The Best article on Jamaica to date -Gangsters, politicians, cocaine and bankers

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/65437
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It was at this time that the CIA found a ready pool of gun-men and political contractors who were already ensconced in Tivoli Gardens. Lester Coke, also known as Jim Brown, father of Dudus, was one of the major enforcers who benefitted from the CIA relationship with the party headed by Edward Seaga. The 1980 elections were one of the bloodiest in the history of Jamaica, with hundreds dead and thousands dispersed.

This counter revolutionary phase in the Caribbean reached new levels in the Caribbean as the CIA supported the Contras in Nicaragua, the militarists in El Salvador and the conservative military forces throughout the Caribbean. It was in this period that Walter Rodney was assassinated in Guyana and Archbishop Romero was assassinated in San Salvador. Manley was defeated in the elections of 1980.

TIVOLI GARDENS, THE SHOWER POSSE AND THE COCAINE BUSINESS

When Edward Seaga became the Prime Minister of Jamaica in 1980, the society was deployed at the service of the US counter revolution in the region. It was not by chance that the Prime Minister of Jamaica was at the forefront of those giving military, diplomatic and political cover for the US invasion of Grenada in 1983. In this period when the CIA was fighting against the Contras, the export of cocaine from Columbia was one means of providing the financial resources for the campaign of destabilisation. This has been established by the Senate Committees of the US that revealed that, while Ronald Reagan was carrying forth a war on drugs, the CIA was importing cocaine into the US using the US military and the air force. Gary Webb has also detailed for posterity the role of the CIA in the cocaine business in the book, ‘Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion’.

Jamaica became central to this dark alliance during the period when the JLP government was in power, 1980-1989. In order to establish a firm entrepreneurial basis for the distribution of cocaine in the Caribbean, the forces of Lester Coke organised the Shower Posse in Tivoli with a worldwide reach into Canada, the USA, Europe and other parts of the Caribbean. The gang got its name from the JLP election slogan 'Shower', which was a response to the PNP's 'Power' that was coined from Manley's 'Power for the people' slogan in the 1970s. One other source noted that the name shower had been taken from a speech by Edward Seaga where he promised that: ‘Blessings will shower from the sky and money going jingle in your pockets.’ Seaga knew that this money was not coming from the production of goods and services within Jamaica.

Fascinating Stuff

and it is long., but well worth the read. :hi:

Meanwhile we bury 1,600 people a year