Editorial | Reflect more deeply on Coke affair

Bruce Golding, the former prime minister, may indeed go to his grave in certitude for his stonewalling of the extradition of Christopher Coke, which culminated in violence and the deaths of more than 70 Jamaicans and a wobbling of the foundations of the Jamaican State.

But being convicted doesn’t mean that Mr Golding is right. Indeed, Mr Golding’s regret should be for more than endorsing the hiring of the American firm, Manatt Phelps and Phillips (MMP), to lobby the United States over the matter, or for allowing a commingling of his party’s and the Jamaican government’s efforts in the affair. Rather, he should admit to a gross error of judgement in the matter, which cost him his premiership and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) a general election.

Mr Golding might also remind himself that even the generally sympathetic report of the Manatt Commission of Enquiry (Emile George, Donald Scharschmidt, Anthony Irons), which held that Mr Coke’s constitutional rights were violated when Jamaica shared wiretap information with the Americans, also concluded the decision – with Mr Golding’s imprimatur – of the then justice minister, Dorothy Lightbourne, not to authorise Mr Coke’s extradition ought to have been handled by the courts.

“We think … that she should have left this matter to a magistrate,” the commissioners said. Which speaks to one of the unfinished bits of business in the sad episode – the suggestion of the commission that Jamaica gets a definitive declaration from the courts on the appropriate legal role of the requisite minister in extradition matters.

Ms Lightbourne started such a proceeding in 2010. The then leader of the Opposition (Portia Simpson Miller), the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) and Mr Coke were the defendants. But the Manatt Commission noted: “The proceedings failed because it was withdrawn against the second defendant and the third defendant was not served.”

Hopefully, there will be an opportunity in the near future for the matter to be revisited. It should be actively pursued.

CONTEXT IS IMPORTANT

The context of the Coke affair is important, especially at this time when many Jamaicans are reflecting on what the country has made of its 60 years of Independence. For the matter highlights that intersection of crime, politics and the so-called garrison communities, which this newspaper, and others, so often bemoan for its stultifying effect on national development.

Christopher Coke was a notorious crime boss, with his base, and redoubt, in Tivoli Gardens, the west Kingston garrison, or zone of political exclusion, which is still considered the epicentre of the JLP’s organising muscle. It is widely known that the younger Coke, who is now serving time in an American federal prison, inherited the leadership of the infamous Shower Posse gang from his father, Lester Lloyd Coke, who was better known as Jim Brown. When Mr Golding became leader of the JLP in the mid-2000s he also inherited the West Kingston parliamentary seat from his predecessor, Edward Seaga.

By 2009, Mr Golding was into the second year as prime minister. That’s when the Americans asked Jamaica to extradite Christopher Coke. For nearly a year Mr Golding’s government resisted. It insisted that the wiretap information the Americans relied on in their indictment was improperly shared with US drug agents, in breach of Mr Coke’s constitutional rights to privacy. The basis of the information sharing were secret MOUs signed between the US law enforcement authorities and Peter Phillips, who served as national security minister for most of the first half of the 2000s.

Jamaica’s position on Mr Coke’s extradition strained relations between Kingston and Washington. Manatt was hired, ostensibly by the JLP (the company insisted that it represented the government) to persuade the Obama administration to alter its position in the extradition question. Domestically, Mr Golding’s administration was imploding. When it eventually bowed to pressure in May 2010 and approved the extradition order, Mr Coke’s west Kingston supporters marched in his defence while his private militia attacked police stations and other government facilities.

An operation by security forces to arrest him led to days of gun battles in Tivoli Gardens, in which at least 70 people, including a policeman and a soldier, were killed. Coke had long gone from the community. A separate 2015 commission of enquiry blamed many of the deaths on the police, who were accused of several incidents of arbitrary killings.

HIRING LOBBYISTS

In his interview with this newspaper last week, Mr Golding insisted that his regret in the Coke extradition saga was for hiring lobbyists. “We should not have engaged Manatt because that was seeking to go around the extradition procedure itself and to try and get some better understanding on the part of the Americans … So, that was an error.”

But on the question of the evidence the Americans used in the extradition request, Mr Golding was adamant that he was protecting the constitutional rights of a Jamaican citizen, regardless of class or accusations against him. “I will go to my grave with the position,” Mr Golding said.

The statement, as a principle, is unimpeachable. But there were questions then, which remain relevant today, of why the government inserted itself robustly in a phase of the authorisation process that might easily have been handled by a judge. Indeed, the execution of extradition requests includes a committal process, during which the quality of the information upon which the request is based is open to tests. Mr Coke could have raised the questions of constitutional infringements, and therefore value of the extradition request, before a judge, rather than having the issue pronounced on by politicians.

Perversely in a way, the security operation to rout Mr Coke’s forces did indeed contribute to three years of decline in murders, by a third. That was a short-lived positive. But the whole episode further eroded trust in the country’s political leadership and the institutions of democracy. That is to be deeply regretted.