After Dudus in Kingston

New York -- I arrived in the rain.  The Air Jamaica flight flew into Kingston in silence.  All the passengers were quiet -- prayerful of landing safely.  Recent memories of the American Airline plane crashing while landing into Kingston in the rain became real.  This isn’t the sunny city everyone knew.  It was Friday, May 28^th, five days after the Jamaican government established a state of emergency for Kingston and the city’s police and security forces stormed the Tivoli Gardens community and entered into a shootout with gunmen of the area.  

I sailed through Immigration but had the inevitable wait for my suitcase. Not thinking about the condition of my luggage I went to a secluded area just waiting for the baggage conveyer belt to start. One of the baggage men, from outside the airport, poked his head through an opening of the wall into the building.  I smiled at him because he looked like a squirrel coming up for air to catch some nuts. But he looked at me and said “it a rain from 9 o’clock last night,” then paused.  “It a wash away some a de blood.” Oh God. I motioned to him that he shouldn’t say that. He laughed but he was a serious.    


By the time I got my suitcase it was soaked. I approached the custom officer just wanting to get out of the airport. When I told her I was a journalist she smiled and asked me if I had a bulletproof vest. “What?” I asked. I laughed and said, “no, not that kind,” but she too was quite serious. Immediately, I realized local and international journalists had been covering the Tivoli Garden story in bulletproof vests and helmets. 

Welcome to Jamrock.

Last Tuesday, Christopher “Dudus” Coke was arrested in Jamaica and extradited to America. He is currently in jail in New York City.

Coke’s arrest ended his nine months of uneasy freedom -- starting last August when the US government asked the Jamaican government for him to be extradited to America -- and the past month of him being a fugitive from the Jamaican police who wanted him arrested.

His arrest ends one of the most tragic period in Jamaican history since Independence. From May 23 to May 26 -- 76 people were killed -- 73 people in Tivoli Gardens community and three others in Kingston who were associated with the conflict in the area. Homes and workplaces were destroyed. Hundreds of people were detained then released -- handguns and thousands of ammunition were confiscated.  


In that time span, the police and security forces entered Tivoli Gardens to arrest Coke in accordance with signing the extradition order but were instead met with resistance.  Tivoli Gardens, in downtown Kingston is considered a garrison community because it’s poor and is loyal to one of Jamaica’s political party, the Jamaican Labor Party. Coke has a loyal following in the community, is considered a don or area leader, and is known as president of Tivoli Gardens. Dons maintain their power in garrisons by being benevolent, usually paying a child’s school tuition or some such, but with such favors it’s then hard for residents to deny them when they exert a request such as sexual favors from a young girl, or which politicians they should vote for.  

The police and soldiers continued to search for Christopher “Dudus” Coke and he continued to elude them. That Sunday, May 30^th, in an upper middle class community of Red Hills, Keith Clarke reportedly a business associate of Coke, was shot to death. Security forces were searching for Coke and thought he was hiding at Clarke’s home. 

The tensions in the city increased after the shooting in Red Hills, as the concept of any citizen in any community being shot by either the police or gunmen became a reality. 

I came to Kingston, at the end of May, because I was overly concerned about close family members and friends who are in Kingston. The city is a small area and anything can happen when people are fighting. I wanted to be with my loved ones should anything crazy flare up. 

I was concerned about being picked up at the airport that Friday, as the routes to the airport are all close to Tivoli Gardens.  My mother, who was already in the country, was fine in picking me up but when we left the airport we had to drive through a garrison community similar to Tivoli Gardens which also supports the JLP. 

When the Prime Minister, Bruce Golding, signed the extradiction order for Coke, residents of Tivoli Gardens set up barricades to protest the act. In solodiarty with Tivoli Gardens this other garrison we were driving through also set set up barricades in the middle of the road. Refrigerators, washing machines, bedsprings, mattresses and chairs which had previously littered the road were neatly packed on the corner of the sidewalk. I wondered if these appliances could have been in good condition in the first place because there’s no way a poor family who has a working refrigerator is going to use it to block the street.  Even if a don promises a new appliance they still have to do without until they get the new device. I thought some of the people might have been using the protest as a kind of spring-cleaning.   

I was previously in Kingston earlier in May and the difference between the city then and at the end of the month was frightening. There was no music playing;  nothing to celebrate; no one yelling obscenities; no whistle from the peanut car but really very few cars on the streets. 

In the next week, citizens tried to break through their physical and emotional paralysis. Talk radio was an endless stream of questions, blame and attempts at solutions for the end of the don eminence within garrisons. On every talk and television show citizens called in to repudiate the government for going into Tivoli Gardens or called in saying the government should invade all garrison communities like Tivoli Gardens.

