After Dudus Then What?

The issue of Coke’s extra­di­tion, guilty plea, and future sen­tenc­ing has cleared away the brush of cor­rup­tion, reveal­ing the bar­ren under­brush of a post colo­nial archa­ic cor­rupt sys­tem, that is no dif­fer­ent than the cor­rupt crim­i­nal , blood thirsty war­lords who carve out large parts of sub-saha­ran Africa as their own.

As America has removed them in Liberia, Mogadishu and oth­er places in Africa, so too has Coke, Blake , Coke Senior before him, have been removed, by America,a place some Jamaicans love to hate.

It is rea­son­able to con­clude that many Jamaicans do not share the ideals many of us share. Most of us want a sta­ble coun­try where oppor­tu­ni­ties abound , a place which enables us to live in peace , be all we can be, one that pro­vides a future for our chil­dren, one that is bet­ter than the one we have. It became clear to me that a large per­cent­age of our peo­ple, even some who reside abroad, are opposed to those sim­ple foun­da­tion­al principles.

They are more drawn to dis­hon­est under­hand­ed cor­rupt hus­tling , one that is steeped in stress of look­ing over one’s shoul­der for the law and those with whom they com­pete in their crim­i­nal endeavors.

Garrisons asso­ci­at­ed with, nur­tured and fund­ed by both polit­i­cal par­ties, have long been zones of polit­i­cal exclu­sion for peo­ple of both polit­i­cal par­ties. This also extends to law enforce­ment who are ham­pered by polit­i­cal hand­cuffs. These zones of exclu­sion have been encour­aged by a cheer-lead­ing media, crim­i­nal rights groups , the church, and from all areas of Jamaican life.

I am unaware of any oth­er coun­try in the civ­i­lized world where politi­cians dare tell police they can­not enforce the law as Edward Seaga believed , Seaga once asked what was Adams doing in Tivoli Gardens. Suggesting that Tivoli Gardens was his pri­vate domain and it was up to him to deter­mine who enter and exit­ed. That kind of bare-faced unabashed cheek­i­ness has dom­i­nat­ed Jamaica’s polit­i­cal land­scape since independence.

My posi­tion when I served in the JCF was always, “who the hell do these rif raf think they are’? I must say no one ever told me what I could and could not do , I used the let­ter of the law.

Christopher Coke

The two most fear­some Garrisons in Jamaica have been the PNP’s Arnett Gardens, lit­er­al­ly built and main­tained by Anthony Spaulding, and Tivoli gar­dens main­tained by Edward Seaga, for­mer long reign­ing mem­ber of par­lia­ment for west Kingston, and Prime Minister.

For decades those in the media have giv­en a free pass to crim­i­nals liv­ing and oper­at­ing from gar­risons, I am unsure what the motives are on this, but they have nev­er missed an oppor­tu­ni­ty to thrust a micro­phone into the face of paid mourn­ers so that they may lie about wit­ness­ing extra-judi­cial killings by police. They do so despite know­ing that the sto­ries the fraud­u­lent mourn­ers tell are large­ly down­right lies.

This phe­nom­e­non has not escaped crim­i­nals who actu­al­ly saw a pub­lic rela­tions coup to be had in con­tin­u­ing this parade of lies and mourning.

Even when vicious mur­ders are killed or appre­hend­ed they come out in droves demand­ing they be set free. Murderers like Zekes are brought out to the Central Police Station by the inept Police, with a view to hav­ing him speak to sup­port­ers. Imagine a com­mon crim­i­nal ele­vat­ed to the sta­tus of peace mak­er extolling his sub­jects to go home, telling them he was fine. Criminals ele­vat­ed to the sta­tus of rock stars, increas­ing their influ­ence when police have to lean on them to calm unrest.

