Christopher Dudus
*When you think of a nation going to war its usually not over some low life in a neighborhood. But Jamaica’s underworld has started a war with local police and has literally taken up arms against them.
They have put up barricades, set a police department on fire with molotov cocktails and have been seen with high-powered weaponry in the streets.
All of this confusion to keep a druglord in action by keeping him from being extradited to the U.S. According to MSNBC, thugs have turned the communities of Kingston upside down over a druglord named Christopher “Dudus” Coke. (more…)
Nuke Kingston
Dudas is not a druglord. He is an area leader/Don/political strongman for a garrisoned community. An important distinction which YT American MSM such as MSNBC does not care to make. The US government, which is used to throwing its weight around, is finding out that exacting and extradition order in a country with as complex a political structure as Jamaica, can be one of the easiest or hardest things, depending on who is being extradited and which political party is in control. Dudas is affiliated with the now ruling JLP, and he is the area leader for Tivoli Gardens, the JLP’s most loyal garrisoned community.
The government fought the extradition for months, despite the bullying tactics of the Americans, such as the confiscation of the visas of entertainers and politicians. The Government only appeared to concede after it was revealed that the prime minister had authorized his political party to contract a United States law firm to lobby the US authorities on the extradition request. This after almost two months of the prime minister leading the country to believe he was unaware of what had transpired. There were calls for his resignation, and eventually led to Justice Minister Dorothy Lightbourne on Tuesday signing an order to proceed with extradition proceedings against Coke, days after a defiant Golding insisted that it would have been a breach of Coke’s constitutional rights as material being used as evidence against him was illegally obtained.
Both Lightbourne and Prime Minister Golding have said that there were serious constitutional issues with the request because the US had breached the Interception of Communication Act, a law which specifies the circumstances under which a citizen’s constitution rights to privacy can be invalidated.
Coke’s (Dudas) attorney has already indicated his client would be challenging the order on the basis that Lightbourne and Golding have already declared that they needed further and better particulars and that the wiretapping evidence obtained against him was illegally sourced.
So make no mistake, the Jamaican government still has no intention of letting the Americans get their hands on Dudas. That’s why I’m a bit surprised at the reaction from the community. Even Former Security Minister for the opposition party said, “the events leading to the Government’s decision to sign an authority to proceed against him may be part of a wider plot to prevent Coke from being extradited. The way in which it has been done has not only the potential of prejudicing the court hearing, because if he filed an affidavit a few days ago to say that it was not valid, and then proceeds on the course that he is proceeding – I don’t know how the courts will look at it: but whether by design originally or whether by chance, what he has done is prepared the case for Mr. Coke and could contribute to further delay.”
The MSNBC article displayed extremely poor journalism which shows the racist and biased nature of MSNBC towards countries like Jamaica. Terminologies such as “impoverished west Kingston”, “gangsters roaming the streets”, “kingpin’s supporters”, were loosely used. The community which they are referring to, is a garrisoned community, which displays complete political allegiance to the JLP, because they provide a disproportionate amount of service to this community. These garrisoned communities guarantee a victory for the politician which represents that community in every single election. His seat in parliament (congress) is already signed, sealed and delivered. Not much different from political districts here where representatives are known to bring home the “bacon”. How else do you think the likes of Kennedy and Specter could have served in congress for all those decades. In Jamaica it is a bit more extreme. Outsiders (supporters of the opposition political party) cannot live there. Only high ranking politicians are privileged to represent these few but crucial communities. The prime minister happens to be one, and Dudas community is his political district. He has no option but to put up a fight for their “area leader.” And this behavior is not confined to the JLP. When the opposition PNP was in power, they also defended extradition of their Dons, Anthony Brown and George Flash. The initial demonstration was touched off by a march of thousands of women and children dressed in white on a trek which took them through the heart of the commercial centre of Kingston and back to their community (http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20100521/lead/lead2.html). So this is much more complex than MSNBC would lead you to believe. It’s not just a bunch of “gangsters roaming the streets.”