Now greying at the temples, the bulge at his waist more prominent, the spectacles ever present, Paul Christopher Burke is no longer the picture of the young 1970s radical. His speech is more tempered.

He has forged common cause with a former political foe in the Western Kingston badlands. And he frequently engages notorious talk show host, “Mutty” Perkins in polite debate.

But Paul Burke still has a knack for grabbing the headlines. Seeming to slink off into the shadows after dumping the job of chairman of the powerful People’s National Party (PNP) Region Three, Burke stole a march on those waiting quietly in the wings for party president P J Patterson to leave, by a dramatic January 17 announcement that he wanted the job.

He made it clear he was after leadership of the party, not the country as prime minister, and the announcement immediately provided fodder for the current affairs shows and the next day’s headlines.

But displaying political shrewdness, Burke declared he would not discuss details of his announcement, which were contained in a letter to Patterson, until he had launched his campaign on February 29.

And to comfort Patterson, he assured the leader he had no intentions of challenging him while he remained at the helm of the party.

Burke emerged onto the political stage from the bowels of the PNP Youth Organisation (PNPYO) in the 1970s – a time of ideological and social ferment. In the years hence, he increasingly took on the image of a militant socialist, and political enemies typecast him as a party badman with close links to the shadowy figures of political henchmen in the forbidden hills of East Kingston’s Wareika. They also called Burke a communist.

“I have never been a communist, never been a Marxist/Leninist,” Burke said in a candid interview last week with the Sunday Observer. “But, of all the political philosophies I have read, Marxism had the most relevance to me in terms of analysing societies. I appreciate that Marxism/Leninism was the only root for persons in Russia and Eastern Europe at the time when they wanted to liberate themselves.”

Inside the PNP, there are some who quietly say Burke likes to fight losing causes. Others say he has never been afraid of making unpopular choices or tackling issues the party would rather not discuss in the open. Still, there are others who believe the party should listen to him more – should have been listening to him a long time ago.

Louis Castriota, his good friend of more than 30 years, and someone with whom Burke faced many battles while in the PNPYO, said: “Paul has to be admired for sticking to what he believes. I don’t always agree with him, but once he is convinced, he sticks to it.”

Castriota said he and Burke were kicked out of the PNPYO numerous times on a combination of suspensions and expulsions. Laughing heartily, he said: “Paul believed, and still does, that the party can change from within. I do not believe that. But he has stuck with it, and I believe that that’s the reason for his candidacy.”

Burke’s ambition to become president of the 66-year-old party is perhaps only a delayed reaction in his long and eventful involvement with the PNP, from his days as general-secretary and chairman of the PNPYO, before taking on the mantle of chairman of Region Three, which groups Corporate Area constituencies. During that time he espoused many unpopular causes.

He recalls one such event before he became good friends with late PNP leader and prime minister, Michael Manley.

Within months of the October 1980 general elections, in which the PNP was trounced by Edward Seaga’s Jamaica Labour Party, Manley announced his resignation. While the broad membership of the PNP refused to accept his resignation, the PNPYO did.

“We were attacked. A former government minister had to be restrained from attacking me with a chair,” Burke recalled, but declined to name the minister.

Burke spoke feelingly of Michael Manley, saying that the late leader resisted efforts to crush the YO, because he wanted youths to have a voice. He described Manley as “someone who never bore a grudge or took things personal”.

“Even though we had a number of serious run-ins while we were in the YO, he never wanted to crush the YO, unlike elements in the party,” Burke said.

He said he came to regard Manley as “the maximum leader”, and at one point had the opportunity to become his press secretary.

“I declined, and after he retired from office, we became very close,” he said.

His relationship with Manley allowed him also not to bear grudges or take things personal. He believed many of the attacks and accusations against him were done in the heat of the particular period of time.

Friends remember Burke’s stubbornness with a smile when, in 1983 and 84, he challenged current party president P J Patterson for the chairmanship of the party. Burke received 27 votes, and although Patterson received almost five times more, it did not deter him from challenging the following year. The score was almost the same.

But it would be for the turbulent PNPYO years that Burke is best remembered.

His political consciousness stirred while a student at Jamaica College and his involvement in the Sixth Form Association. It moved to a determination to getting and reading literature that were banned under the JLP government – like the Peking Times and Chairman Mao Tse Tung’s diaries – and listening to Walter Rodney and other University of the West Indies lecturers. He also read the local Public Opinion newspaper. The PNPYO was born out of the crucible of that movement, in 1972, the year when Manley led the party to a crushing defeat of Hugh Shearer’s JLP.

In the early years, the youth organisation was embroiled in many demonstrations and controversies.

Castriota recalled that the YO had organised a demonstration against an International Monetary Fund (IMF) representative who was staying at a Kingston hotel at the time.

