Dec 15
Following is the link to an article published in the New Yorker Magazine (December 12 2011) on the operation by Jamaican security forces in May 2010 to execute an extradition order against now convicted drug lord Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, which resulted in over 70 civilian deaths. it comes at a time when the Jamaican government has confirmed that a U.S. military plane provided intelligence to the forces on the ground during the operation. Jamaican civil society organisations have long campaigned for an independent enquiry into the deaths.
Most cemeteries replace the illusion of life’s permanence with another illusion: the permanence of a name carved in stone. Not so May Pen Cemetery, in Kingston, Jamaica, where bodies are buried on top of bodies, weeds grow over the old markers, and time humbles even a rich man’s grave…
Oct 30
Thirteenth Annual Eric Williams Memorial Lecture of the School of Public and International Affairs, Florida International University delivered on October 28, 2011. Dr Griffith is Professor of Political Science, Provost and Senior Vice President at York College,The City University of New York.
CONTENTS I. Introduction*/ II. The Drama of Drugs/ III. The Crucible of Crime/ IV. Challenges to Security and Sovereignty/Jamaica’s Dudus Affair/ Trinidad and Tobago’s State of Emergency/ V. The Subtitle, the Questions/ VI. Conclusion. Also statistics on Drugs and Crime in the Caribbean.
Sep 25
The announcement made today by Prime Minister and leader of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). Bruce Golding that he will shortly step down as Prime Minister and leader of the JLP, is welcomed by New Nation Coalition as the “right and proper thing to do”, and “a step in the right direction for Jamaica.”..
Sep 15
HOPEFULLY TO BRING SOME SANITY TO PROCEEDINGS…:
http://www.trinidadexpress.com/commentaries/Gangs_and_the_Golden_Age-129628553.html
We need to get this straight- or we perish. The truth about boys and gangs… This country is being held to ransom by about 6000 boys organized into criminal gangs. These boys are led by about 60 very charismatic boys. These gangs are secret societies- with initiation rituals, codes of conduct, and ways of dress. They have heroes they worship and attempt to imitate, and strict systems of reward and punishment. These gangs are modes of achieving wealth, status and women. Most of all, they are ways of achieving ‘belonging’ and ‘meaning’. ..
Sep 04
Jamaica’s druglord Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, former strongman in the Prime Minister’s political constituency, has pleaded gulity to charges of two counts of racketeering conspiracy and conspiracy to commit assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering respectively, laid against him in the United States, and is awaiting sentencing. Here is the “In Limine” statement from U.S. prosecutors which reportedly led to the gulity plea.
Related
Copy of Dudus’ letter to the sentencing Judge.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/09/21/nyregion/21coke-letter.html
Coke’s lawyer reveals details of guilty plea
Gangsters, Politicians, Cocaine and Bankers: Lessons from the Dudus Saga Horace Campbell
Aug 31
Monograph of the Western Hemisphere Security Analysis Center, Florida International University, June 2011. Professor Griffith is a political scientist from the Caribbean and is Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs of York College, The City University of New York.
The re-emergence of Desie Bouterse as President of Suriname in 2010 reflects his political acumen in aggregating disparate political interests and in establishing a viable coalition government…. (but it) has generated anxiety in some places internationally. This study examines anxieties related to, (a) relations with Guyana, where there is an existing territorial dispute and a recently resolved maritime dispute, (b) illegal drug trafficking operations, and (c) foreign policy engagement with Venezuela….
Jun 23
After weeks of high profile media attention and commentary in the wider society the report of the Manatt Commission of Enquiry and the extradition request from the United States for Mr. Christopher Coke has been tabled in the Jamaican parliament. It has been greeted with much disapproval and scepticism and has reinforced the view held all along by the majority of the population that nothing was going to come out of it…
Jul 19
With votes secured from the official National Liberation Party (PLN), the Libertarian Movement, and Justo Orozco, the evangelical congressman from the Costa Rican Renovation party, on July 1st, the Costa Rican Congress authorized the entry into that country of 46 warships from the U.S. Navy, 200 helicopters and combat aircraft and 7,000 Marines. ..
