At least 44 people were said to be dead after a third day of violence in Kingston, Jamaica, as security forces assaulted the slum stronghold of armed groups believed to be defending accused Jamaican drug lord Christopher “Dudus” Coke.
Mr. Coke, the son of one of Jamaica’s most influential gang leaders, is fighting extradition to the U.S., where he is wanted on drug and gun-trafficking charges.
One member of the security forces had been killed and seven injured in the confrontation that broke out following Prime Minister Bruce Golding’s decision to extradite Mr. Coke, according to local media reports. Mr. Golding, perhaps fearing violence, had wavered on the extradition, but issued a warrant for Mr. Coke’s arrest last week.
Shooting, looting and attacks on Jamaican police soon followed. On Sunday, the government declared a state of emergency.
On Tuesday, the violence centered mainly in the Trench Town area, a notorious warren of shantytowns and public-housing projects celebrated as the childhood home of reggae legend Bob Marley. Fighting has also been reported in Spanish Town, a suburb west of Kingston.
“Security forces are under extreme pressure now,” said Mark Shields, the island’s former deputy police commissioner, who now runs a private security firm. “We have urban war going on.” A spokesman for Jamaica’s police department declined to comment on Tuesday’s events.
The Associated Press quoted Jamaica’s official ombudsman, Bishop Herro Blair, saying at least 44 people have died in battles between police and the drug gang. The island of 2.8 million is considered one of the hemisphere’s most violent. Nearly 1,700 people were killed in 2009, with the death toll hitting more than 600 so far this year.
Much of the problem, authorities say, lies with the long-festering issue of Jamaica’s criminal organizations, many centered in Kingston’s shantytowns, and the rise of powerful “dons.” In exchange for the community’s protection of their illicit activity, these figures offer services that the government at times doesn’t, such as welfare and local justice. Mr. Coke is among the most powerful of these men.
The Jamaican government has shied away from attacking these figures in the past—particularly the government of Mr. Golding, whose district lies in Mr. Coke’s stronghold. In past altercations in Trench Town, drug bosses have armed neighborhoods with weapons and used women and children as human shields.
Unattended, the problem has grown—a similar predicament faced by countries like Mexico, which is facing rising levels of drug-related violence after having let the problem worsen for decades.
“Civil society in Jamaica has risen up and said ‘enough is enough,'” says Mark Thomas of Jamaica Trade and Invest, a group that promotes foreign investment in the country.
Jamaica, whose English-speaking population has led to the rise of call centers for U.S. businesses, is in need of “law and order,” he says. “We want criminality, tyranny and disorder to be dealt with.”
Airlines on Monday canceled a number of flights to and from Kingston. Air Jamaica said it was calling off three flights, two of which were headed to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and the other bound for New York. American Airlines suspended service between Kingston and Miami.
While Mr. Coke remains at large, wild rumors have spread through the capital. One has him directing a counterattack from his stronghold; another that he has fled to a hideout in Jamaica’s mountains.
Reports have circulated on Jamaican radio of battalions of gunmen earning large daily sums to resist police and build barricades, but couldn’t be confirmed. Jamaica’s daily newspapers report that demonstrators protesting Mr. Coke’s arrest have interfered with police actions, a tactic similar to events in Mexico’s drug war in recent months.
U.S. officials have attempted to keep a low profile. On Tuesday, State Department spokesman Charles E. Luoma-Overstreet said the U.S. was cooperating with Jamaica to counter illegal drug trafficking, but didn’t offer specifics.
The State Department also issued a travel warning to U.S. citizens and halted nonessential embassy services in the city over what it called the “deteriorating situation.”
Don Foote, an attorney for Mr. Coke, has pressed for a meeting with the chargé d’affaires officer at the U.S. Embassy in Kingston. He said his client should be tried in a Jamaican court.
Mr. Luoma-Overstreet wouldn’t say if an alternative trial in Jamaica was an option. “The charges upon which the extradition request are based are violations of U.S. law. “