Every music station played all the roots, righteous reggae they forgot about throughout the year. By far the most popular song in Jamaica this year has been Vybz Kartel’s "Clarks" and not once did I hear it play on the radio or blaring out of some patty shop over the next week. Instead, the cobwebs of Gypitian’s "Serious Times" were dusted off and played overtime.   

Present day Jamaica finds itself in a very historical moment. Since the shootings in Tivoli Gardens, Kingston and the country have experienced a severely tragic, violent and transformative experience. Although the majority of the capital and the country have regained normalcy, citizens live in the shadows of a never ending conversation about Coke and stories of the violence which happened in Tivoli Gardens.  

For that week there was also the physically injuries, the traumatic tears the majority of residents of Tivoli Gardens and Kingston shed or felt in their hearts, along with the security forces and police who fought in the community and the journalists who had to cover the incident as well as the emotional scars residents of Kingston and Jamaica suffered.

There was real anger in the air. At the end of May, the amount of people killed in Tivoli Gardens wasn’t known but people were outraged. There was plenty of animosity towards both political parties, the JLP and the Peoples National Party.   There was animosity from JLP supporters towards the government for invading Tivoli Gardens, one of their own constituencies, but mostly there was animosity towards both parties for letting the don culture flourish in poor communities to the point where they replace simple civic responsibilities from the government and in turn become the unofficial government of these neighborhoods. 

There was sadness. The city and the country would never be the same. Those few days would forever stain the historical record of the country -- 76 people were dead. No one was mourning the lost of known drug dealers or gang leaders but people mourned the loss of innocent lives of citizens and police officials.  

It seems everyone in Kingston was captive. Not sure what next would happen; not knowing if they’d be any retaliation. Everyone was attempting to regain “normalcy” but they proceeded with caution. People were starting to return to work, though schools in the downtown area of the city were still closed. Although folks were going to the supermarkets and running their errands, they were still very cautious about where they went, what was the safest route, with whom they traveled and when they’d return home. A few stores were still closed.

The Monday after the shooting in Red Hills, more businesses throughout Kingston but especially in the downtown area started to open their grill gates and raised their grill shutters. Schools in the downtown area were open for students to return. People started to ignore the curfews as more people traveled at night.  People started to live again -- hopeful they’d be no more killings though vigilant of any potential danger.

Prep Champs

The only place within Kingston that next week where there was no talk of Coke was at the Inter-Prep Track and Field Championships at the National Stadium.  The curfew installed by the government as a part of the state of emergency was still in effect in the corporate area, which is where the stadium is located.  Individuals had to be off the road by 6pm. At previous meets at the stadium a lot of students walk home in groups after the event; but at these Prep Champs, school custodians corralled every student onto school buses or matched them with adults to give them a ride home. No student was going to walk out of the stadium. They made it a priority to have every student out of the stadium by 5:30pm. 

To me the absolute best thing about Jamaican children is their precociousness.  They’re sweet and lovable like all children, but they will tell you what’s on their mind in a second. 

At the Prep Champs, I spoke to a principal who said more students would have attended, but unless they were competing she didn’t want to bring them because it would have been a logistical problem to take them all home after the meet. 

She sat among the students in her shorts cheering just as loudly for the runners as the children themselves, who were banging on drums and chanting away.  They hurdled the seats and ran up and down the stairs of the stadium, using it as an extended gym at school. 

The principal pointed me to a tiny little six-year old girl who she said was the fastest runner for her age. I’ve been in the stadium and watched Shelly-Ann Fraser approach a group of children and them scream as though it was announced that school was cancelled for an entire year. So I went over and asked the little girl what she thought about Fraser and Usain Bolt. But this little girl was watching her classmate race so Fraser and Bolt weren’t important to her. 

After two questions of me distracting her she finally sat up straight in her seat, turned around to look me in the eye and asked me ‘what are you doing?’  She then turned her body completely around, never to look at me again. I told her principal that on the next career day there has to be a journalist in the midst. 

A nine-year old boy sat with his two buddies. I asked him what he thought of Bolt and he said without blinking an eye that he could beat the fastest man in the world. When I asked him what his time was he said 12.06. “Ya lie,” said his friend. “It 14.27.” Well, we all laughed and knew he was being far fetched but why be realistic. After all, he is a child in the land of sprint royalty. Who’s to say his confidence and dreams can’t be a reality in the future.   

But it turns out the Prep Champs aren’t just some little meet for privilege kids. Bruce James, the competition director and president of MVP Track Club, told me that World Champion and Olympic medalist Sanya Richards ran for Vaz Prep, before she left to live in America.  

He explained that the meet along with the Primary Champs, held earlier in the summer, are foundational meets for students before they enter high school. This year 61 schools competed with about 2,000 athletes. After three days, Hydel Prep won their fifth consecutive title.