Jul 14
The U.S. government demanded that Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding extradite a drug dealer. When Venezuela made similar demands on Washington, for arguably the Hemisphere’s most notorious terrorist, the Justice Department brushed off the request…
Jun 30
Professor Reddock’s presentation to the 2010 Conference of the Caribbean Studies Association outlines the current neoliberal context of Caribbean political economy; the many-sided problematic of 21st century violence in the Caribbean; the pitfalls of the militarist response; the interrelationship between gender, violence and militarism; and concludes with challenges for Civil Society. It has far-reaching significance to the curent preoccupation with criminal violence, drug and arms trafficking in the region and the range of possible responses by society and state.
Jun 28
Keynote address at States of Freedom: Freedom of States Symposium, held at UWI, Mona, June 16-18, 2010. Rupert Lewis is Professor in Poltical Thought in the Department of Government, UWI
There has been an unprecedented national discussion in and out of parliament, in the Jamaica diaspora, in the Caribbean and international media over the past 10 months since the U.S. issued the extradition request for Christopher Dudus Coke. I have been forced, with the rest of society, to think about the ongoing crises on the socio-racial, economic, cultural and political levels..
Jun 26
From Pambazuka News
The arrest of Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke in a road block in Jamaica on Tuesday 22 June 2010 opens the possibility once and for all to reveal the full extent of the corruption of the politics of Jamaica and the Caribbean by the rulers in collaboration with the intelligence, commercial and banking infrastructures of the United States..
Related items
Jun 24
The extraordinary events surrounding the proposed extradition of Jamaica’s Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke have served to highlight the pernicious consequences of transnational organised crime in the Caribbean region. These consequences extend to the spheres of politics, governance, sovereignty, social organization and the economy. They call into question the entire model of development followed by the region in recent times as well as the model of governance which was at the heart of the post-colonial dispensation in the English-speaking Caribbean…
Related items
The World Drug Report 2010, published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) addresses recent trends in illicit drug production, trafficking and consumption. It gives an analysis of three key transnational drug markets (heroine, cocaine and amphetamine-type stimulants), followed by a presentation of statistical trends for all major drug categories and a discussion of the relationship between drug trafficking and instability.
Jun 22
WHILE Jamaica’s security forces intensify their hunt for most wanted reputed dealer in illicit drugs and guns, Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, for extradition to the USA, Venezuela has chosen to increase its pressure for Washington to extradite to Caracas a most wanted terrorist….
Jun 14
From the New York Carib News. Ivelaw Lloyd Griffith, a political scientist from the Caribbean, is Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs of York College, The City University of New York.
Discussions about sovereignty often focus on its international dimension; freedom from outside interference; that no authority is legally above a state except that which a state’s leaders voluntarily confer on international bodies. This is the formal-legal aspect of sovereignty, and it’s a cardinal feature of international relations. But there’s another key aspect of sovereignty, one related to a nation’s internal dynamics…
Jun 14
Richard Drayton, who is of Caribbean origin, is Rhodes Professor of Imperial History at King’s College, University of London. This article appeared in The Guardian on June 14, 2010
The many allegations of human rights abuses committed by the Jamaican 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”…
You can also view comments on the Guardian website by clicking here
Jun 11
Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) is concerned about the high number of casualties and detentions resulting from the ongoing operations of the security forces in Tivoli Gardens and the wider Corporate Area. Since the recent unrest, JFJ has been contacted by several families. In addition to working on these individual cases, we are raising our voices in harmony with international human rights advocates to call for an investigation into the deaths in West Kingston.
To ensure that the residents of West Kingston and the trauma they have experienced are not soon forgotten, we have produced a video focusing on the survivors. Click the following YouTube link to watch, or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKbtMQoJTsc and please distribute widely to interested networks. The video also signifies the launch of JFJ’s media campaign, so expect more throughout the summer, and feel free to give your feedback and suggestions.
As always, thank you for your support,
Jamaicans for Justice
2 Fagan Avenue, Kingston 8
Phone: (876) 755-4524-6
Fax #: (876) 755-4355
Email: ja.for.justice@cwjamaica.com
Website: www.jamaicansforjustice.org
Jun 06
From The New York Times
THE violence tearing apart Jamaica, a democratic state, raises serious questions not only about its government’s capacity to provide basic security but, more broadly and disturbingly, the link between violence and democracy itself…
Jun 05
5. Statement by Civil Society Coalition. June 5, 2010
Fourteen Jamaican civil society organisations, four umbrella church organisations and four academics have formed a coalition and released a , statement signaling their ‘intent ‘to ensure transparency and accountability in national leadership’., This is a welcome development and the measures proposed by the Coalition are deserving of widespread support.