We have seen it hap­pen in the case of many oth­er com­mon thugs, exert­ing their influ­ence over the Jamaica state at the expense of the rule of law. None of these mod­ern-day three fin­ger Jacks despite their influ­ence, have had the pull, sup­port, or evoked the fear that Christopher Coke evoked . Conversely none have seen the gen­uine out­pour­ing of raw emo­tions and love that have been expressed for this now con­fessed gun-run­ner and drug deal­er. There are those who argue that Coke is guilty of much more than the crimes he con­fessed to, but can only be held account­able by America for trans-Atlantic crimes, in the absence of polit­i­cal and law enforce­ment will to hold him account­able in Jamaica.

Bruce gold­ing

As I have said in pre­vi­ous blogs, Coke and those who pre­ced­ed him are also vic­tims of a sys­tem that has allowed them to devel­op, for the ben­e­fit of a cho­sen few in the polit­i­cal arena.

For as much as some may see Dudus as some­one who has achieved tremen­dous wealth and pow­er , the truth is, he is also a vic­tim of Jamaica’s cor­rupt sys­tem , his present place of abode speaks to that vic­tim­hood. The self-exam­i­na­tion of which I speak ‚can­not be con­fined to the tra­di­tion­al whip­ping boys, politi­cians and police​.It must be com­pre­hen­sive to include those in talk radio, and oth­er areas of the media, those in the church, pri­vate sec­tor, the legal fra­ter­ni­ty, and most cer­tain­ly, those in the fight to secure crit­i­cal human rights. I have very lit­tle respect for those who pur­port to rep­re­sent the dis­pos­sessed and disadvantaged.

I am revolt­ed at the thought of refer­ring to them as human rights advo­cates; my view is they are crim­i­nal rights sup­port­ers. My dis­gust and utter revul­sion for them is cen­tered around the sim­ple fact that they are inca­pable of under­stand­ing that the best way to ensure that cit­i­zens rights are respect­ed is that those very cit­i­zens obey the laws of the land.

There is no con­flict in the accep­tance of the adher­ence to the rule of law, and the safe­guards that must be adhered to as they relate to respect for cit­i­zens rights.

Human rights advo­cates have their wires crossed, they are brain-dead into believ­ing that obey­ing Jamaican laws are option­al, their actions sug­gest those who choose to break our laws should have a right to do so.

Some have even col­lect­ed false data to include the names of police offi­cers and sup­plied those data to the Inter America Commission on human rights. A com­mis­sion based in Washington DC, a place where the rule of law is king, and incontrovertible.

The mind­set in Jamaica has got to change if the coun­try is to move for­ward. There is a gen­er­al notion that the rule of law is an after thought, too many of our peo­ple are will­ing to cut crim­i­nals slack, give them a bly, the ben­e­fit of the doubt.

The break­ing of laws is seen as no big deal, with most gen­er­al­ly sid­ing and giv­ing aid and com­fort to the transgressors.

Dr Fredrick Hickling renowned Psychiatrist at the University of the West Indies has sug­gest­ed that a large swath of the pop­u­la­tion is trau­ma­tized and sub­se­quent­ly men­tal­ly ill. Whether we are trau­ma­tized and in need of Psychiatric help is the pre­rog­a­tive of the Dr, Hicklings of this world , what is cer­tain is that our lit­tle coun­try must take stock of the direc­tion the rest of the world is going and get in line.

Getting in line must also mean demand­ing that polit­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tives have char­ac­ter, and do what they are elect­ed to do. The peo­ple must demand con­sti­tu­tion­al reform, and a char­ter of rights that caters to their well-being. As evi­denced by this Christopher Coke débâ­cle there are gap­ing holes in the cred­i­bil­i­ty of play­ers from the Prime Minister down to the guy who drove the garbage trucks trans­port­ing the guns from place to place.

Coke and what he rep­re­sents did not hap­pen overnight, it took decades of cor­rup­tion and polit­i­cal manip­u­la­tion to get there .In fact , though Coke and oth­ers had their base in Tivoli Gardens the epic cen­ter of JLP pol­i­tics , his influ­ence reached far and wide to include oth­er coun­tries where mem­bers of his crim­i­nal empire operated.

