AFTER JAMAICAN SIEGE, A BIGGER BATTLE

KINGSTON, Jamaica -The government here defended its actions after a
three-day siege in search of an alleged drug lord in a Kingston
shantytown claimed at least 73 lives. But many Jamaicans questioned
the deadly cost of the raid-while police said their target,
Christopher "Dudus" Coke, was nowhere to be found.

Police did claim victory Friday in taking control of the Tivoli
Gardens slum, Mr. Coke's stronghold, saying it marked the most
significant attack Jamaican police have dared to take on one of
Kingston's "garrisons" where powerful crime bosses hold sway.

The raid could mark a turning point on the island. For more than a
generation, men like Mr. Coke took charge of much of Jamaica as
"dons"-kingmaking political patrons, organized-crime bosses and
figureheads of Kingston's neglected slums, where they distributed
food and justice. Now, it appears the Jamaican government wants that
control back-a fight that won't be easy.

"Jamaica has been riding a tiger that now threatens to consume it,"
says Trevor Munroe, a Jamaican public intellectual and former
senator, of the dons. "This conflict dramatizes the need for society
as a whole to prevent the state from being captured."

On Friday, Tivoli Gardens looked like a section of an occupied city.
Soldiers stood with assault rifles and machetes. One bored soldier
kicked at a few spent rounds on the street. Some residents were
unable to leave their streets, penned in by barbed-wire blockades set
up by security forces. "We're starving here," said Elva Williams, 52
years old, standing next to soldiers. Mr. Coke is wanted in the U.S.
on drug-trafficking charges. Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding
balked at an extradition request late last year, but was criticized
by Washington and opposition politicians in Jamaica for trying to
shield the alleged drug lord. Tivoli Gardens has been a reliable
bastion for Mr. Golding's Labour Party.

Last week, Mr. Golding issued a warrant for Mr. Coke's arrest.
Violence erupted Monday, soon after police went to capture the
41-year-old. Col. Rocky Meade, who coordinated the military arm of
the operation, said Friday that while the problem of organized crime
had grown in Jamaica for years, this week's action was necessary
because this was the first time a group had presented such a threat
to the government. "What we're seeing is organized crime taking over
the state," Col. Meade said. Police Commissioner Owen Ellington said
more than 700 people had been arrested in the raid, in which three
members of the security forces died. The affair left many Jamaicans
frustrated. "They went about it all wrong," said Horace Pinnock, a
retired mechanic in Kingston. "If you're going to go after somebody,
you don't tell him you're coming before." Many Tivoli Gardens
residents say the army and police used indiscriminate force in trying
to subdue Mr. Coke's followers.

Apo Morrison, 46, leaned on a pair of crutches outside her sister's
home on Friday where she had taken refuge after she says her house
was ransacked by soldiers at least three times. She returned to the
building Thursday to find her living room covered with a large amount
of an unknown person's blood. "The entire place stinks, stinks," she
said. "They must have killed someone up in there. They have killed innocents."

The government said it took pains to avoid casualties of bystanders.
It said most of the victims appeared to be men under the age of 30,
and that two women were killed.The government also revealed the
extent to which Tivoli Gardens had armed itself for war.

The neighborhood had its own closed-circuit television cameras. The
gang linked to Mr. Coke had police uniforms and underground tunnels,
and had installed improvised explosive devices in buildings, police
said. During the fighting, gang members used manhole covers as
shields, police said. Even as some here urge on a fight against the
crime bosses, others urge caution. Former deputy police commissioner
Mark Shields says the country's security forces aren't ready to take
on the dons. "They're a force that's ready for peacetime security,
not this," he says.

While Mr. Coke's influence in Jamaica is rarely disputed, his
biography remains full of holes. His grand jury indictment cites a
number of nicknames, some of them cryptic: "President," "General,"
"Shortman," and "Paul Christopher Scott."

Mr. Coke was raised in Kingston in the 1970s at a turning point in
Jamaican history when politicians began yielding authority to
neighborhood bosses in Kingston who said they could deliver votes. By
the 1980s, these dons began raising money for political campaigns by
trafficking cocaine into the U.S., solidifying their power by arming
neighborhood militias. A new shantytown unit, known today as the
"garrison," was born. The dons formed "a kind of state within the
state," says Theodore Leggett, a drugs expert at the United Nations.
"Wealth from the cocaine trade essentially liberated these men from
their political masters."

Mr. Coke's father was believed to be one of these bosses, leading the
"Shower Posse," a fierce gang that operated in New York and Kingston,
and got its name from "showering" crowds with bullets to kill rival
drug lords. The elder Mr. Coke's power grew, and so did the influence
of his garrison, Tivoli Gardens, a long-neglected shantytown a short
distance from Bob Marley's fabled Trench Town. Through Mr. Coke's
political patronage, Tivoli Gardens's pull in Jamaica's Labour Party
increased; politicians soon knew they were unlikely to win elections
without the district. The senior Mr. Coke's reign was cut short by an
extradition request from the U.S. Then his body was found charred
after a fire in a Jamaican jail cell where he was awaiting
extradition. The mysterious fire was unsolved but many believe it was
carried out by a rival garrison.

The younger Mr. Coke took charge of his father's business, according
to U.S. authorities.

In Tivoli Gardens, Mr. Coke cuts a mysterious figure-feared, revered
and rarely sighted. In late December, city residents gathered for a
"passa passa"-an outdoor party popular in Tivoli Gardens. Disc
jockeys played reggae tunes elbow-to-elbow with dozens of dancers.Mr.
Coke decided to make an unannounced appearance.

The music stopped, the crowd parted. "You could hear everyone's heart
beating. It was almost as if they were watching a mirage," said
Anicee Gaddis, a writer who was there. Mr. Coke took the stage. Blood
wars were rending Jamaica apart, he said. He appealed for unity and a
truce between the garrisons, Ms. Gaddis recalls.

But violence in Jamaica was already reaching all-time highs. The flow
of cocaine into the U.S. had shifted to Central America as Mexican
drug lords took over trafficking and Jamaican marijuana lost market
share to Mexican cannabis. The Jamaican dons were "fighting over a
shrinking pie," says Mr. Leggett of the U.N. Jamaica ended 2009 with
1,674 murders, making it one of the world's most dangerous places.

Prime Minister Golding's move against an alleged drug lord, under
political pressure, echoes an effort nearby, in Mexico. In 2006,
after a narrow election victory, President Felipe Calderon began a
battle with drug traffickers by sending soldiers and federal police
to combat a cartel in his home state of Michoacan.

The war rapidly expanded across the nation and Mr. Calderon found
himself without adequate police forces for the fight. An effort to
decisively fulfill a campaign promise had turned into a quagmire. Mr.
Leggett says it is a problem the region must grapple with to
establish law and order. "Many Latin American countries need to
address organized crime before it becomes a threat to the state, and
particularly before these groups become institutionalized," he says.
"In both Mexico and Jamaica, this time has long passed."