Tivoli Gardens blueprint for attack on gangs

Arthur Hall, Senior Staff Reporter

National Security Minister Dwight Nelson has vowed that the Government will use the recent incursion into Tivoli Gardens by the security forces as the template to break the back of Jamaica's gangs.

"Tivoli is not all about finding Coke (alleged drug kingpin Christopher 'Dudus' Coke). Tivoli is about the start of this gang-dismantling process, so we are going into all the communities where criminality and criminal empires exist," Nelson told a Gleaner Editors' Forum yesterday.

Hundreds of police and soldiers entered Tivoli Gardens and neigh-bouring communities last Monday in a coordinated bid to capture Coke and to destroy the criminal gang he reportedly operated from the confines of the heavily fortified community.

Coke and some of his key supporters escaped but the security forces have since taken charge of the community and seized 47 firearms - 26 handguns and 21 rifles - and nearly 10,700 rounds of ammunition.

Seventy-three civilians and one member of the Jamaica Defence Force were killed in three-day urban warfare. Two cops were killed in a related ambush hours before the Tivoli incursion began.

Since then, the Government has announced that other criminal networks are to be targeted and the police have requested that almost 50 suspected gang leaders turn themselves in.

More than half of that group have complied and Nelson said other gangs were now in the cross hairs of the armed forces.

Nelson declared that the security forces will be initially targeting the parishes of Clarendon, St James, Kingston and St Andrew, which account for the majority of the country's gangs.

According to Nelson, political affiliation - whether to his ruling Jamaica Labour Party or the Opposition People's National Party - would have no bearing.

"Whether the stumbling block is painted green, orange or blue, we are going to move forward with the dismantling process," said a tough-talking Nelson.

Gangs very organised

He said police intelligence indicated that more than 200 gangs with 4,000 members were operating across the island.

"These gangs are not the little groups of guys standing on the street corner ... . We are talking about gangs that are organised, that have command structures, with international connections that engage in gun- and drug-running from which they acquire their wealth."

Nelson argued that these gangs hold communities and law-abiding residents to ransom because they distribute largesse, thus buying loyalty and establishing quasi-legitimacy.

"Our task now is to dismantle and destroy these gangs. Our task is to separate them from their communities. Our task is to separate them from their wealth," said Nelson.

He said the Government would be taking two approaches - hard-core policing and ensuring that there is legislative support for the security forces.

The Cabinet has already approved anti-gang legislation which is now being drafted and should be ready for parliamentary debate shortly.

arthur.hall@gleanerjm.com