Day five of a manhunt for Jamaica’s public enemy #1, Christopher Coke, aka “Short Man,” aka “President,” aka “Dudas.”
Short man I get, he’s just over five feet tall. President I get, he heads an international drug consortium that supplies cocaine and marijuana to the U.S. but “Dudas” is what everybody calls him here. Supporters even hung a sign on a street dog that said they would fight to the death for “Dudas.”
Some details about Dudas have been coming out in the local media – father of four, vegetarian, never gives interviews.
“He is an ed-u-cat-ed man,” one Kingston resident told me, “and when you have education, and money, you can manipulate the system.”
Most of Kingston is back up and running – cars on the street, stores open. One section in the West – Tivoli Gardens – is still trouble, with a heavy presence of soldiers and police. Some civilians have have been trapped between the two sides there. Emergency packs of food and water have been sent in.
There are rumors Dudas has left the city or left the country, and rumors that he will accept extradition to the US to avoid being taken to Jamaican prison. Maybe he hopes to avoid the fate of his father, another one-time leader of the Shower Posse gang who died under unexplained circumstances in a Jamaican jail.
The quote that got my attention was from an unnamed U.S. State Department officer who spoke of fears of Jamaica “turning into a Narco-state.”
The two main political parties here have been relying on gang leaders to help get out votes since the 1970s. Elections in the 1980s turned into violent battles between rival gangs. What has changed today is the amount of money, power and influence the gangs have now due to drug sales. The current Prime Minister fought against Dudas’ extradition to the U.S. for 9 months. Now in trying and failing to catch one man his forces have killed fifty, a “mess,” one Jamaican told me, which may cost the Prime Minister his job.