As Prime Minister Bruce Golding will appreciate, any issue relating to crime and security and involving the constituency of West Kingston, and particularly the community of Tivoli Gardens, is bound to gather national attention and place the spotlight on Mr Golding himself.

For while the Opposition People's National Party (PNP) may 'control' many more zones of political exclusion, or so-called garrison communities, than Mr Golding's Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), there is a perception of something more organic and intrinsic in the relationship between West Kingston/Tivoli Gardens and the JLP. It is a sense that Tivoli, in the worst of circumstance, provides a safe place, psychologically and otherwise, into which the JLP can retreat.

It emerged that way, in part, because of the community's sense of siege and the efforts of the Tivoli Garden's acknowledged creator and Mr Golding's predecessor as leader of the JLP, Mr Edward Seaga. When Mr Golding decided to represent West Kingston, it was deemed by many as a deeply symbolic act, beyond any wish for a 'safe' parliamentary seat.

Special bond

Despite the special bond between the majority of the people of West Kingston/Tivoli Gardens and the ruling party, power in the area is diffused - in the sense that it no longer rests only, or even primarily, with politicians. In the complexity of garrison relationships, people of private means, however accumulated, also exercise influence, even if they maintain more than tangential allegiance to the political party that prevails in the community. Their attitude to events can impact national security.

In West Kingston/Tivoli Gardens, Christopher 'Dudus' Coke is considered to be one such figure of influence and, some say, inordinate power. The United States government claims that Mr Coke is a criminal who has exported narcotics to their country and imported guns into Jamaica - grave charges for which they would like to extradite him. Jamaica extradited 19 alleged criminals to the USA in 2008, mostly with dispatch, without fanfare and with quiet efficiency.

In the case of Mr Coke, on whose guilt or innocence we do not pronounce, it is several weeks since America's extradition request. The Government has not decided whether to send him. In many quarters, the administration's deliberation is interpreted as dithering.

Extradition treaty

On Sunday last, Mr Golding, for the first time, spoke publicly to the issue, telling us that his Government is committed to fulfilling its obligations under the extradition treaty, and that Dorothy Lightbourne, his justice minister and attorney general, is following the procedures set out in the extradition treaty.

"The minister's obligation first and foremost is to protect the rights of Jamaican citizens," the PM said, with which we agree.

Mr Golding suggested that Jamaica is working through, with the United States, "legal principles that need to be addressed". The implication here is that this extradition request is legally more complex than the others that were routinely executed by the Jamaican and US governments, demanding of diplomatic negotiations between the two countries.

There are many people who will argue that it can't be all that difficult to determine whether the Americans made out a prima facie case against Mr Coke who, in any event, could challenge his extradition in the Jamaican courts.

But, alas, Mr Coke is the subject of high and extraordinary diplomacy.

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