Documentary Clips: Gangs Of Kingston Jamaica.

Jamaican News Video Clips: Violence In Kingston.

Jamaicans Slam The Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding & His Government For The Crisis In Kingston.

The Jamaican Gleaner Newspaper Video Clips Of The Violence In Kingston Jamaica.

Telegraph UK Article: Jamaican Drug Lord Christopher Coke May Have Fled Jamaica!

Jamaica: drug kingpin ‘may have fled country’

Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, the alleged drug kingpin at the centre of the Jamaican unrest, may have fled the country, according to the government.

Published: 11:30PM BST 26 May 2010

Coke had months to stockpile weapons in his slum stronghold while the premier wavered over US demands for his extradition.

“I could not say if he is in Jamaica,” Information Minister Daryl Vaz said of Coke, who is known as “Dudus.” “It’s very difficult to tell.”

Police and soldiers who fought their way into the barricaded Tivoli Gardens slum in gritty West Kingston were conducting a door-to-door search, and the government reported calm Wednesday. Coke’s lawyer has declined to confirm his whereabouts.

Gray smoke was rising from recently extinguished fires inside Tivoli Gardens. Sporadic gunfire rang out elsewhere in West Kingston and security forces barred journalists from entering the battle zones around the capital on Jamaica’s south coast, far from the tourist resorts on the north shore of the Caribbean island.

The violence did not surprise island police and community groups who warned that Coke had been stockpiling weapons and preparing to defend himself since the US demanded his extradition last August. According to the US indictment, he has built a private arsenal of firearms smuggled in by gang members in the United States, sharing guns with other criminals to solidify his power as a major underworld boss.

“The situation at Tivoli is dreadful, but it’s been something that’s been simmering for a long, long time. And everybody knew that if they made the move for Coke that there would be trouble,” said Susan Goffe, a spokesman for local human rights group Jamaicans for Justice.

Fighting between police, the military and drug gangs has left at least 50 dead in Jamaica as Bruce Golding, the prime minister, vowed to restore calm after three days of violent clashes in the capital Kingston.

Hospital sources said that the dead and injured were mainly civilians caught up in the violence as troops fanned out across the city hunting an alleged drug kingpin.

Mr Golding vowed the security forces would restore law and order – three days after his government declared a state of emergency amid the worst violence to hit the Caribbean nation in decades.

“The government deeply regrets the loss of lives of members of the security forces, and those of innocent law abiding citizens who were caught in the cross fire,” he told the House of Representatives.

London Times Article:ABC News Says Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding Is Linked To Drug Lord Christopher Coke!!!

From The Times

May 27, 2010

Jamaican leader denies link to Shower Posse gangsters

Giles Whittell, Washington

Washington threw its support behind the Jamaican Government in the hunt for Mr Coke last night while its Prime Minister was forced to confront claims that he has been named in official US documents as an associate of the alleged drug baron.While the search for Mr Coke continued in Kingston on streets mainly emptied of people by the violence, Bruce Golding’s office accused Western media of mounting a conspiracy to undermine his democratically elected Government.

In a statement Mr Golding “categorically denied and dismissed as extremely offensive” an ABC News report that he had been identified in an American government report as a “known criminal affiliate” of Mr Coke. The statement also condemned an article in The Independent of London that attempted to link Mr Golding to the Shower Posse, the gang based in Tivoli Gardens district of Kingston that experts say serves as the enforcement arm of Mr Coke’s alleged drug business.

Mr Golding said in the statement that both news organisations, “by seeking to link him personally with the alleged drug kingpin, were clearly part of a conspiracy to undermine the duly elected Government of Jamaica”.

ABC stood by its report last night. Experts in the US and Jamaica, who claim to have seen the document mentioned in the network’s report, said it was an affidavit submitted as part of a grand jury investigation in New York, where Mr Coke will be tried if he can be found and extradited. The affidavit is based on a telephone call between Mr Golding and Mr Coke, said one source who asked to remain anonymous.

Until two weeks ago Mr Golding was refusing to co-operate with US efforts to extradite Mr Coke, claiming that the request was based partly on illegally obtained wiretap evidence from intercepted telephone calls.

According to US officials cited in the ABC report, Mr Golding has recently been monitored talking to Mr Coke by telephone at his Tivoli Gardens base.

Amid calls for his resignation after he admitted to hiring a Californian law firm to lobby the US Government on Mr Coke’s behalf, Mr Golding pledged to co-operate in the hunt for his country’s most notorious drug baron.

Last night Charles Luoma-Overstreet, a State Department spokesman, said: “We are absolutely working with the Government of Jamaica and with the Prime Minister in the effort to strengthen the rule of law in his country and arrest Mr Coke.”

Despite speculation that Mr Coke may have fled Kingston or even the country, Mr Luoma-Overstreet said that the focus of the search remained in Tivoli Gardens.

Mr Golding’s difficulties are dwarfed by those of Mr Coke but they are still significant. The root cause of his political danger is his admission of having hired the law firm Manatt, Phelps and Phillips as part of his nine-month effort to resist Mr Coke’s extradition. The arrangement came to light because of a requirement under the US Foreign Agent Registration Act for all lobbyists representing foreign clients to clear them with the US Government.

“At best he was using taxpayers’ money to hire a huge lobbying firm to lobby on behalf of a fugitive,” Professor David Rowe, a Miami-based expert in Jamaican law, told The Times. “At worst he used the power of his Government to enable a drug lord to lobby the White House.”

Mr Golding said initially that the firm had been retained by the Jamaican Government, then altered his position, claiming that the deal had been struck by his ruling Labour Party, the JLP.

It remains unclear what headway if any Manatt, Phelps and Phillips made in pressing Mr Coke’s case against extradition, which is based on the claim that he is a legitimate businessman and generous philanthropist on whom thousands of impoverished Jamaicans depend.

Charles Manatt, the founder of the firm, is a prominent Democrat and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who is said to maintain friendly relations with the Obamas.

Venus Williams, Svetlana Kuznetsova, & Roger Federer Advance To The Third Round At The French Open.

Venus Williams of the Untied States defeated Arantxa Parra Santonja  of Spain 6-2 6-4 in straight sets today at the French Open.

Roger Federer of Switzerland scored a straight set victory over Alejandro Falla of Columbia 7-6 6-3 6-4.

The defending women’s champion Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia, barely survived by beating Andrea Petkovic of Germany 4-6 7-5 6-4.

Kuznetsova fought off four match points in the second set but won the match due to her experience. Petkovic  lead 5-4 in the second set, but got tight making a serious of careless errors.