Jamaica / Gendercide

Jamaican Army Accused of Murdering Innocents in Battle to Arrest Drug Lord
By James Bone
The Times, May 27, 2010
"Residents of a besieged Jamaican slum have accused the army of shooting indiscriminately and burning victims' bodies in a rampage through their neighbourhood hunting for an alleged drug baron. Officials said that most of those killed in the search for Christopher 'Dudus' Coke, who is wanted by the United States, were young men near barricades or entrances to buildings who were fighting to prevent police from executing an arrest warrant issued last week. ... Annette Marshall ... who sells jewellery at a local market, said that soldiers shot dead her neighbour when he opened his back door to see what was happening. When his elderly mother went out to help him, she was also shot and wounded, she said. ... Ms. Marshall made claims -- echoed by other Tivoli Gardens residents in calls to local radio stations -- that soldiers were hauling young men out of homes and shooting them. She also said that she had seen security forces burning bodies near the abandoned Public Works Department building near her home. 'They shoot them in the head, throw them on the fire and light the fire.
The fire is made of tyres. That is what they used. They were burning the people,' she said. 'I had to come in, so I could not count how many.' ... In a television interview yesterday, [Karl] Witter [Jamaica's independent public defender] said he found that there had been mass round-ups of young men. 'In the buildings we saw women, children and aged. All young men had either departed the community or been detained,' he said. 'We saw 300 of them at a command post. We had information that another 100 had already been detained.' [...]"