Its not everyday I feel triumphant after doing something as simple as writing an article, but yesterday morning when I saw the front page of the Gleaner I just found myself smiling and laughing as the first thing that was written was what I had posted about the day before. The US government has finally come out and said well, extradite who we requested or expect a diplomatic war and as we all know, being at diplomatic war with America isn't exactly the best position for Jamaica to be in at the moment, especially since we have made ourselves so dependent on them.

Looking back on the article there are alot of interesting points which were made which I believe are showing a number of things which people either didn't know about or people can assume from the article. Firstly ignoring the facts that for some strange reason the Information Minister, and the Minister of National Security could not be reached at the time for a comment (thats pretty shady), and also ignoring the fact that for some strange reason this request has had to be handled not by the information ministry or by a Member of Parliament, but instead it seems like the Prime Minister has made himself Chief Counsel for the party whom was requested to be extradited, this entire fiasco is riddled with questions.

**Jamaica Gleaner

First of all the statement by the US stated:

According to Washington, in the past, extradition requests from its law-enforcement agencies were routinely and timely processed by Jamaican political and judicial authorities. But that contradicts Golding, who told Parliament late last year that the extradition request was being held up because the Jamaican Government had unanswered questions.

I read this and started to wonder if this was the US government kind of hitting out againts the JLP government, I ask because it clearly says "in the past, extradition requests...." so it seems like this is is saying that the JLP has been continually unhelpful in assisting law enforcement which I could possibly agree with especially since the Chief of Police left last year under some pretty uncertain circumstances. The US went on further to state that:

The GOJ's unusual handling of the August request forthe extradition of a high-profile Jamaican crime lord with reported ties to the ruling JLP which currently holds a majority in Parliament, on alleged drug and firearms trafficking charges marked a dramatic change in GOJ's previous cooperation on extradition, including a temporary suspension in the processing of all other pending requests and raises serious questions about the GOJ's commitment to combating transnational crime. "The high-profile suspect resides in and essentially controls the Kingston neighbourhood known as Tivoli Gardens, a key constituency for the JLP"

Ok I guess I can stop saying it "seems" like, they have pretty much stated that the JLP is being unhelpful in the legal matter which would help to extradite the suspect. Now I will just come out and say it, things are looking strange but it seems the government does not want to help, and it is well within their right, however the reasons behind their denial are to me quite weak. First of all in 2009 it was stated that the Jamaican Government said there were some peculiarities within the request which they wanted clarification on, however to me when you use words like peculiar this to me says its a minor issue, and therefore this cannot be reason enough to hold back something of this nature, but anything is possible. However now the reason has changed from those minor peculiarities to the fact that the investigation done by the US was done incorrectly. I try to be objective at all times and I cant point to any case being stronger than the other, however I can say that this case has forced the US to start flexing its muscle, so I wouldn't doubt if there was something fishy going on, on either side.

Its interesting to add that while the US has promised more diplomatic stiff-arming of the Jamaican government, the Jamaican government as come out and stated that the current set of visa revocation exercises that are taking place are completely unrelated to the extradition issue. Now come on, how much more diplomatic strength can the US show than by simply banning Jamaicans from coming to the US? Of course this is related, they just wont say it outwardly. This story shall heat up in the coming weeks however so expect more to come