Tweet
Which Dudus are they seeking?
Which Dudus are they seeking?
WIGNALL'S WORLD
Mark Wignall
Sunday, November 15, 2009
One late afternoon recently on a street corner alive with vendors, taxicab operators, schoolchildren making their way home, vehicles zipping by and people moving slowly but steadily in all directions, I sat with a few men - some young, some not so young - and we spoke of many things.
Some of the men were overtly political in their views and, like most places where I have had similar discussions in the last six months, the PNP as a major presence has been a concern, in that a majority of those speaking have no intention of ever working under the present JLP administration. Second, a significant percentage of those who said they supported the JLP in 2007 have retreated into silence, almost as if they are waiting to see where the next political wind will blow.
That this administration is in reality a minority government, I have no doubt.
The discussion moved from the firing of the BOJ head to the pending extradition of Tivoli Gardens boss Christopher 'Dudus' Coke. Weeks before that I had suggested to them that Dudus' worst enemies were those closest to home. One of the men, a PNP die-hard, said, "Den why Dudus nuh guh a Cuba?"
I laughed out then said, "Wrong party, wrong man. Your party or key people close to the top of the PNP organised in the late 1970s for PNP thugs to relocate to Cuba after they had committed serious crimes in Jamaica. You seem to forget that the JLP ran out the meddlesome Cuban ambassador and locked down relationships with Cuba once Eddie Seaga won in 1980. And now you talk joke about Dudus running to Cuba."
This time he laughed then said, "So, if Dudus cyaan run guh a Cuba, cyaan guh a England, cyaan guh none a di island dem, whey him fi guh?" At that point we began to rehash the charges/allegations in the extradition request. Gun running. trading in hard drugs.
I said, "Gentlemen we are dealing with two Duduses. The Americans have painted a picture of a man who is said to be a criminal mastermind and a man at the top of an organisation. On the other hand, if you can move your political goggles to the top of your heads, you will admit that the Dudus as we here in Jamaica know him as - a 'Don', a 'Dads,' a man in charge, a man given the title 'president' by the street forces because he has filled a vacuum where the state vacated its responsibility - is someone highly respected in that setting."
"Yes, a true dat," another 'comrade' chimed in. "But yuh really expect Bruce fi gi up him own man?" he asked.
I gave him my views. It was my understanding that the prime minister had no 'relationship' with the Tivoli Gardens leader outside of the obvious one - Dudus 'controlled' the area and as the political representative for Western Kingston, Golding would have to be a stupid man not to acknowledge that reality. "I cannot see that it is in the control, one way or the other, of the prime minister."
"Den why di stalling game?" suggested another.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen," I said. "There is a relationship between the organised street forces and the politics in both the JLP and the PNP that goes back a far way. Let us be real, if you are a politician, and a man, whether he is criminal or angelic comes to you and says that he controls the way a few thousand people think, how they vote, and you check it out and it is true, isn't 75 per cent of your work done? Didn't Eddie Seaga attend the funeral of Jim Brown? Didn't the much-beloved Michael Manley attend the funeral of PNP street thugs? Didn't Peter Phillips and Omar Davies attend the funeral of Willie Haggart? Why are we playing these games?"
A youngster within earshot of the heated conversation began talking to another in loud tones about Gully and Gaza. One of my no-nonsense PNP friends turned to him and said, "A bet yuh yu madda a JLP. Yuh fi listen." We all had a good laugh.
One of the men gathered his hairy chin in one hand and pursed his lips, all the while looking at me with eyes that signalled that he had a question. "So, you don't believe dat Bruce a deliberately stall because the Prezi bigga dan him?"
"Well, I can't get inside the man's head, and if I should call up the prime minister and ask him if he is deliberately stalling, what possible answer could he give but no?"
Somehow that did not satisfy him so he asked again, "Be truthful, Missa Wignall, don't yuh know sey di man a stall?"
Again laughter. "If I was to live in the head of the PM since August, to now I would believe that he couldn't just treat the Dudus extradition request like any other one. It would have to be a political nightmare for him. First, I am no lawyer, but I cannot see any way out but extradition. If I were in the PM's head I would be thinking both nationally and the effect it could have on me politically, in the wider party and in Tivoli Gardens."
My friend wasn't letting up. "So yuh woulda stall den?"
"Hold off nuh mi bredren! Yes," I said. "What are the prime minister's options? The only real option is to realise that he will be politically wounded any route he takes. If he should call up Attorney General Dorothy Lightbourne and say, 'Dorothy, sign the damn thing and let us face the music,' what do you believe would happen?"
A newcomer to the conversation but who had been listening close by said, "Den yuh don't believe sey the attorney general fraid fi sign di request?"
There was a brief silence as all eyes focused on me.
