Reclaiming Dudus truths from spin doctors

Garnett Roper, Guest Columnist

"Dudus isn't a JLP problem. He's a poster boy for what's wrong with Jamaican politics. He's the best advertisement of our need to strip constituency representatives of all executive power."

This is the comment made by attorney-at-law and columnist Gordon Robinson writing in The Sunday Gleaner of September 10. He then launched a tirade against Peter Bunting of the People's National Party (PNP), who dared to suggest that Jamaica should, and a PNP administration would, go after the Dudus co-conspirators.

Shooting the messenger is a fine art in Jamaica. The big guns have sought to earn their keep by protecting the status quo in Jamaica. Whatever it is, in their minds, the opportunity must not be taken to seek for a new day in Jamaica. One would have thought that after all the battering that Jamaica's good name has taken in the Dudus affair, his guilty plea would have united all of us for the dawning of a radically new day.

This is certainly the response that Peter Bunting, PNP general secretary and opposition spokesman on national security, has made. He has pledged a future political administration to go after Dudus co-conspirators and seek to atone by police, prosecutorial and judicial action for the spilt blood of many Jamaicans for whose murder no one has been held accountable.

Alas, this was not to be. As with the Manatt commission of enquiry, where the most highly paid members of the legal profession sought to do everything in their power to thwart the pursuit of the truth, so in response to the Bunting declaration and pledge, the big guns of the legal profession have set about to vilify him.

I suppose pledging to go after co-conspirators, seek the rule of law, and let the chips fall where they may is, ipso facto, a partisan political ambition in the minds of these bright and highly paid lawyers. And to their minds such a thing is too good to hope for.

Bunting's candour

Their attack upon Peter Bunting is richly undeserved. Bunting is a banker of repute. His stewardship as a member of parliament, both at the constituency level and in the House, has been admirable and worthy of emulation. When I interviewed him on radio on his pledge to see to the rule of law and bring to justice co-conspirators in the campaign of murder that has painted Jamaica in blood, he gave his own personal testimony.

He spoke about the dreaded Friday night just before the 2007 election when four of his constituents, including three women in Central Manchester, were brutally murdered by gunmen from western Kingston. It is their blood that he believes should be atoned for, along with the blood of countless numbers of other Jamaicans.

From the spectacles through which learned and expensive attorneys view such a declaration, they see it as necessarily partisan. It is the PNP campaigning on Dudus. These learned attorneys advance this argument without citing either case law or evidence to support their argument; they are running on reputation alone.

Let us take one of the central arguments advanced by learned counsel in his tirade against Bunting. Learned counsel asserted as follows:

"During the 1990s, companies controlled by Dudus benefited directly or indirectly from the award of very lucrative government contracts. Dudus thrived and grew into the fiend we now know and most Jamaicans fear while the PNP was in government with the responsibility to protect us from monsters like him."

A search of the contractor general's website found not a single contract awarded to any company associated with Christopher 'Dudus' Coke during the 1990s. It is incumbent on counsel to provide the evidence to the contrary. In fact, the first award of any contract came from the KSAC under the stewardship of that erstwhile citizen of Western Kingston, His Worship the Mayor, Councillor Desmond McKenzie. It is true that companies associated with Dudus prospered with lucrative government contracts, but the records indicate that those began largely after 2008, during the JLP administration.

The other fallacy proffered as fact in the tirade is that Dudus was a cross-party political figure and merely a resident, even a don, in Tivoli Gardens. Again, this is counter-intuitive. There is a distinction to be made between asserting political activism, affiliation and support of the JLP on the part of Dudus and his criminal organisation on the one hand, and asserting, on the other hand, that the Shower Posse achieved international status and had tentacles reaching into all areas of Jamaica, including non-JLP areas.

JLP's obvious connection with Dudus

Indeed, this is the fact that was demonstrated by the direct assault on the Jamaican state on May 23, 2010. The network of the criminal militia, including persons from many areas in Jamaica, were united in their attack on the symbols of the Jamaican State. There can be no doubt that the direct involvement of Prime Minister Bruce Golding, JLP financiers, and the entire apparatus of the Jamaican State being used to frustrate the extradition of Dudus puts the issue of the political connection of Dudus beyond doubt. He was, and remains, a key JLP operative, and the JLP feared that extraditing him stood to disembowel their political apparatus in Jamaica. There is no denying that fact, no matter how expensive the pens that assert otherwise.

At the heart of the shooting of the messenger by those who have made it a fine art in Jamaica is the belief that everyone is compromised. There is no one remaining in the political class or anywhere with the credit and credibility to lead that fight. This is palpably not the case. When the Manatt commission of enquiry was in session, it was clear that from a point of view of the weight of numbers, many of the leading legal lights in Jamaica, many QCs, were on the side of frustrating the pursuit for the truth. Yet there were two other QCs, K.D. Knight and Patrick Atkinson. Both remained relentless and undaunted by the opposition to the cause of the truth, and when it was over, they had prevailed in the minds of most well-thinking Jamaicans, the truth was no longer hidden from them.

There are many of our politicians who are compromised and lack credibility to speak up in the aftermath of Dudus' guilty plea. But there are many who are not. Certainly, Peter Phillips was sufficiently enabled by the PNP to sign the MOUs and, therefore, that says something about the courage of his commitment. It also says something about the commitment to the rule of the law of that much-maligned movement called the PNP. It set the apparatus in place and it is to the PNP's eternal credit.

Now Peter Bunting has emerged to fight the battle for the rule of law and the honour of Jamaica's good name. He has done nothing in his career which ought to inhibit him in this matter. He has spoken correctly and well. He has shown courage and independence of thought. If he gets his declaration right, and if he pursues it in political office, Jamaica will be the better for it.

I say to Peter, do not be dissuaded by those that are against the cause of right. They that are with you are more than they that are against you. If you get the opportunity, pursue the co-conspirators who participated in and benefited from the criminal enterprise called the Shower Posse, that infamous murder machine. There are allegations of at least 12 murders perpetrated by Dudus in the pursuit of his crimes, which require Jamaican law to take its course. Take note of those who oppose you at the beginning. They will oppose you and support those who oppose you in the end. But do not lose courage and do not lose sight of your objectives.

Garnett Roper is a minister of religion. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and garnettroper@hotmail.com.