JAMAICA'S DRUG REBELLION

Will the Country Be Run by Gangsters or Politicians?

In his song "Trenchtown Rock," reggae legend Bob Marley celebrated the
West Kingston slum of his youth. The tune marked the outside world's
first familiarity with ghetto names here in Jamaica's capital. Lesser
known until recently has been nearby Tivoli Gardens.

But since Tuesday
of last week, Tivoli has become prominent in news reports as local
police have attempted to serve an extradition order on Christopher
"Dudus" Coke. Mr. Coke has allegedly trafficked large amounts of drugs
into the U.S. and guns back to Jamaica. He's also the leader of the
notoriously violent Shower Posse-so called for their penchant for
spraying bullets. His headquarters are in Tivoli Gardens, an area
dense with housing projects that's devolved into gunfights with police
and riots since last week. Tivoli Gardens has long been loyal to the
Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).

Trenchtown, by contrast, always supported
the more left-wing People's National Party (PNP). In the grinding
poverty of Jamaica, political allegiances were crucial: If your party
was voted out of office, you could lose your job or even your home.

Edward Seaga, a Harvard-educated Lebanese businessman, became a member
of Parliament for Tivoli Gardens in 1962. During that decade, Mr.
Seaga worked in the music business, owning the West Indies Records
Limited label. Record producers were closely linked to sound system
operators. Sound systems were like giant portable discos, with 12 or
so wardrobe-sized speakers that would play all over the island and
were the main means of promoting new records. Fiercely competitive,
the sound system bosses would employ gangs of thugs to wreck the
equipment and events of rivals.

Those gangs were the precursors to the political gunmen who, by the
end of the 1960s, had emerged in Jamaica. By 1975, Jamaica was in a
state of virtual civil war, with gunshots audible daily. Under the
left-wing leadership of PNP Prime Minister Michael Manley, Jamaica was
forging links with Cuba, to the concern of the U.S.

In 1976 Bob Marley himself was a victim of political violence, wounded
in an assassination attempt by JLP gunmen two days before an
appearance at a PNP-backed concert. Despite Marley's efforts to quell
the violence by promoting One Love Peace Concert in 1978, it only
worsened. In the build-up to the 1980 election, over 1,000 people were
murdered. The election saw a landslide victory for the JLP, with Mr.
Seaga becoming prime minister.

Marijuana smuggling had long been an
element of the Jamaican economy. Now, however, cocaine entered the
mix. By this point many of the political gunmen had become a law unto
themselves; forming "posses," as they were known, some began to
transport cocaine. During the first half of the 1980s, Tivoli Gardens'
Shower Posse, under Lester Coke and Vivien Blake, became the number
one Jamaican cocaine-smuggling operation. Migrating to several cities
in the U.S., members of the Shower Posse dominated street sales of the
new form of cocaine, "crack."

In 1992 Lester Coke mysteriously burned to death in his cell at
Kingston's General Penitentiary; he was awaiting extradition to the
U.S. on drug-smuggling charges. At Coke's funeral Mr. Seaga, who had
been voted out of power in 1988, stood reverently behind the open
coffin. Attending a 1997 rally in Spanish Town at which Mr. Seaga
declared his candidacy for elections later that year, I heard constant
chants of "Shower! Shower!" from supporters bussed in from Tivoli.

When Mr. Seaga retired from politics early in 2005, Bruce Golding, the
present prime minister, replaced him as member of Parliament for
Tivoli Gardens. Nine months ago Mr. Golding was handed the poisoned
chalice of a U.S. extradition request for Christopher Coke. His
response? Not only to prevaricate, but to hire a U.S. law firm,
Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, to lobby influential Americans in a bid to
prevent the extradition. The resulting scandal was seized on by the
opposition PNP.

On May 16, faced with calls for his resignation, Mr.
Golding apologized to the Jamaican nation, declaring that the
extradition of Mr. Coke would be implemented. Four days later, I
witnessed a disturbing riot here in downtown Kingston. Demonstrators
ran through the streets threatening to destroy the city: "No
President! [another of Mr. Coke's sobriquets] No Kingston!" At least
73 people have died since.

Still, in the Jamaican countryside life continues at its customary
leisurely pace. Early last week I had lunch with Sally Henzell (the
widow of Perry Henzell, the director of the classic Jamaican movie
"The Harder They Come") at her boutique hotel, Jake's, in Treasure
Beach.

"We are in a constitutional crisis," she said. "Now we will find out whether
Jamaica is going to be run by politicians. Or by armed gangsters."