German Publication Der Spiegel Article: Kingston Picks Up The Pieces After Manhunt.
The Cost of Finding Dudus
Kingston Picks Up the Pieces as Manhunt Continues
By Jens Glüsing translated from German to English by Paul Cohen.
Gun freaks appreciate the outstanding effectiveness of the Grizzly Big Boar rifle. US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq praise its accuracy and aficionados admire the penetrating power of the 0.5 inch (12.7 mm) caliber weapon. A firearm like this can fetch over $8,000 (€6,500) on the streets of New York. It is especially popular among snipers — and drug barons waging a private war against the government, such as Jamaica’s Christopher “Dudus” Coke, 41.
Rumors have been circulating for weeks that the most wanted criminal on the Caribbean island had a high-performance weapon like this in his possession. Soldiers hunting for the gangster found an empty box “for a large-caliber sniper rifle,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police Glenmore Hinds last week. Among the over 7,000 cartridges that the security forces reportedly seized after days of gunfights in the slums, a number were allegedly of the legendary 12.7 mm caliber.
But law enforcement officials may have been exaggerating somewhat. In reality, the haul recovered by security forces was rather pitiful. In the largest military and police operation in the history of Jamaica, authorities had confiscated by the end of last week “seven rifles, six handguns and a few homemade explosive devices,” says Hinds. Over 2,000 police and soldiers combed the poorer neighborhoods of the capital Kingston last week. At least 73 civilians and 3 members of the security forces died in exchanges of fire between troops and gangsters, and 700 suspects were arrested. The government declared a state of emergency, and business activities in the capital came to a standstill.
The fugitive, however, is still at large — and the bloody manhunt has left behind a capital city whose outraged inhabitants threaten to shake the political stability of the island.
‘The Soldiers Shot Him from Behind’
Streets are still littered with smashed fruit crates, boards and planks — the remains of barricades built by the slum inhabitants in an attempt to halt the troops’ advance. Smoke rises from a burned-out car. “We have the prime minister to thank for this chaos,” says a woman who calls herself “Carey.” She smirks at a group of soldiers who are spooning their lunch from paper plates. “We’re also hungry, but without work we have no money.”
A friend of hers says that one of Coke’s men hid in a tree: “The soldiers shot him from behind. First his rifle fell from the tree, then the guy.”
Patera Henry, a young schoolteacher, allegedly died on her way to church: “A soldier shot her,” says a woman who knew her, who wants to remain anonymous out of fear of the police. She took a picture of the dead woman with her pink mobile phone — the photo shows a young woman wearing a black T-shirt and a green skirt — and lying in a pool of blood. Behind her stands a soldier with his rifle at the ready.
“Her body has disappeared,” says Patera’s friend. “The soldiers have burned or buried many of the dead.” It is virtually impossible to verify such allegations: A number of the 73 civilian victims have been buried without an autopsy. A group of grim-faced women stand guard in front of the morgue of Kingston Public Hospital and turn away all visitors: “No one enters without permission from the prime minister.”
It was already last summer that the US government demanded the gangster’s extradition. Coke is wanted in the US on drugs and arms trafficking charges. American officials say that the man from Jamaica is one of the world’s most dangerous criminals.
The drug lord comes from an old established Jamaican criminal clan. His father Lester was an important “don,” as the gangster bosses on the island are respectfully called. Shortly before his planned extradition to the US, he died in a mysterious fire in his jail cell. Two of Coke’s brothers were murdered.
The dons are the true rulers of Jamaica. They control the “garrisons” — the crime-plagued slums. The Caribbean island has been especially hard hit by the region’s economic decline, and crime has flourished in the poor neighborhoods. Jamaica is an important haven for drugs and arms trafficking, and the dons control a large share of the international trade.
Many of them maintain close ties to the political world. Most of the gangs were established when the major parties hired groups of thugs in the 1970s and 1980s to intimidate their rivals during parliamentary elections. Former Prime Minister Edward Seaga even attended Lester Coke’s funeral. Christopher Coke carried on with the family tradition: He backed Prime Minister Bruce Golding, Seaga’s successor as the leader of the conservative Labour Party.
Kingston Stronghold
Coke’s stronghold is the impoverished district of Tivoli Gardens in West Kingston, where reggae star Bob Marley used to live. The area is part of the prime minister’s local constituency. Coke provided Golding with the votes of the slum residents, and in exchange the politician allowed him to attend to his business undisturbed.
The gangster established a state within a state in Tivoli Gardens. He paid for school fees and medication for the residents, mediated family disputes and punished thieves. At the same time, he built up an impressive arsenal: In neighboring Haiti he traded marijuana for handguns and rifles.
In the shadow of the prime minister, who — at best — didn’t care who had bought votes for him, Coke rose to become “the most powerful man in Jamaica,” according to a former minister. The gangster proved to be a clever businessman. He didn’t flaunt his position with money and women, as is customary in the business, and rarely allowed his picture to be taken at parties. Coke founded two legal companies and the prime minister made sure that one of these — the consulting firm Incomparable Enterprise — received government contracts worth millions. In Tivoli Gardens they soon started calling him “president.” Nobody dared challenge his authority.
The symbiosis between the gangster and the government thrived, just as it usually does — until Washington demanded the drug lord’s extradition. Golding postponed the decision for a long time. First he complained that US officials had allegedly illegally tapped his countryman’s phones. Meanwhile, he hindered the efforts of a law firm hired by the Obama administration to negotiate the extradition. It wasn’t until the Americans threatened to impose sanctions against the island that the prime minister abandoned the don. The decision to abandon Coke triggered the bloodbath.
Urban Warfare
Over the past few months, Coke had mobilized his supporters and supplied them with weapons. First, a few hundred women demonstrated in support of the drug baron, wearing white T-shirts printed with the message: “Jesus died for us, we will die for Dudus.” His supporters then built barricades from wrecked vehicles — and when the military marched into Tivoli Gardens, the units were met with a hail of bullets.
Most Jamaican soldiers are young and inexperienced. They were unprepared for urban warfare in the slums. “They murder innocent people,” whispered Carey, the eyewitness, and then quickly disappeared again. A number of heavily armed soldiers were patrolling behind her.
Shortly thereafter, she was hanging out with a few girlfriends on a street corner near Coronation Market, the largest market in the capital. Normally the women sell fruit and vegetables here, but the market stands have been deserted since the battle over Dudus. Coronation Market is located on the outskirts of Tivoli Gardens — soldiers have sealed off all entrances to the slum.
Last Wednesday Red Cross workers were allowed back into the city district for the first time, where they distributed food and water. It is mainly women and children who are traumatized after days of firefights, says Jaslin Salmon, the head of the Jamaican Red Cross.
The Search Continues
Things are slowly returning to normal in the center of the capital. The first businesses have reopened on King Street, buses are running again, and schools began to reopen Monday.
The government has now expanded its search for the drug lord to other city districts and the first exchanges of fire have been reported from the wealthy residential areas of the city. As a precaution, the state of emergency has been extended for a month. “The manhunt continues,” says Glenmore Hinds, the deputy commissioner of police.
Nevertheless, as he later admits somewhat meekly, he cannot be sure if the gangster is even still in Jamaica: “After all, he has contacts all around the world.”
Gayblackcanada 