"Well, you know that I don't like to put too much stock in rumours, but even if it were so and Ms Lightbourne was scared, how long could she be scared for? In hindsight I believe that if the extradition request was signed within a few weeks of its request, even now key sections of the city and strategic points across the country would be no-man's-land because of 'war'. So, what I would do if I had Golding's DNA, I would stall. I would shunt the papers between the solicitor general and the attorney general. I would encourage them to scrutinise, scrutinise and scrutinise. Dot I's, cross T's.
"That would satisfy a number of areas. Among my detractors they could never be really sure if I was genuine when I said that Mr Coke as a Jamaican citizen was entitled to all the legal protection afforded under the extradition agreement. To the Tivoli organisation, it would give them the impression that I, the prime minister, knowing within that there was only one way to resolve the matter, was doing all that I could to allow 'Prezi' more time in Jamaica until that fateful resolution date came."
I wasn't quite sure that I had satisfied their curiosity. It was not the business of the Americans to empathise with our crude social arrangements. People like Dudus had become heroes to many Jamaicans living beneath the socio-economic radar. The vast majority of these community leaders have seen a side of politics that we have never seen. While they acknowledged that it had its greatest synergy with the street in years gone by, in the present, the politics is crass user and abuser of the people and most of what it has done is provide a day's bellyful then suck them dry for a month.
The Dudus the Americans want is, if we go by their claim, a man who used the subcultural opportunities presented to him well, but in the process appeared on their high-tech radar and, according to them, breached their laws. If we were to take away his notional attachment to the JLP, he is, for better or worse, a hero to the street or a terror to those who disrupt the order and the structure of the new society built beneath the layer of 'law and order'.
That said, the JLP administration cannot afford to have attachments to anything or any fraternity or any external order that exists outside of that idea seen in the light of day and known as that very 'law and order'. Its ability to weld that authority given it by the people with the impelling need to satisfy arrangements made after dark with its snarling alter ego, will either provide us with rules to bolster a well-run society or, when the stuff hits the fan, we will all become smeared and smelly.
Much of what comes out in the wash in politics anywhere in the world is at best 40 per cent of what actually happens. Deals are always being cut in dark, smokey rooms between men we never elected or selected. With the extradition request for Dudus, much of the JLP's governance of that matter must, by its very nature, take place long after the shadows lengthen.
As one JLP insider said to me recently: "Some of you journalists are unrealistic. Do you expect us to tell you by way of a press conference that Dudus will be extradited tomorrow? Crazy! It doesn't work that way. You will know about it when it happens!"
Feeling troublesome I asked, "And when do you think that will be?"
"Ask me something else," he said.
Which Dudus are they seeking?
WIGNALL'S WORLD
Mark Wignall
Sunday, November 15, 2009
One late afternoon recently on a street corner alive with vendors, taxicab operators, schoolchildren making their way home, vehicles zipping by and people moving slowly but steadily in all directions, I sat with a few men - some young, some not so young - and we spoke of many things.
Some of the men were overtly political in their views and, like most places where I have had similar discussions in the last six months, the PNP as a major presence has been a concern, in that a majority of those speaking have no intention of ever working under the present JLP administration. Second, a significant percentage of those who said they supported the JLP in 2007 have retreated into silence, almost as if they are waiting to see where the next political wind will blow.
That this administration is in reality a minority government, I have no doubt.
The discussion moved from the firing of the BOJ head to the pending extradition of Tivoli Gardens boss Christopher 'Dudus' Coke. Weeks before that I had suggested to them that Dudus' worst enemies were those closest to home. One of the men, a PNP die-hard, said, "Den why Dudus nuh guh a Cuba?"
I laughed out then said, "Wrong party, wrong man. Your party or key people close to the top of the PNP organised in the late 1970s for PNP thugs to relocate to Cuba after they had committed serious crimes in Jamaica. You seem to forget that the JLP ran out the meddlesome Cuban ambassador and locked down relationships with Cuba once Eddie Seaga won in 1980. And now you talk joke about Dudus running to Cuba."
This time he laughed then said, "So, if Dudus cyaan run guh a Cuba, cyaan guh a England, cyaan guh none a di island dem, whey him fi guh?" At that point we began to rehash the charges/allegations in the extradition request. Gun running. trading in hard drugs.
I said, "Gentlemen we are dealing with two Duduses. The Americans have painted a picture of a man who is said to be a criminal mastermind and a man at the top of an organisation. On the other hand, if you can move your political goggles to the top of your heads, you will admit that the Dudus as we here in Jamaica know him as - a 'Don', a 'Dads,' a man in charge, a man given the title 'president' by the street forces because he has filled a vacuum where the state vacated its responsibility - is someone highly respected in that setting."
"Yes, a true dat," another 'comrade' chimed in. "But yuh really expect Bruce fi gi up him own man?" he asked.
I gave him my views. It was my understanding that the prime minister had no 'relationship' with the Tivoli Gardens leader outside of the obvious one - Dudus 'controlled' the area and as the political representative for Western Kingston, Golding would have to be a stupid man not to acknowledge that reality. "I cannot see that it is in the control, one way or the other, of the prime minister."
