News
Shut up! Adams tells Seaga
BY ERICA VIRTUE Observer writer [email protected]
Monday, May 31, 2010
CONTROVERSIAL and verbose former Senior Police Superintendent Reneto Adams last week strongly recommended silence for former Prime Minister Edward Seaga, who has come out swinging against the government and military operations into Tivoli Gardens, a community that he built in the 1960s and which became the centrepiece of his and the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP’s) political support for more than four decades.
Adams, who crossed path with Seaga on several occasions during his 41 years as a police officer, and who had either led or was apart of security operations in the community, called Seaga a hypocrite
“For Mr Seaga to have come out and speak as strongly as he did, about the disruption and dislocation in Tivoli Gardens, I want to say that it is highly hypocritical…”, the outspoken retired crime fighter said, minutes after he concluded the keynote address at the Rotary Club of Kingston luncheon at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel last week.
In a stinging broadside against the JLP, and Prime Minister Bruce Golding, his former protégé, Seaga again defended the residents of Tivoli Gardens and said that a massacre had taken place in the community.
He put the death toll at 125, instead of the 73 given by security officials, based on information he claimed to have received from the community. Charging, too, that bodies had been buried as part of a cover-up, based on information he received, Seaga accused Prime Minister Golding of ineptitude.
Adams in 2001 led a police and military team in the community, to ward off a planned attack on Wilton Gardens (Rema) which had suffered more than 100 casualties at the hands of Tivoli Gardens gunmen over the years, with some last week, showing the scars of what they say was Tivoli brutality.
After the four-day standoff in 2001, 27 persons were killed, including security personnel, and Adams crypitically warned then that “Jamaica would pay dearly, dearly, dearly” for the fortification of the community, which has used strong-arm tactics to maintain political support for the JLP in the Corporate Area.
The community is currently under occupation by members of the security forces led by the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) who are in search of Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, who was indicted last August by the United States on drug and gun-running charges.
The 80-year-old Seaga, who relinquished the helm of the JLP in 2005 to Golding, emerged from political hibernation after retirement to academia, in a combative mood which belied his advanced years.
According to Adams, Seaga “nurtured this location, this environment and these people, to the extent that the security forces under a JLP government could not bear the onslaught anymore, that they had to put the police and the army to deal with it in a most effective and efficient way.”
“Dare I say, Seaga has only himself to blame…” said Adams.
“I would recommend that instead of criticising, he goes in and try to reorient the people, on a line of decent and civil living. That is the recommendation I would give him,” he said.
For its part the JLP has offered no official response to the former leader’s charge that the party was split down the middle. However, the party has been distributing an audio of Seaga, responding to a question about “Jim Brown” (real name, Lester Lloyd Coke) the father of Christopher Coke, and who was the leader of the criminal Shower Posse, which was inherited by his son, Dudus.
The audio received on Saturday from a JLP operative quotes Seaga saying that Jim Brown was a protector of the community.
“Look at the man in terms of how the community respect and treats him as a protector of the community,” Seaga’s voice was heard saying, to loud roars in the background.
But Jim Brown’s notoriety spread way beyond Jamaica’s shores and the Shower Posse, which he led, and to which more than 1,400 deaths in the United States has been attributed.
The elder Coke died in a mysterious fire while in custody awaiting extradition to the United States.
Not known for tact, South West St Catherine Member of Parliament Everald Warmington has recommended that Seaga go quietly, somewhere, even as he described him as “a bitter old man”.
Seaga, who is now a distinguished fellow at the University of the West Indies, has been consistent in his criticisms of Golding’s leadership capabilities, describing his departure to the NDM as not a problem.
“It is mischievous for Seaga to be saying that Bruce should have gone in there and defended the people. The prime minister of the land with all of the advisors came to the conclusion that it was necessary to go in there and get criminal gunmen. I want to say to Mr Seaga that it is unwise and unprofessional for him to be criticisng the prime minister in such a fashion,” Adams said.
He said it was uncharacteristic for governing parties to have this kind of offensive into communities that are their political strongholds, but it was apparent that their backs were now against the wall.

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News

Blair: I met with Coke
BY NADINE WILSON Observer staff reporter [email protected]
Monday, May 31, 2010
CONTRARY to a widespread claim that alleged drug lord Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke wanted to make a deal with United States (US) authorities, Political Ombudsman Bishop Herro Blair yesterday disclosed that the alleged don was more interested in taking his chances with a local court instead.
Blair, who also chairs the Peace Management Initiative, told his congregation at the Faith Cathedral Deliverance Centre in Kingston yesterday that he had met with the reputed gang leader twice, prior to last Tuesday’s visit to Tivoli Gardens with Public Defender Earl Witter.
The first visit was the Wednesday before, during which time he spent two hours speaking to Coke, whom the US Government had indicted on arms and drug-trafficking charges last August.
“If I go back to Wednesday, two weeks ago, I received a call and I went to Jamaica House. I was requested by the government to go into Tivoli Gardens to see if I could negotiate the surrender of Mr Coke,” he said, adding that he later met with the Opposition People’s National Party to get their approval, as well.
The ombudsman said that following the approval from both parties, he waited until he was given permission by ‘a contact’ to go in to see Coke.
“I spent two hours with him. I came out, thank God, safely; I can’t tell you what I saw, but just imagine what I saw,” he said.
“At that time the place was already fortified and the officers were preparing to go in I begged of them, please if you go in remember there are innocent lives that must be saved,” Bishop Blair said.
