later.

Time doesn’t permit for me to write much more right now. I’m still at the conference in Barbados but will end with two lighthearted takes on what is a truly dread situation back home, (to use Jamaican parlance).

The photo posted at the top of this blog is actually a piece of graffiti seen in Barbados on the day the armed forces went into Tivoli Gardens in pursuit of Christopher Lloyd Coke--Dudus. The blog that carried it said “This sign was seen today (Monday May 24 Bank Holiday) on the left-hand side of Collymore Rock Road going towards Wildey from Bridgetown.” Dudus's reach clearly extends beyond Jamaican shores.

And of course Jamaicans being Jamaican still have a mordant sense of humour. The following dance poster was making the rounds on email and facebook.

Bradygate continued...

Update: Today was the most unsettling exciting day in the last decade or so. Around 3 pm started to hear rumours that 'war' was going to break out because the Prime Minister was going to announce that the extradition proceedings agaist 'Dudus' Coke were going forward. A feeling of panic began to spread and there was a stampede to get out of downtown where the rumours started circulating around 11 in the morning. By mid-afternoon everyone was on the road trying to reach a safe place. Top 10 ways to get home quickly proclaimed a blog...

The most interesting thing was that the US Embassy sent out an announcement saying a talk it had planned to hold at the Institute of Jamaica tomorrow was being postponed. I found the title of the talk interesting. It was called “Congress and the President: An Invitation to Conflict” and should have been delivered by one Don Baker. hmmmmmmmm. Doesn't Bruce own a bakery?

At the appointed hour Bruce Golding addressed the nation looking suitably contrite and apologizing profusely. Then he announced that the Attorney General was going to sign the relevant papers so that the extradition could proceed. Dudus' lawyer, Tom Tavares-Finson was reputed to be livid with anger; he would defend his client in court he said.

More on the runnings tomorrow. Time for bed now...

Bradygate...The Don of a New Era, Part 1

Mr Golding has now admitted to parliament that he authorised the hiring of a law firm to lobby senior US State Department officials on Mr Coke's behalf Photo: AFP/GETTY (Daily Telegraph UK)

Las May, Daily Gleaner, 15 May 2010 (our cartoonists are world class)

I feel it for Bruce Golding. Who could have predicted the woes that would befall his first two years as Crime Minister, er, oh, LOL, i mean Prime Minister. I know what his wife Lorna means when she says we must read between the lines because he isn't free to disclose everything. My first reaction when i heard that he had admitted sanctioning the Manatt, Phelps 'initiative' from the get-go was that someone or something had forced his hand. Only something far worse staring him in the face could have made owning up to having played fast and loose with the truth seem like the better alternative.

And i feel it for him because this turn of events has nothing to do with him personally, or the Jamaica Labour Party for that matter. It's just the way the cookie crumbles in countries that are well on their way to being narco-democracies. I'm amazed at the amount of moral indignation being directed at the PM by members of the media. C'mon! It's not a matter of morality is it? It's a matter of how to decriminalize a country. Not easily done. The Colombians might have a tip or two and the Haitians. Forget about decriminalizing ganja or gay-ness, this is an entire country that has been hijacked by criminality. How is a government to cope?

Granted the PM could have handled the entire matter differently from the beginning. But he was playing by the old rules like all politicians have done so far. And he's been jerked to reality by the powers-that-be. This is a power struggle. That's what we have to realize. And to win this power struggle we need the new, the young, the strong and the able...because only they know how to negotiate the new rules that are now in effect. Alas, our criminals too are world-class and internationally competitive.

In the meantime a spurious facebook page purporting to be that of Dudus Coke is making the rounds in cyberspace. It's a no holds barred version so if you're under 15 or an Ayatollah or a member of Jamaica's Moral Majority you might want to make a hasty switch to a less profane website.



Finally, take a look at National Dish by Michael 'Flyn' Elliott below. As a painted image it pretty much captures our predicament as a society. And for a variety of innovative takes or interpretations of the state we're in you must visit the National Gallery's Young Talent V which opened today. It is an exciting show that signals the resurgence of the visual art scene here. Here is a link to my photos from the opening.


National Dish by Michael 'Flyn' Elliott

Headley you win, Dudus you lose...A Tale of Two Extraditions

Las May, The Gleaner, Mar 19, 2010

Remember what the donkey said?: the worl nuh level. Translation: There's no level playing field. While the Jamaican government is catching hell from all sides for not surrendering to the US's request to extradite Christopher 'Dudus' Coke on various charges, the most serious of which seems to be drug-running, India has practically given up on trying to extradite US citizen David Coleman Headley, who is accused of being the mastermind behind the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. Headley who has Pakistani roots is also accused of conspiring to target a Danish newspaper. He has pleaded guilty to all terror charges before a US court.

In spite of this the US refuses to extradite Headley to India. Neither will he recieve the death penalty. According to an India Today article:

49-year-old Headley, who faces six counts of conspiracy involving bombing public places in India, murdering and maiming persons in India and providing material support to foreign terrorist plots and LeT; and six counts of aiding and abetting the murder of US citizens in India, could have been sentenced to death if convicted.

But his plea agreement with federal prosecutors ruled out the death penalty and extradition to India, Pakistan and
Denmark, provided that he cooperates with the government's terrorism investigations.

"Headley will cooperate in foreign investigation conducted in the US," his lawyer John Theis told reporters after the hearing.

Headley, a Chicago resident who was arrested by the FBI's joint terrorism task force on October 3 last year, told US District Judge Harry Leinenweber that he wanted to change his plea to guilty, in an apparent bid to get a lighter sentence than the maximum death penalty.

Son of a former Pakistani diplomat and a Philadelphia socialite, Headley, who was wearing an orange jumpsuit with hands and legs shackled, admitted guilty in all 12 counts during half an hour long hearing.

Meanwhile back home on the rock Police are worried that if Dudus is extradited the country's 268 gangs will unite in protest and wage a war against 'law and order.'

In its annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, the Barack Obama administration castigated Jamaica's Golding administration for not handing strongman Coke to the US as requested. As the report noted:

The GOJ’s unusual handling of the August request for the extradition of a high-profile Jamaican crime lord with reported ties to the ruling JLP which currently holds a majority in Parliament, on alleged drug and firearms trafficking charges marked a dramatic change in GOJ’s previous cooperation on extradition, including a temporary suspension in the processing of all other pending requests and raises serious questions about the GOJ’s commitment to combating transnational crime.

For more on the Dudus extradition read this Stabroek News article and my earlier post on the subject.

For more on Headley read this New York Times article and watch the following videos. Interestingly Headley was also a heroin dealer under investigation by the DEA in the nineties.