-Soldiers recall intense firefight against Tivoli gunmen
(Jamaica Observer) The intensity of the gunfire that greeted Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) soldiers when they launched their May 24 operation in Tivoli Gardens left many Jamaicans wide-eyed and O-mouthed.
The fierce resistance put up by a militia organised by Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke to prevent him being arrested to face an extradition hearing was proof of talk on the streets weeks before that gunmen in the community had armed themselves sufficiently in preparation for a long fight.
But that mattered little to the JDF soldiers who basically crushed the militia in just under 24 hours and spent the next two days neutralising small pockets of resistance.
“You have to remember that we are the last line of defence, so we couldn’t fail. Failure was not an option,” one JDF corporal who led a squad of about 30 soldiers during the operation told the Sunday Observer in an interview.
The young soldier and his colleague corporal, who were both granted permission by their superiors to speak to the Sunday Observer on condition that their identities be protected, said while he had been in firefights before, the fierceness of the Tivoli gunbattle was more than he had experienced in the past.
“The intensity of this one was higher than the rest,” said the corporal whose squad was given the task of securing the Foxy’s building on Spanish Town Road, across from Tivoli Gardens.
Their route was through the Coronation Market — entering via the gate in front the Darling Street Police Station.
“The operation started shortly after 11:00 am,” he recalled. “As soon as we entered the market, that’s when we first came under fire. We were to get to Foxy’s building from there. To walk that distance would be about five minutes. It took us over three hours.
“The fire was very intense,” he continued. “We were coming under fire from high-rise buildings on Spanish Town Road, from Tivoli, from the market and Matthews Lanes sides.
“We were actually the first team to move in from that direction. We had to stay very low because of the amount of shots being fired at us,” he said.
According to the corporal, Molotov cocktails were thrown by gunmen loyal to Coke from the Metropolitan Parks and Markets building. “That’s what set the [Coronation] market on fire. That also slowed us down a bit,” he said.
His colleague nodded in acknowledgement of the revelation, then said that that development forced them to make changes to their strategy.
“We had to change some of our tactics. We had to be careful because shots were coming from everywhere and we weren’t seeing everybody every time,” said the soldier, his AR-15 rifle resting in his lap.
“Some of the times we just heard the bullets hitting the boards in the market and the building; we are talking just inches from us,” he said.
“So we were crawling, rolling, squatting, all kinds of things, just to try to keep ourselves safe… even though the fire was burning in the market, gunshots were being fired through the fire,” he said.
Both men attributed their survival to the continuous training they undergo, but added that they were driven by their mission.
They said that when they eventually got to Spanish Town Road, they saw a truck turned across the road, apparently placed there by gunmen as a barricade.
The blockade, they said, worked in their favour as they used it for cover to enter the Foxy’s building.
“Just as we got to the second set of stairs we came under a lot of fire from the Tivoli side,” said one of the corporals. “We saw fire coming from windows of the buildings in Tivoli.”
Asked if they returned the fire, they said: “We had to identify targets before firing, based on our training. We couldn’t just fire wildly.”
They said that after securing the Foxy’s building, some members of the unit moved on to another location, while those who remained in the building took turns at short naps throughout the night.
“Sometimes you would nod off, only to be awakened by a volley of gunshots. So, you wanted to sleep, but at the same time you had to have a hands on,” said one of the soldiers. “The difference between us and the gunmen is that we’re trained, they’re not, so we’re used to that.”
Asked what went through their minds during the battle, one of the soldiers replied: “As I said, this was not the first firefight for me, and you just need to think how to get yourself out alive and achieve your objective, because we had to do it; because if we couldn’t get there and get this done, might as well we pack up and leave. If we’re the JDF and we can’t control one little area in West Kingston, we might as well just leave. I wasn’t thinking about family, I was thinking about how to get the men under my command to the objective.”
Added his colleague: “The biggest thing on my mind was to bring my troops out. I told them that we want to go out as a group and come back as a group.”
He said that before leaving Up Park Camp for the operation he got phone calls from every member of his family, including his 10-year-old son who said ‘When it’s over, call me and I’ll call everybody and let them know you’re safe’.
The soldiers also commented on the mixed responses from the public to the operation which resulted in 73 civilians and a soldier being killed, and other people, including soldiers, shot and injured.
“Most times people say the security forces are brutal, but they realise what is going on now with the discovery of shallow graves with people killed execution style, so people are waking up now,” they said.
Their reference was to the discovery by soldiers of bodies in shallow graves in Tivoli Gardens since the operation. Late last week, the police brought in a US search team with a sniffer dog to search a section of the community where the cops believe more bodies are buried.
The soldiers ended the interview with a word of advice to gunmen: “You might as well turn in your guns, because it doesn’t make sense. Give up. Even if you don’t want to give up, throw down the weapons and we’ll come and pick them up.”
