48 hours of FEAR!
Published:Friday | May 20, 2011 | 12:00 AM
- Memories of the lead-up to the west Kingston incursion
Arthur Hall, Senior Staff Reporter
'Media, watch what unnu a report about the boss or a unnu we a go turn the gun dem pon next," declared a scowling young man who was reportedly seen minutes before on Sunday, May 23, 2010 manning a roadblock with an AK-47 rifle in his hands.
The young man, with bleached face and dressed in jeans and T-shirt, was one of those erecting a massive barricade on Spanish Town Road metres from the Denham Town Police Station with guns proudly displayed.
"Yow, leave the media. When unnu see dem down a Tivoli unnu can intimidate dem but once dem deh yah so, we protect dem," responded a similarly dressed young man from Rema.
He had offered members of the media a place to stay on Spanish Town Road nearby the entrance of Rema from where we could watch the developments without being too close to those who were getting ready to ward off any attempt by the security forces to arrest Christopher 'Dudus' Coke.
seconds like an hour
The two glared at each other, neither with a gun exposed, but each seemingly aware of the ability of the other to defend themselves.
After a couple of seconds, which seemed more like an hour, the first young man backed off riding away on his bicycle with another warning that, "... media people ago getif dem write nothing wrong 'bout the 'President'."
This marked the start of the most frightening 48 hours for many Jamaicans and particularly journalists close to the scene.
The Sunday morning started innocently enough. The media had been placed on alert that the security forces were preparing to make an assault on Tivoli and persons stayed home keeping touch with sources to find out what was happening in west Kingston.
Then the reports came that persons from Tivoli had started fortifying the roadblocks which had been set up days earlier.
For hours, media personnel streamed into west Kingston watching men prepare for the suspected assault.
Trucks with oversized tyres, young men pushing wheelbarrows with sandbags, old fridges, stoves and washing machines were added to the barricade before boards were added to the top of the heap.
With this done, the men were finally satisfied and as we left the area. It was clear that the men were preparing for a war, the likes of which Jamaica had never seen.