"Den why di stalling game?" suggested another.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen," I said. "There is a relationship between the organised street forces and the politics in both the JLP and the PNP that goes back a far way. Let us be real, if you are a politician, and a man, whether he is criminal or angelic comes to you and says that he controls the way a few thousand people think, how they vote, and you check it out and it is true, isn't 75 per cent of your work done? Didn't Eddie Seaga attend the funeral of Jim Brown? Didn't the much-beloved Michael Manley attend the funeral of PNP street thugs? Didn't Peter Phillips and Omar Davies attend the funeral of Willie Haggart? Why are we playing these games?"
A youngster within earshot of the heated conversation began talking to another in loud tones about Gully and Gaza. One of my no-nonsense PNP friends turned to him and said, "A bet yuh yu madda a JLP. Yuh fi listen." We all had a good laugh.
One of the men gathered his hairy chin in one hand and pursed his lips, all the while looking at me with eyes that signalled that he had a question. "So, you don't believe dat Bruce a deliberately stall because the Prezi bigga dan him?"
"Well, I can't get inside the man's head, and if I should call up the prime minister and ask him if he is deliberately stalling, what possible answer could he give but no?"
Somehow that did not satisfy him so he asked again, "Be truthful, Missa Wignall, don't yuh know sey di man a stall?"
Again laughter. "If I was to live in the head of the PM since August, to now I would believe that he couldn't just treat the Dudus extradition request like any other one. It would have to be a political nightmare for him. First, I am no lawyer, but I cannot see any way out but extradition. If I were in the PM's head I would be thinking both nationally and the effect it could have on me politically, in the wider party and in Tivoli Gardens."
My friend wasn't letting up. "So yuh woulda stall den?"
"Hold off nuh mi bredren! Yes," I said. "What are the prime minister's options? The only real option is to realise that he will be politically wounded any route he takes. If he should call up Attorney General Dorothy Lightbourne and say, 'Dorothy, sign the damn thing and let us face the music,' what do you believe would happen?"
A newcomer to the conversation but who had been listening close by said, "Den yuh don't believe sey the attorney general fraid fi sign di request?"
There was a brief silence as all eyes focused on me.
"Well, you know that I don't like to put too much stock in rumours, but even if it were so and Ms Lightbourne was scared, how long could she be scared for? In hindsight I believe that if the extradition request was signed within a few weeks of its request, even now key sections of the city and strategic points across the country would be no-man's-land because of 'war'. So, what I would do if I had Golding's DNA, I would stall. I would shunt the papers between the solicitor general and the attorney general. I would encourage them to scrutinise, scrutinise and scrutinise. Dot I's, cross T's.
"That would satisfy a number of areas. Among my detractors they could never be really sure if I was genuine when I said that Mr Coke as a Jamaican citizen was entitled to all the legal protection afforded under the extradition agreement. To the Tivoli organisation, it would give them the impression that I, the prime minister, knowing within that there was only one way to resolve the matter, was doing all that I could to allow 'Prezi' more time in Jamaica until that fateful resolution date came."
I wasn't quite sure that I had satisfied their curiosity. It was not the business of the Americans to empathise with our crude social arrangements. People like Dudus had become heroes to many Jamaicans living beneath the socio-economic radar. The vast majority of these community leaders have seen a side of politics that we have never seen. While they acknowledged that it had its greatest synergy with the street in years gone by, in the present, the politics is crass user and abuser of the people and most of what it has done is provide a day's bellyful then suck them dry for a month.
The Dudus the Americans want is, if we go by their claim, a man who used the subcultural opportunities presented to him well, but in the process appeared on their high-tech radar and, according to them, breached their laws. If we were to take away his notional attachment to the JLP, he is, for better or worse, a hero to the street or a terror to those who disrupt the order and the structure of the new society built beneath the layer of 'law and order'.
That said, the JLP administration cannot afford to have attachments to anything or any fraternity or any external order that exists outside of that idea seen in the light of day and known as that very 'law and order'. Its ability to weld that authority given it by the people with the impelling need to satisfy arrangements made after dark with its snarling alter ego, will either provide us with rules to bolster a well-run society or, when the stuff hits the fan, we will all become smeared and smelly.
Much of what comes out in the wash in politics anywhere in the world is at best 40 per cent of what actually happens. Deals are always being cut in dark, smokey rooms between men we never elected or selected. With the extradition request for Dudus, much of the JLP's governance of that matter must, by its very nature, take place long after the shadows lengthen.
As one JLP insider said to me recently: "Some of you journalists are unrealistic. Do you expect us to tell you by way of a press conference that Dudus will be extradited tomorrow? Crazy! It doesn't work that way. You will know about it when it happens!"
Feeling troublesome I asked, "And when do you think that will be?"
"Ask me something else," he said.
</div></div>
Comment