Tag Archives: Peter Bunting

Will he stay or will he go ? Bruce Golding lies and apologizes one more time…..

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E-lie Golding with friends James Robertson and Daryl Vaz

So the dust has more less settled on the Dudus affair. After Harold Brady revealed in October 2010 that the Prime Minister had asked him to set up the whole deal with Manatt to protect Dudus and prevent his extradition; and that Minister Daryl Vaz handled the money and payments;  the Prime Minister finally caved and announced a Commission of Enquiry .

Traditionally, Commissions of Enquiry take forever and thereby allow guilty parties to relax and exhale, knowing that by the time the Commission reports most people will have forgotten what they were so exercised about at the time (see the enquiry into the 2008 police killings in Tivoli …….)

It is clear that the Manatt/Dudus/Brady Enquiry is going to follow this long established pattern. The Enquiry won’t even start until January 17, 2011 making it almost impossible to finish by the supposed deadline of February 28, 2011…….. In the meantime, we can all refresh our memories by reading some of the pertinent letters and emails (thanks to the Gleaner for archiving these documents!)

What is particularly amusing (or annoying) about this Commission of Enquiry is that we are not supposed to need it. The Prime Minister has assured us on several occasions that he has already made a full confession. And if he knows he hasn’t yet told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, then why doesn’t he just have another press conference, tell us how it really went, and save everybody a lot of time and money ? Most likely, the only thing we don’t know is who paid the bill for the law firm of Manatt, Phelps and Phillips . And the PM has already told us that he’s NOT telling us……….

Bruce sits on a vendor

via badgals-radio.comvia badgals-radio.com

Out of the ashes of Tivoli we have a big decline in the murder rate (murders have fallen below 80 a month for the first time since 2002). Peter Bunting, the Opposition spokesman on National Security, has insisted  that the dismantling of the Tivoli garrison (referred to as the Shower Posse for the benefit of the US media) is the main reason that crime has declined. So if Bunting is right, we should:

  1. be eternally grateful to Bruce for undoing what Seaga and his pals like Dudus’ daddy, Lester Lloyd Coke aka Jim Brown, had wrought, and,
  2. such gratitude should  translate into a second term

After all, no one but the M.P. for West Kingston could have ordered the security forces to dismantle the garrison. Right ?

Right. Except for the niggling detail of all the effort, lies, money and political capital expended apparently to prevent what now seems to be an overwhelmingly positive outcome :-

  • Dudus gone to New York – he’s now the problem of the American rather than the Jamaican justice system
  • the police re-establishing control of previous no-go areas all over the island;
  • and most importantly our shameful murder rate is at last declining.

So is Bruce (aka Bruised, E-lie, Red Ras’) to be (A) thanked and congratulated on his Machiavellian skill in outmaneuvering the criminals that controlled his constituency; OR

(B) is he just what he appears to his detractors :-

a man so determined to get power and remain in power that  he was – and is– prepared to cooperate with anyone who is able to deliver one or the other (Daryl Vaz and James Robertson to become the leader of the JLP; Christopher “Dudus” Coke to become, and to remain, the M.P. from West Kingston; Harold Brady and  Manatt Phelps and Phillips to save his patron, “Dudus” Coke; the US DEA and the Obama administration to be allowed to remain Prime Minister even after trying their patience with  his increasingly desperate attempts to protect Dudus).

Well, it appears that many in the JLP think that their Prime Minister is a desperate man, and therefore, while receiving their apparent support (he is, after all, the first JLP Prime Minister since 1989) he no longer has their confidence. Hence Bruce protege, Minister Daryl Vaz,  failed in his bid to become General Secretary of the party. That’s a pretty big “No Confidence” vote…..

And Bruce has shown what he thinks of his other champion, Minister of Mining and Energy, James Robertson, accused of all sorts (soliciting murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to send Dudus to Venezuela – see Johnson, Ian, Request for asylum in the U.S..) by removing the West Kingston power-plant-to-be from Robertson’s Energy portfolio.