It was a great time to watch children have fun, run with their heart and forget about all the pain and suffering outside the stadium. 

Grandmother’s Birthday

The next day my aunt arrived in Kingston from America. My mother and I returned to the airport.  This time, the trip to the airport was like it had always been. There was no worry about what route to take and the airport was filled with people arriving and leaving. 

My aunt visited to have a mini vacation, but also to celebrate her mother, my grandmother’s birthday.  Mom, as everyone calls my grandmother turned 88 years old a day later.  My mother and aunt decided to have a small party for my grandmother with an uncle and some cousins.

My grandmother is the head of our family. She’s a sweet woman and incredible strong having survived breast cancer and a life of hard work and sacrifice. Her memory comes and goes so talking with her is often listening to the same stories and her burst into the same song, but it’s okay. She tells each story as though it’s the first time she thought of it.   

My mother and two men set out early the morning of Mom’s birthday to buy a goat so the men could kill and curry it. However, it took a few hours before they found one. The initial goats they saw cost too much, or one goat realizing he was going to be killed ran away from the men when they caught him and forever disappeared in the bushes. By the time they went back looking for another goat my aunt and I joined the search. When we reached an area where we saw some goats, two men were sitting under a tree talking. They told us that the previous night two other men were arrested in their neighborhood for gun possession. It seemed the police was being extra vigilant and trying to confiscate all illegal guns. Eventually we found a goat and quickly curried him up. We also cooked jerk chicken, chutney, dal, bought a cake and just sang to my grandmother.

At the party I met my maternal grandfathers first cousin, who is 92, and his daughter. They’re completely lovely people whom it seemed as though I knew all my life. This grandcousin told me that the family land where he and my grandfather were raised in rural Jamaica was sold by other family members decades ago. However, those lands had graves of family members and the headstones were knocked down and built on by the new owners.  That was a little sad but this was a man who lived this long by looking at the future and not at the past. 

It was good to see how beautiful my oldest family members are.

National Gallery of Jamaica

Later in the week my aunt and I went to the National Gallery in downtown Kingston where there was an exhibition of young artists.

The national gallery is home to Jamaica’s founding painters and sculptures: Albert Huie; Edna Manley and Belisario, among others, so it’s always great to go when they have a new exhibit because you just revisit the older gems. 

As soon as we walked in we opened our mouths in amazement.  In the first gallery space of the building, the artist, Ebony Patterson, presented oversized canvases on the walls which had replicated dancehall images on the materials.  Kartel’s “Clarks” played in the background.  My aunt and I stood inches from the fabric trying to figure out how Patterson did the work. Her pieces were incredible. The other artists were all good but Patterson left us speechless.

When we left the gallery we had coconut water from a vendor on the side of the building. This man told us he use to get a lot of customers from people who came into the area, before the police and gunmen stormed into Tivoli Gardens. He told us that although he understands the gun and drugs charges against Coke, he said Coke’s presence made the area safer for residents and visitors, that petty thieves wouldn’t be as quick to rob people since they would be accountable to Coke and people outside of the area could feel safe to visit Coronation Market, the vegetable and fruit center of Kingston. The market was burnt down within the four days, destroying the livelihood of farmers from across the country who came to Kingston to sell their produce. With no central hub farmers disbursed across the city trying to find buyers for their goods. 

Beach before the New Moon

Before I left on a Sunday night flight to New York, my mother, aunt and I went to Fort Clarence beach. After we splashed around in the water, we settled into our chairs under a huge almond tree and ate our selection of escovitch fish. 

The beach was packed with people laughing, flirting, sleeping and we’d hear occasional screams from a television stationed by the cooking hut.  A group of folks were watching matches from the World Cup. 

From the time the World Cup started I mourned that the Reggae Boyz hadn’t qualified for the event. In my fantasy I wish they were in South Africa. People are so football crazy in Jamaica that everyone’s complete focus would have been towards the World Cup, and the signing of the extradition order and shooting in Tivoli Gardens might not have happened two weeks before the beginning of the world’s largest sporting event.  But this was my fantasy as the reality of the situation is unfortunately different. 

I always try to get a window seat on the airplane when I’m leaving Kingston so I can look at the lights of the city. But this time I got a window seat on the opposite side of the plane. I wouldn’t see the city lights as the planed taxied down the runway. Instead, as soon as the plane ascended I realized there was a new moon in the sky. I watched the crescent shape over the sunset shades of orange, yellow, green, blue above the lights of rural Jamaica. Somehow the sight of a new moon reassured me that the situation in Jamaica would be okay.  No matter the hardships or tragedies there are always new joys and new beginnings.  I hoped this moon symbolized a new story for Jamaica.  
-- Connie Aitcheson