Dudus: one year on, Jamaica at an impasse

The Jamaican Minister of Security is smiling broadly. "The murder rate fell by 44% in the first quarter of 2011 compared with last year, that is 238 murders against 426," announces Dwight Nelson at a press conference. "And the estimates for the second quarter?" Dwight Nelson abruptly stops smiling. In the room, everyone knows that the toll of the hunt for Christopher Dudus Coke at the end of May 2010 will weigh very heavily at the next conference.

Nicknamed the President, Christopher "Dudus" Coke ruled unchallenged over west Kingston until his extradition to the United States in June 2010. Washington had been seeking Dudus for almost a year on drug and arms trafficking charges. Since then, the "Wannabe Dons", Dudus's former henchmen, have been spreading terror to occupy the vacant throne. "With Dudus, power was centralised and we felt safe," confides a resident of Tivoli Gardens. "They all claim to be replacing him, and not to protect the population."

The neighbourhoods of west Kingston are reputed to be violent, accounting for more than a quarter of the homicides in Jamaican territory, but residents increasingly complain of a surge in violence and a strong sense of insecurity. Hold-ups, rapes, armed attacks... "It wasn't like this in Dudus's day."

Police brutality
The presence of the police and the army, maintained after the end of the state of emergency, changes nothing. "The laws and the government have no power in these areas," recalls Peter Phillips, a former defence minister. "The government's plan to regain control of these neighbourhoods will only be effective if residents trust the police." For Carolyn Gomes, director of Jamaica For Justice, that is unlikely to happen. Police brutality is a genuine scourge on the island, which has the highest rate of police killings in the Americas. According to the organisation, which specialises in cases of police violence, shootings by the police have risen sharply over the past six months.

Between January and the first week of November 2010, 340 people died from police bullets. "This police brutality goes back to colonial times, and nothing has changed since. It is still about protecting the richest classes against the poorest," explains Carolyn Gomes.

The residents of these ghettos are therefore likely to keep turning to a gang leader until the police are able to help them feel safe. In the meantime, police abuses discredit the State and only increase the power of those nicknamed the Dons.

Associated with the Italian mafia, the term 'Don' corresponds in Jamaica to the community leader. Since independence in 1962, the population of the ghettos has answered to this one man alone. Those whose existence was revealed during the hunt for Dudus act as father, policeman and judge.

An unavoidable link
"Every neighbourhood works in a triangle," explains Rational, a gang member. "At the top is the government, which hands an envelope to the Don, and he redistributes it to the residents. They then keep voting for the chosen candidate." According to one MP, "nobody comes to power without the Don's approval". In Tivoli Gardens, Bruce Golding won more than 95% of the vote. "Thanks to Dudus," asserts the conservative daily Gleaner. Colossal rewards and benefits in kind, contracts and visas follow.

Thanks to judicial immunity and the visas they obtain easily, some have developed drug and arms trafficking to the United States and Great Britain. "The danger is that they have freed themselves from the government," warns Peter Phillips. Caught in a trap, the Prime Minister promises to put an end to the link between criminals and government. "If this link exists," specifies, with a straight face and before Parliament, the man who paid 50,000 US dollars to a law firm to avoid Dudus's extradition to the United States.

Since then, business has resumed. While Dudus is unlikely to return to Jamaica, it is his younger brother Leighton 'Livity' Coke who is preparing to take over upon his next release from prison. His trial, for illegal possession of a firearm, has been postponed yet again, but on the ground, Christopher Dudus Coke's cousin carries out orders, and confirms that he is still in contact with the government.

In Kingston, government contracts continue to flow in, but discreetly. Trimming hedges, cleaning drains, repainting façades... "To do that, an honest government would have hired professionals," retorted a business owner who suffers under this law of the ghettos. "When a guy turned up with his mates and demanded to be paid, and for doing nothing at that, I thought it was a joke. The next day I understood very well that it wasn't, and that nothing had changed!"