He oper­at­ed under the noses of Jamaican author­i­ties who were ter­ri­fied to touch him. Government con­tracts were report­ed­ly award­ed to him and his pres­i­den­tial click by the PNP gov­ern­ment even though he was a polit­i­cal adversary.

The impo­tent police force for its part chose to be like a mon­grel dog, with a lot of bark­ing at poor defense­less youths that have no influ­ence, round­ing and lock­ing them up as if that was a solu­tion to the crime prob­lem. While Coke and oth­er untouch­ables oper­at­ed with impunity.

Rank and file police offi­cers unafraid were more than will­ing to smash Coke and his cronies, as well as some that are oper­at­ing to this day. However when Renetto Adams and mem­bers of the now defunct crime man­age­ment unit entered Tivoli Gardens and took action after being greet­ed with heavy and sus­tained gun­fire, they some­how end­ed up being the ones cas­ti­gat­ed by the media, crim­i­nal rights, the church, and those in the polit­i­cal élite. Of course that gave fuel to the fire of per­va­sive crim­i­nal sup­port in the country.

Only in Jamaica could law enforce­ment offi­cers in the exe­cu­tion of their duties get cas­ti­gat­ed for going after ter­ror­ists. This is the norm and the mind­set of the black social-climb­ing , nev­er-see-come-see bijous’ most­ly edu­cat­ed at the University of the West Indies, once a hotbed of lib­er­al Marxist ideology.

Most who walked those cor­ri­dors are sol­diers look­ing for a war, they wear a chip on their shoul­der, “look at me I have an edu­ca­tion’, they nev­er write their names with­out adding their accom­plish­ments BSC, LLB etc, seek­ing to impress, as if some­one cares.

Those are the anti estab­lish­ment any­thing goes lead­ers in the Judiciary, legal fra­ter­ni­ty, and media to name of few areas.They believe they are immune from the ten­ta­cles of crime liv­ing in their gat­ed com­mu­ni­ties, and doing the rounds on the cock­tail cir­cuit. They come out to give their opin­ions when they think it helps their secu­ri­ty, by speak­ing about police abus­es, they are mod­ern-day Pharisees.

Crime metas­ta­size in an envi­ron­ment of acqui­es­cence and fear. Stop the lit­tle offences and they will not grad­u­ate into large crimes. Whether you agree with the crim­i­nal­iza­tion of gan­ja is imma­te­r­i­al. Allow one guy to sell weed on the cor­ner, and soon it’s two guys before you know it every­one is sell­ing weed on the cor­ner, then comes the con­flict over turf, then comes more dan­ger­ous and addic­tive drugs. Soon the cor­ner is a place where addicts hang out, shots bark, homes and cars bur­glar­ized, ordi­nary peo­ple unable to walk in peace and kids are recruit­ed into being run­ners, mus­cle, and dealers.

This esca­la­tion comes about when we fail to stop the first guy because it was only weed. There are those who inject them­selves into the debate pur­port­ing to under­stand the ghet­to and the peo­ple who live there, they argue that guys who hang out on cor­ners are not involved in crim­i­nal activ­i­ty, and are mere­ly what they call (cor­ner crews). This has got to be the most laugh­able attempt at ratio­nal­iza­tion. What the hell is a crew, are they car­pen­ters, stone masons, or builders of sorts, define crew so we can bet­ter under­stand what these guys do.

Group of peo­ple work­ing togeth­er; a gang: a crew of stage hands. b. A group of peo­ple gath­ered togeth­er tem­porar­i­ly; a crowd.(free online dictionary)

Keeping the same mind­set that got us into this mess is not an option if we want to have a bet­ter 50 years after our so-called inde­pen­dence. I have no faith how­ev­er that we will make bet­ter deci­sions going for­ward, all one have to do is to have a con­ver­sa­tion with a neigh­bor, hear his view and one real­izes instant­ly that there is not much hope going forward.

Mike Beckles:

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