JG - When politicians go naked

From my archive of press clippings:

Jamaica Gleaner

When politicians go naked

Published: Sunday March 7, 2010

In 2005, then Opposition Leader Bruce Golding (right), member of parliament for West Kingston, and Jamaica Labour Party Deputy Leader James Robertson (centre) and party member André Franklin rushed to the scene of a major police-military operation in...

From left, government Members of Parliament Omar Davies, Peter Phillips and Karl Blythe were seen at Willie Haggart's funeral on May 8, 2001. Haggart was a well known 'don' at the time of his death.

Left: Camille Coke (left) weeps as she stands beside her mother, Beverley, viewing the body of Lester Lloyd Coke alias 'Jim Brown' who was laid to rest in 1992. Brown, the father of Christopher 'Dudus' Coke, was the acclaimed 'don' of West Kingston. Then Opposition Leader Hon Edward Seaga is in the background with then Senator Olivia 'Babsy' Grange just in front of him.


Gary Spaulding, Senior Gleaner Writer

Local politicians' defiant flirtations with garrison communities over many years - in the face of dire warnings that this could have grave implications - are coming back to bite the Bruce Golding administration in its ongoing extradition tussle with the United States.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"Since last week's release of a damning report by the US State Department chastising the Government for its handling of the extradition request for Christopher 'Dudus' Coke, Jamaicans have applied colourful phrases to capture and describe the predicament in which the Golding administration finds itself."

"That Prime Minister Bruce Golding is the parliamentary representative of West Kingston, which includes the Tivoli Gardens community, has not helped.

Coke has been unofficially anointed 'President' of Tivoli Gardens, dubbed the "mother of all garrisons," an uncomplimentary title attributed to the community by former Jamaica Defence Force Chief of Staff Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin."

"Golding told the House of Representatives last Tuesday that Justice Minister and Attorney General Dorothy Lightbourne had not signed the extradition order against Coke because the surveillance evidence that the US submitted contravened local laws.

The prime minister's insistence that the constitutional rights of every Jamaican must be protected was met with scepticism from many.

Gomes likened Golding to the main character in the story titled The Emperor's New Clothes . "I think the politicians are naked. The public expressions and the vox pops are supporting this point," she declared."

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"It is the first time since the Mutual Assistance Treaty was signed in 1992 that an extradition request has generated such a furore.

The extradition foul-up, which dispatched Richard 'Storyteller' Morrison to the United States in 1992 and precipitated a diplomatic tiff between the P.J. Patterson administration and the US, pales in comparison.

Even the extradition request of 1992, which landed Coke's father, Lester Lloyd Coke aka 'Jim Brown', behind bars, was not nearly as controversial."

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gary.spaulding@gleanerjm.com