According to our political weather-vane, Mark Wignall, it is already all over for Bruce and the JLP. There are only so many scandals any administration can ride out, especially with an economy in decline.

But, to my mind, a continued decline in crime in general, and murder in particular, might be enough to give E-lie and friends a second term.

Time will tell, I guess, even tho’ the Commission of Enquiry mostly likely won’t…..
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Hurricane season : ‘Dudus’ Coke heads north ?

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Hurricane Dean ushered Bruce Golding and the JLP into government in September 2007. Tropical Storm Gustav commemorated their first year in office. So far, knock on wood, the 2009 hurricane season has been particularly quiet.

Then, just as things seemed to be winding down to the usual end of summer back-to-school, money-have-to-spend and government-and teachers-must-quarrel, the U.S. authorities are treating us to a whirlwind of scandal, gossip and gambling by requesting that the JLP government of Bruce Golding render up JLP and Tivoli Gardens strongman, Christopher “Dudus” Coke unto the U.S. justice system, well known for eating up Jamaica’s bad men and spitting them out again five or ten years later, no harm done.

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Christopher “Dudus”Coke and his Plantation Heights yard

So how good a story is the requested extradition of “Dudus” ? Let’s see how it breaks down:-

(1) “Dudus” father, Lester Lloyd Coke aka “Jim Brown” died in a fire in his cell on February 23, 1991. He was due to be removed to the U.S. to face trial the following day. Among those who remember “Jim Brown”, everyone has their favourite theory as to who ordered the death of “Jim Brown” – e.g. some say he committed suicide; some say Seaga ordered his death to conceal his ties to the JLP; some say he was killed by his cronies who had no doubt that he would sing like a bird once he was in a U.S. prison.

So, can “Dudus” even survive to face trial in the U.S. ? And if he is to die, who gives the order this time ? Someone in Columbia ? Someone in the U.S. ? Someone in the upper echelons of the present government ?

(2) The history of the extradition treaty between Jamaica and the U.S. since 1991 is basically about JLP dons and a PNP government. Will things be different now that “Dudus'” M.P. and the M.P. for West Kingston is Bruce Golding, the Prime Minister of Jamaica?

(3) Why is “Dudus” Coke’s lawyer, JLP Senator Tom Tavares-Finson, sounding hesitant and unsure of his ground when discussing the matter with the pro-government team at Nationwide radio ?

Where is the brash, arrogant, take-no-prisoners Tom Tavares- Finson that we have come to know (if not to love )?

Can the JLP Senator be worrying that his client’s case is all too similar to that of Norris “Deedo” Nembhard (designated a drug kingpin by George Bush, Nembhard was extradited to the U.S. in 2008, and subsequently convicted on various charges) ? Is he worried that “Dudus” will suffer the same fate as Leebert Ramcharan ?

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Senator Tom Tavares-Finson

(4) Many, many times over the years we have heard that Jamaican criminals in U.S. prisons were going to sing like birds. Remember when Vivian Blake was going to ensure that dozens of Jamaican politicians and “well known businessmen” were discredited, arrested, extradited to the U.S.? Going to rot forever in an American jail ?

Instead, a mere 9 years after he received 28 years in prison, Vivian Blake is back home in Jamaica .

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(5) “Dudus” has supposedly got cover from “his” government. Under the PNP, this kind of “harassment” was par for the course. Nowadays, “Dudus” is a respectable businessman who is rewarded for his loyalty in the usual manner: a few government contracts here and there.

So, what will his “coverage” be worth ? Can Prime Minister Golding really hide “Dudus” from the U.S. authorities behind his government’s skirts ?

(6) The unofficial bookmakers are taking very big bets.

What are the odds on Christopher “Dudus” Coke being extradited alive to the U.S. ? 10 to 1 ? Or more like 100 to 1 ?

What are the odds on his extradition being delayed by the Senator? For one year ? For at least four years ?

So, what’s your take on this ? Where are you putting your money ?

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