Jamaica’s relationship with the body had caused a split between the PNP’s right and left wings and by extension the YO. For two days the demonstrators gathered at the hotel, which was to be the site of the week-long conference. Word came on the third day that the representative had left and a decision was made to demonstrate against the US.

Castriota said a policeman was attacked and shot one night after the crowd went home. He later died.

Burke said he recalled that someone threw a stone and smashed a window in the embassy, and then later attacked and shot a policeman. It was felt that the YO had organised the attack, even though it dissociated itself from it, in a statement.

“But I can tell you that I have never been able to get a visa from the US Embassy,” Castriota said.

“Neither have I,” Burke added.

The YO and the party continued its battles and Burke was purged from the party without trial in one instance.

He went to Radio Jamaica for a brief stint and then to JAMAL, while he tried to assess the PNP’s declaration of democratic socialism.

A House meeting in 1974 did nothing for his scepticism of the PNP’s socialism, and in particular the explanation of a former PNP general-secretary.

“I was not impressed,” he said, recalling also that a current JLP deputy leader, whom he did not name, was there, asking some very searching questions.

In the 1980s, Burke’s name was called regularly on the JLP’s parliamentary menu, but not once outside, by the same people who so frequently used it in the House, he said.

“I was a popular member on the JLP roll call during their parliamentary presentations,” he recounted. “My name was called 33 times in a presentation in the House by one minister.

“Other JLP ministers made it a common thing to call my name in Parliament, and accuse me of all sorts of nasty things. The plan was to accuse me in Parliament, so that when I am shot and killed it would not be a surprise,” he told the Sunday Observer.

Commenting on what he called the dangerous 1980s, Burke recalled how Manley tried in vain to persuade him to go overseas to study.

“I believe that like myself, Michael Manley was aware that there were elements within the Jamaica Labour Party and the police force that wanted to execute me,” he said with a smile.

Burke said he was public enemy number one in the country and indirectly on the police’s most wanted list during the mid 1980s.

Some of his contemporaries remember him celebrating when the notorious Nathaniel “Natty” Morgan was listed as the police’s most wanted. One close friend, who worked at the party’s headquarters, said: “Natty Morgan gave Paul a breather. At least they were looking for him, and not Paul.”

The notoriety he gained courtesy of the JLP was tough on many who worked with him at PNP headquarters and even harder on his family.

“Those were hard years. It was hard on our family,” his brother, Michael, said.

“Everywhere we (siblings) went, those who knew him, were pointing us out. My sister, Angela, and I could not get a job,” said Burke, who now writes a weekly column in the Observer and is now a formidable political historian.

Michael Burke recalled how Parliament was used to tell the nation that tapes allegedly found in Paul’s possession by the police, were said to have contained voices which the police said were those of two of its most wanted men – George “Benero” Flash and Anthony “Tego” Brown.

Burke said that the alleged find was among reasons the JLP gave for sending home Cuban Ambassador Ulysses Estrada.

But Burke’s travails were not over. He was one of about 16 persons, including East Kingston businessman, Danhai Williams, who were charged in a 1992 multi-million-dollar car importation racket.

After more than 30 appearances in court, he said, he refused to accept a non-criminal charge of conspiracy to defraud, and chose instead to attend court, before he was acquitted in 1998.

“Not a shred of evidence was presented by the prosecutor, who asked that the case be adjourned sine die, but I refused to have it adjourned that way, and the judge agreed with me,” he said.

Burke believes that the charges were welcomed by “right wing elements within the PNP” and the Revenue Protection Division (RPD), headed at the time by Colonel Trevor MacMillan.

Last week, Colonel MacMillan told the Sunday Observer that by the time the case came to trial he was out of the system, and could not provide any details on the case or its outcome.

While he was still an accused, delegates of the party elected Burke chairman of Region Three. But he was critical of the support he received from the party during his tenure, although saying he remained loyal to the PNP.

During that tenure, he forged a relationship with Councillor Desmond McKenzie (JLP – Tivoli Gardens Division) to embark on a partnership for peace in inner-city communities, uniting both east and west Kingston. McKenzie later became mayor of Kingston.

Burke said political tribalism had created an ideological divide that had previously prevented them from discussing common issues in the interest of the country.

Burke’s friends in the PNP said he was talking to the JLP long before the leadership embraced them.

Burke believes it is critical to talk: “From the early years before the YO, I felt that the upsurge in crime was because of the lack of infrastructure and the poor social conditions in the country, and, in particular, poor communities.”

Today, the reports and commentaries say the same thing.

Now, he walks some of those communities, and others which have sprung up over the years, to help forge a better understanding between individuals.

Burke remains a firebrand, minus much of the youthful arrogance of the 1970s.

Sitting at the helm of Ultra Protection, the security firm, he says he is still the political animal he always was.

“Politics is in my blood.”