I would like to suggest that there are two issues not mentioned in the statement that need to be addressed. One is support for a genuinely independent enquiry into the operation by the security forces at Tivoli Gardens that left at least 73 people dead. As the government has already promised an enquiry, and the Public Defender has begun to take statements on the matter; the signatories to the statement could have explicitly affirmed their support for this process and indicated that they intend to hold the government accountable for its integrity. Their statement does this in relation to several other commitments announced by the Prime Minister.
In so doing, the signatories would have made it absolutely clear that, while supporting the security forces in the lawful exercise of their functions; they regard the lives, rights and dignity of all Jamaicans as deserving of respect irrespective of their social status, social connections, political affiliation or place of residence.
Secondly, one would have wanted to see reference to the need for massive and effective social interventions in Jamaica’s inner cities and depressed communities island-wide; in order to address the conditions under which thousands of citizens have turned to criminal activity as sources of livelihood and to criminal gangs for the provision of welfare services and security. (I recall a statistic that an estimated one-third of the Jamaican population live in ‘squatter’-i.e. informal-settlements; and another from an official source that there are an estimated 200 criminal gangs with 4,000 members in operation).
By omitting reference to the socio-economic conditions which have fertilised the lethal connection between politics and organised crime, the signatories risk the appearance of suggesting that the current crisis can be resolved merely by setting up formal mechanisms to severe this connection-which is certainly necessary-while ignoring the pressing need for social justice and economic opportunity for all Jamaicans. In this connection I have just read a government announcement of a Programme to Transform Vulnerable Communities, for which support by the private sector and non-government organisations is being invited-what position will the Coalition take on this development?
Hopefully these issues will be addressed in the future by the Coalition.
4. The continuing ‘Dudus’ debacle. June 1, 2010
There seems to be no end to the sorry tale of the botched handling of the ‘Dudus’ extradition affair by the Government of Jamaica. A death toll of at least 76, including 73 civilians, a marked disproportion between the number of civilian deaths and the number of firearms recovered by the, security forces, mounting charges of human rights abuses and chilling accounts of the conditions prevalent in the Tivoli community, are some of the disconcerting tales to surface after one of the most tragic and shameful weeks in modern Jamaican history. Amidst all this ‘Dudus’ is still at large, and conflicting accounts are being given of negotiations between him and at least two interlocutors, which were aborted by the coordinated attacks on the agencies of the state on May 23, followed by the assault on Tivoli by the army and police on May 24. Information is also coming to light on the extent of public funding for enterprises controlled by ‘Dudus’ and his associates by means of government contracts. Meanwhile the governmment’s Attorney General has reportedly done an ‘about turn’ in explaining the decision to sign the extradition request for the reputed drug lord–an account at odds with that previously given by the Prime Minister., The bright spot on the horizon is the growing national consensus for a political renewal in Jamaica, reflected in several of the items reproduced below.
3. Government ineptitude, governance crisis May 30, 2010.
The violent events in Jamaica in the week of May 23-30 were the tragic culmination of the inept handling of the ‘Dudus’ extradition matter by a government that is deeply compromised, like the Opposition party, by an unholy alliance between politicians and criminal, , organisations that became established in the decades since Jamaica attained nationhood. Electoral democracy and state sovereignty, the two principal pillars of Jamaica’s post-colonial dispensation, are clearly at risk; while the society is terrorised by a relentless wave of criminal violence which the organs of the state appear powerless to control. This, is a crisis of governance and politics that will not be resolved merely by the military occupation of a community, the extradition of a single individual or the resignation of a Prime Minister. Civil Society organisations in Jamaica, the media, and a wide-cross section of citizens in all walks of life are speaking out to demand accountability, transparency and the severing of links between criminal organisations and politics. They are saying that the present crisis must be used as an opportunity for political reform and social, renewal.
Related Items:
Jun 05
This article was accessed from, NewsOne For Black America and has been published widely on the Internet. It refers to several sources published over the last 30 years that discuss the role of the CIA in the creation and/or encouragement of the infamous ‘Shower, Posse’ as part of the policy to destablise the Michael Manley-led government of Jamaica in the 1970s.
With the recent violence in Jamaica and the controversy over alleged drug lord, Christopher “Dudus” Coke, many people are talking about the infamous Jamaican Shower Posse and the neighborhood of Tivoli Gardens, where they have their base. What is being is being ignored largely by the media, is the role that the American government and the CIA had in training, arming and giving power to the Shower Posse…
