Quarterly Jamaica Windrush & Diaspora Update | Published: 3 July 2010 | Period covered: January–June 2010
Key Developments at a Glance
- Haiti earthquake on 12 January 2010 kills up to 220,000; Caribbean diaspora mobilises across Britain.
- Tivoli Gardens security operation, 24–28 May: more than 70 civilians reported killed in Kingston standoff.
- Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke surrenders and is extradited to US on 22 June 2010.
- UK general election on 6 May 2010 produces hung parliament; Cameron-Clegg coalition formed 11 May.
- Theresa May becomes Home Secretary, pledging to cut net immigration to tens of thousands.
- Golding government faces fierce domestic and international criticism over its handling of both crises.
The first six months of 2010 have delivered a sequence of events so compressed and so consequential that the Caribbean community in Britain — and Jamaica itself — has scarcely had time to absorb one shock before the next arrives. A catastrophic earthquake has reduced much of Haiti to rubble. A security operation in West Kingston has left dozens dead and an entire community traumatised. A British general election has ended thirteen years of Labour government and installed a Conservative-led coalition whose stated priorities include reducing immigration and cutting public services. The implications of each development, taken alone, would command months of analysis. Together, they define a turning point in the relationship between Jamaica, its diaspora, and the United Kingdom.
The Haiti Earthquake: A Caribbean Family in Mourning
When the 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck 25 kilometres south-west of Port-au-Prince at 16:53 local time on 12 January 2010, it triggered the worst humanitarian disaster in the Western Hemisphere in living memory. The United Nations estimated that between 160,000 and 220,000 people perished; 1.5 million were left homeless; and the physical infrastructure of the Haitian state was devastated. The National Palace, the parliament building, the cathedral, and thousands of schools, hospitals, and homes were destroyed or rendered uninhabitable. A country already carrying the accumulated wounds of colonialism, debt, and repeated external interference was brought to its knees.
The Caribbean diaspora in Britain responded with an outpouring of solidarity that cut across community and national lines. Haitian community organisations in London, which serve a relatively small but long-established community, were overwhelmed by offers of assistance. Jamaican churches and cultural organisations organised collections. Caribbean community radio stations across the country coordinated fundraising drives. The Jamaica High Commission worked with CARICOM to channel British Caribbean community donations through coordinated relief structures. The UK government announced a substantial humanitarian aid package and deployed military assets, including HMS Ocean, to assist in relief operations.
CARICOM heads of government convened an emergency session to coordinate the regional response and to press the international community for long-term reconstruction commitments rather than short-term charity. Jamaica’s Prime Minister Bruce Golding attended and pledged support. The CARICOM position — that Haiti’s poverty was itself a product of historical injustices including French colonial reparations demands and US interventionism, and that genuine reconstruction required political and economic sovereignty rather than dependency — was not widely reported in the mainstream British press, but resonated powerfully with Caribbean community leaders in the UK.
The Tivoli Incursion and the Extradition of Coke
The Jamaica Labour Party government under Bruce Golding had resisted the US extradition request for Christopher “Dudus” Coke since at least 2009, a resistance that embarrassed the government internationally and raised serious questions about the relationship between garrison politics and Jamaican governance. When Golding finally acceded to the US demand in May 2010, the Jamaican security forces moved to arrest Coke in his West Kingston stronghold of Tivoli Gardens. The operation, which began on 24 May, met with armed resistance from Coke’s supporters, and what followed over the next several days shocked Jamaica and the wider Caribbean world.
The security forces, drawing on military and police resources and supported by armoured vehicles, swept through the Tivoli community. One soldier and one police officer were killed. The number of civilians who died in the operation is contested, but human rights organisations including Jamaicans for Justice and Amnesty International have documented accounts that point to more than seventy deaths, including killings of unarmed residents. Eyewitness accounts describe summary executions and a level of force that far exceeded what any legitimate law enforcement objective could justify. A state of emergency was declared in Kingston and St Andrew.
Christopher Coke himself evaded the security forces during the initial operation, remaining at large for several weeks before surrendering on 22 June 2010 after reportedly being apprehended at a roadblock while dressed as a woman. He was extradited to the United States the same day, arriving in New York to face federal charges of drug trafficking and firearms offences. His departure ended the immediate crisis but left behind it a trail of devastation — physical, political, and human — that will take years to account for fully. Prime Minister Golding, who had publicly defended Coke before finally complying with the extradition request, saw his authority severely damaged.
A New Government in Britain
The United Kingdom general election of 6 May 2010 ended three consecutive Labour governments and produced, for the first time since February 1974, a hung parliament in which no single party commanded a majority. After five days of negotiation, the Conservative Party leader David Cameron and the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg reached a coalition agreement and formed a government on 11 May. Cameron became Prime Minister; Clegg became Deputy Prime Minister; and a Cabinet was formed that included Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in a formal power-sharing arrangement.
For the Caribbean diaspora, the composition of the new government carries particular implications. Theresa May, appointed Home Secretary, arrives at the post with a public commitment to reducing net immigration to the “tens of thousands” from its current level of around 200,000 per year. This pledge will require significant restrictions on entry from Commonwealth countries, on family reunification rights, on student visas, and on the right to remain after study or work. Caribbean community organisations, which have spent the past decade navigating the successive immigration reforms of the Blair and Brown governments, are bracing for a further tightening of the rules. There are particular concerns about the impact on elderly Caribbean residents whose immigration documentation may be incomplete or informal.
The new government’s emergency budget, expected before the end of June, will set the tone for a parliament defined by austerity. Public sector employment, housing benefit, legal aid, and local authority funding are all expected to face significant reductions. The Caribbean community, with high rates of public sector employment and disproportionate reliance on public services in areas including health, social care, and housing, will feel the effects of these cuts acutely. Community organisations and advocacy groups across Britain are seeking to understand what the change of government means for the communities they serve.
Sources: Jamaica Information Service; The Gleaner; Jamaica Observer; BBC News; Reuters; AP; The Guardian; Jamaicans for Justice; Amnesty International; CARICOM Secretariat; Jamaica High Commission London; Home Office (UK); UK Parliament Hansard; United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA); Runnymede Trust.
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