BRUCILEAK
EDITOR’S NOTE
After intense discussion, The Gleaner took a decision to partner with independent non-profit media organisation WikiLeaks to provide Jamaicans with information out of dozens of secret cables from the United States Embassy in Kingston.
The diplomatic cables touch on various issues of Jamaican life and reflect the views and opinions of US Embassy officials based on conversations, documents and formal briefings.
The documents on Jamaica are part of 251,287 embassy cables leaked in 2010 which WikiLeaks acquired and which are being published around the world.
The cables on Jamaica will be published in The Gleaner starting today and will continue daily over the next several weeks.
We took the decision to publish stories from these documents because we feel Jamaicans have a right to this kind of information. We agree with WikiLeaks that a healthy, vibrant and inquisitive media play a vital role in making any country a better place to live and work.
We welcome your feedback. Send them to [email protected]. – Editor-in-Chief
The United States Embassy in Kingston labelled the Golding administration as two-faced and suggested that the prime minister was less than honest on at least two occasions when he first responded to questions in Parliament about the extradition request for Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke.
A secret diplomatic cable from the embassy claimed that hours after Prime Minister Golding’s December 9, 2010 fiery responses in Parliament about the extradition request for the alleged strongman, a high-ranking Cabinet member was on the phone apologising for the comments.
The embassy is also claiming that Golding overstated the case when he told Parliament that Washington and Kingston had agreed not to publicly discuss the issue and that his memory was faulty when he told the House about when he was first briefed on the matter.
In a confidential cable dated December 10, 2010, the embassy in Kingston told Washington that the Cabinet minister told US Chargé d’Affaires (CDA) Isiah Parnell that Golding had been put in an uncomfortable position by Opposition Spokesman on National Security Dr Peter Phillips.
“Despite the PM’s statements and the headlines to the contrary, the (Cabinet minister) assured CDA that Golding had been misquoted and that it was not the position of the Government of Jamaica (GOJ) that the United States Government (USG) had violated the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) or the extradition treaty,” the cable stated.
“Interestingly, although the Office of the Prime Minister issued a press release on the morning after the debate highlighting the PM’s comments on the delay in naming a new US ambassador, there was no press release correcting or reinterpreting the PM’s comments suggesting the USG was responsible for the extradition delay,” added the cable which The Gleaner has received through WikiLeaks .
While quoting extensively from the heated debate in Parliament, the US Embassy argued that: “The imbroglio illustrates both the GOJ’s paralysis over the issue as the Golding administration flails for new legal points on which to delay a decision, as well as the PNP’s (People’s National Party) determination to use the issue as a means of attacking the JLP’s (Jamaica Labour Party) moral authority to govern.”
No political tool
But it was clear that the US was unwilling to allow the extradition request for the alleged Tivoli Gardens strongman to be used as a political tool even as it maintained that the Golding administration was stalling and speaking from both sides of its mouth.
“The GOJ appears to be trying to have it both ways – publicly blaming the USG for the delays, while privately assuring CDA that this is not the position of the Golding administration,” the cable said.
“However, in publicly accusing the US of violating Jamaican law while blaming his refusal to provide specifics on a nonexistent agreement with the USG, Golding can have the best of both worlds – casting off responsibility for the delay while remaining confident that the USG will not contradict his version of events.”
The cable also questioned the prime minister’s claim about when he was first briefed on the extradition request.
According to the embassy, Golding told the House that he first received information on the extradition request the day before the USG submitted it to the GOJ on August 25, 2009.
“Post (Embassy in Kingston) disputes the PM’s recollection, noting that former Ambassador (Brenda LaGrange) Johnson briefed the PM on the case in January 2009.”
The embassy further claimed that it was told by former National Security Minister Dr. Peter Phillips that as the outgoing minister of national security, he briefed the PM on the case shortly after the September 2007 elections that brought the JLP to power
Turning to Golding’s claim in Parliament that the two governments had agreed to restrict the public comments on the matter, the embassy said that was not quite true.
“Soon after the extradition request had been submitted, an envoy from the PM’s office had requested that the USG refrain from publicly pressuring the GOJ over the politically sensitive issue,” the embassy said.
It argued that even though it had generally refused to comment on the matter publicly, there had been no such explicit agreement or understanding reached with the Government of Jamaica.
Captured By Criminals?
THE NINE-monthlong face-off between Kingston and Washington over the extradition request for alleged drug lord Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke triggered speculation within the United States government that garrison dons and criminals might have captured the Golding administration.
A secret diplomatic cable from the US Embassy in Liguanea, St Andrew, described as “troubling” the Jamaican Government’s “recalcitrance in granting US extradition requests, suggesting a lack of seriousness in addressing Jamaica’s crime problems, or even the possibility that garrison dons and criminal elements have captured the GOJ (Government of Jamaica)”.
The Gleaner has gained access to the secret cable through the whistle-blowing entity called WikiLeaks.
In January 2010 when the Obama administration and the Golding government were at a stalemate over two extradition requests, US officials in Jamaica sent the cable to their superiors in Washington taking issue with Jamaica.
“Attorney General Dorothy Lightbourne’s recent refusal to extradite Presley Bingham and the ongoing stand-off over the Christopher Coke extradition request raise doubts as to the GOJ’s resolve, especially when it comes to high-profile criminal dons with close ties to the JLP (Jamaica Labour Party),” the 2010 cable said.
According to the cable: “Most troubling was the growing perception in civil society and the private sector that after 18 years in opposition, the JLP weren’t up to the job of governing the country and PM Golding was too hesitant, indecisive and consumed by policy details to effectively manage the GOJ.”
US Chargé d’Affaires Isiah Parnell, in a January 2010 email response toThe Gleaner, had claimed that the US Embassy was very disappointed that the Government of Jamaica had denied the Obama administration’s request to extradite St James businessman Presley Bingham on what were very serious drug charges.
Reason for denial
Lightbourne had defended her decision, in January last year, to deny the extradition request for Bingham pointing out in a statement to the media that the request was turned down because it related to charges that the accused had been to court about before.
A previous extradition request for Bingham had taken longer than was legally allowable and he was freed by the Court of Appeal.
In the January 2010 diplomatic cable, the United States authorities had taken note that the Government of Jamaica continued to trumpet its intention to bring down the island’s spiralling crime rate, with National Security Minister Dwight Nelson promising that ‘draconian’ anti-gang measures to assist the police were coming.
However, in the cable, embassy officials argued that the Golding administration’s refusal to cooperate on two high-profile US extradition requests raised serious doubt as to the Government’s commitment to tackling the island’s skyrocketing crime rate.
After a nine-month delay in signing the extradition request for Coke, the Golding administration relented and inked the request when pressure began to mount from several quarters for the resignation of the prime minister who had admitted that he sanctioned the hiring of US law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips to lobby Washington on the extradition matter.
Golding had vowed in the Jamaican Parliament that he was willing to pay a political price for defending the constitutional rights of Coke, arguing that the evidence US authorities garnered on the man, who is now facing gun and drug-running charges in the US, was obtained illegally.
Lightbourne had argued that the wiretap evidence against Coke was illegally obtained.
In the recently concluded Manatt-Dudus commission of enquiry, the justice minister testified that the illegally obtained evidence formed part of her decision to have waited for nine months before signing the authority to proceed.
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