It was the following day that a group of Coke loyalists, mostly women dressed in white, took to the streets to voice their support for the man who many said was ‘next to God’. During the melee, they took to blocking roads in sections of Tivoli Gardens and Denham Town, setting up huge barricades as the security forces seemed to watch helplessly from the sidelines.
But, according to Blair, he had still been in dialogue with Coke, up to that point.
“The negotiations went on until Saturday. I got a call from the security forces who gave me the permission to go back to Mr Coke, with an offer from the United States Government that he turn in himself in,” he said.
“He (Coke) feels, or he felt at that time, that his best bet was to wait on the rulings of the court because he felt that the Jamaican courts would treat him better than the American courts, and that’s where it ended up until Saturday evening when the security forces decided to go into Tivoli Gardens,” the pastor told his congregation which sat quietly listening to his account.
But instead of turning himself in, Coke evaded the security forces which by Monday were engaged in a shootout with a group of Coke’s supporters, some of whom it has since been revealed were paid up to $100,000 per day to defend his turf. Military personnel have since revealed that they suspected Coke had fled Tivoli Gardens as early as 4:00 pm, while the operations in the area were going on.
Police said that 73 civilians and three members of the security forces died during last week’s civil unrest, which quickly spread to other sections of West Kingston and halted commercial activities in some sections of the Corporate Area.
On Saturday, Public Defender Earl Witter issued a public appeal for Coke to turn himself over to the authorities in the interest of the people. Witter said that he and Blair stood ready to facilitate the process.
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The fugitive whose supporters have reduced the Jamaican capital to a war zone used improvised bombs, closed-circuit TV and cross-dressing mercenaries to defend his stronghold, police said yesterday. As the manhunt for Christopher “Dudus” Coke entered its third week, police said that Mr Coke, wanted in the United States as the alleged head of the Shower Posse drug gang, monitored the entrances to his bastion at Tivoli Gardens in Kingston with a network of CCTV cameras before slipping away shortly after the army stormed the area.
Soldiers searching the slum that is pockmarked with bullets found a warren of tunnels and sewers leading all the way to Kingston harbour thus providing a possible escape route from the country — although the chief of Jamaican police insisted their “best intelligence” indicated that Mr Coke remained on the island.
The violence has claimed 73 lives so far, but police say that some of the casualties were not what they seemed.
“There were two women among the civilians killed. The rest are all males and some were dressed like females at the time they were killed,” Owen Ellington, the police commissioner, told reporters.
Mr Coke, 42, Jamaica’s most powerful “don”, remained in hiding yesterday while talks were said to be continuing between his lawyers and US officials over terms for a possible surrender.
Police believe that he left Tivoli Gardens as early as 4pm local time last Monday — hours after hundreds of soldiers stormed his barricaded redoubt to arrest him for extradition to the United States.
“We will catch him, we will execute that warrant, and he will face justice,” said Mr Ellington.
The reputed crime boss is believed to have shaved his head and beard to change his appearance.
A former senior police officer urged the security forces to search the homes of politicians and other high-profile people for the fugitive — despite a botched army raid on a home in the high-class neighbourhood of Kirkland Heights in the early hours of Thursday that killed the brother of a former government minister.
Reneto Adamas, the retired senior police superintendent, told a meeting of the Rotary Club on Thursday: “[He may be hiding] at the house of the politicians, the house of certain people in society and there is a particular house that I have great respect for that I will not mention, but a word to the wise is sufficient.”
Police said that after the Government’s decision on May 17 to extradite Mr Coke, he paid to import up to 400 gunmen from outside Tivoli Gardens to defend the area barricaded by his supporters. It was reported that the hired gunmen received up to J$100,000 (£780) a day. According to The Gleaner newspaper, police believe that defences were masterminded by an explosives expert formerly of the Jamaican security services.
Photographs made public by the authorities showed improvised bombs similar to those seen in Afghanistan, with explosives packed next to scrap metal and cooking gas canisters, wired to be detonated by remote control from homes or rooftops.
Police recovered caches of petrol bombs after it was reported that hundreds of gallons of fuel were purchased to bolster the defences.
With snipers defending the barricades, it took soldiers almost 12 hours to break into Tivoli Gardens.
“It took our troops three hours to get from Beckford Street to the MPM [Metropolitan Parks and Markets] building. This is a mere 200 metres, a three-minute walk for the average Jamaican,” said Major Ricardo Blackwood, an army spokesman.
“This speaks to the kind of armed resistance that was faced. The gunfire was consistent and sustained and it was evident that the gunmen used the vantage of high-rise buildings to fire on the security forces; these high-rise buildings were also used as sniper positions.”
When troops seized Mr Coke’s headquarters at Tivoli Gardens they discovered a CCTV system that enabled him to monitor all the entrances. They also found large amounts of local and foreign currency and copies of the extradition documents filed by the US Government, which Mr Coke appeared to have obtained illicitly.
Searches have recovered 28 firearms, including 14 rifles, and almost 9,000 rounds of ammunition, as well as nine grenades, dynamite and eight bulletproof vests.
Police continued to hunt for arms, however, saying that many weapons were concealed in black plastic bags in heaps of rubbish and manholes.
About 980 people were rounded up for questioning, including 67 youths and four women. Many were being held in the National Arena. Police said that at least 400 men were from outside the Tivoli Gardens area. Most have since been released.
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