While traditional political rivalry in Jamaica can be traced back to pre-independence times, modern-day Jamaican politics have been overshadowed by Kingston’s influential ‘garrison communities’. In order to establish and maintain political dominance in key constituencies, the loyalty of impoverished but highly influential gangsters in Kingston’s ghettos was secured by the main political parties through the development of large scale, highly politicised and heavily armed public housing schemes – essentially operating as states within a state. This article examines the roots of Jamaica’s current crime epidemic, revealing that it is not just a story of drugs, gangs and guns, but has deeper connections to the CIA, the Cold War, and the efforts to marginalise the 1970s democratic socialist government of Michael Manley and his People’s National Party. Manley’s convincing electoral victory in 1972 deeply troubled the United States, as his open commitment to democratic socialism, implementing moderately progressive policies like the minimum wage and free education, and his close friendship with Fidel Castro placed Jamaica firmly in the crosshairs for American covert operations.
FlynnP., ‘Class, clientelism and coercion: some mechanisms of internal dependency and control’, Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics (Vol. 12, no. 2, 1974), pp. 133–56.
3.
SivesA., ‘Changing patrons, from politicians to drug Don’, Latin American Perspectives (Vol. 29, no. 5, 2002), pp. 66–89.
4.
Ibid (emphasis in original).
5.
ScobellA.HamittB., ‘Goons, gunmen and gendarmerie: towards a reconception of paramilitary formations’, Journal of Political & Military Sociology (Vol. 26, no. 2, 1998), pp. 43–74.
GrayO., Demeaned but Empowered: the social power of the urban poor in Jamaica (Kingston, The University of the West Indies, 2004), p. 26.
10.
AmbursleyF., ‘Jamaica: the demise of democratic socialism’, New Left Review (Vol. 128, 1981).
11.
GunstLaurie, Born Fi Dead: a journey through the Jamaican posse underworld (New York, Henry Holt Books, 1995), p. 72.
12.
GrayO., Radicalism and Social Change in Jamaica, 1962–1972 (Knoxville, University of Tennessee Press, 1991), p. 73.
13.
‘Report of the National Committee on Political Tribalism’, National Committee on Political Tribalism (Kingston, Government of Jamaica, 1997).
14.
Gray, Radicalism and Social Change, op. cit., p. 90.
15.
Sives, op. cit..
16.
Ibid.
17.
Gray, Demeaned but Empowered, op. cit., p. 42.
18.
LaceyT., Violence and Politics in Jamaica 1960–1970: internal security in a developing country (Manchester, University of Manchester Press, 1977), p. 89.
ClarkeC., ‘Politics, violence and drugs in Kingston, Jamaica’, Bulletin of Latin American Research (Vol. 25, no. 3, 2006), pp. 420–40.
26.
BarryT.., The Other Side of Paradise: foreign control in the Caribbean (New York, Grove Press, 1984), p. 342.
27.
Ibid.
28.
KeithS.GirlingR., ‘The U.S. responds: derailing democratic socialism’, NACLA Report on the Americas (Vol. 12, no. 3, 1978).
29.
ClarkeC.HowardD., ‘Contradictory socio-economic consequences of structural adjustment in Kingston Jamaica’, Geographic Journal (Vol. 172, no. 2, 2006), pp. 106–29.
30.
WeisT., ‘A precarious balance: neoliberalism, crisis management, and the social implosion in Jamaica’, Capital & Class (Vol. 29, no. 1, 2005), pp. 115–47.
31.
BaileyC., ‘Seaga: links with CIA and U.S. backers’, New York Amsterdam News (31May1980).
32.
BlumW., Killing Hope (New York, Black Rose Books, 2004), p. 263.
33.
KingS., Reggae, Rastafari and the Rhetoric of Social Control (Jackson, University of Mississippi Press, 2002), p. 147.
34.
KaufmanM., Jamaica under Manley: dilemmas of socialism and democracy (London, Zed Books, 1985), p. 118.
Report to the Chairman, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Committee on Governmental Affairs, US Senate, ‘Non-traditional organized crime: law enforcement officials’ perspectives on five criminal groups’ (United States General Accounting Office, September1989).
In Horace Campbell, ‘Gangsters, politicians, cocaine and bankers’, Stabroek News (31August2010), available at: http://www.stabroeknews.com/2010/guyana-review/08/31/the-region-gangsters-politicians-cocaine-and-bankers/. Campbell explains that ‘After Edward Seaga was defeated in the 1989 elections, Lester Coke, otherwise known as Jim Brown, was emerging to be more powerful than the former prime minister in his own constituency, Tivoli. Lester Coke was operating Tivoli as a state within a state beyond the reach of the official forces of the Jamaican government. In fact, the business of cocaine was so lucrative that the Lester Coke connections interpenetrated all levels of commerce, banking, the legal community, the media and the clergy as well as the political parties … Much more importantly, the dons became the effective government as most of these taxes were used to fund the poor and send their children to school, feed them and assist in dealing with health matters and the funerals of old people.’
Wikileaks Cable: U.S. REQUEST TO EXTRADITE POWERFUL ‘DON’ PRESENTS GOVERNMENT WITH A DANGEROUS DILEMMA; KINGSTON MAYOR WARNS OF ‘SEVERE REPERCUSSIONS (2August2009), available at: http://wikileaks.org/cable/2009/09/09KINGSTON666.html.
