Dear Editor,

During the past two weeks it has been clear that the government of Jamaica has become overwhelmed by the Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke affair and has allowed careful attention to the important aspects of publicity and promotion to lapse.

With the exception of the news reports on the BBC and Al Jazeera, most other reports on the crisis in Kingston failed to distinguish between that city and the rest of the island. The general impression given was that the entire island was engulfed in violence and should therefore be avoided. This impression was reinforced by the US, Canadian and British travel advisories issued for the island as well as the large-scale cancellation of events such as the Gordon Lewis Conference at the UWI and the Diaspora Conference coordinated by the Governor General’s office.

No compelling reason was given for the large number of cancellations, and the Jamaican government did not refute the misleading foreign reports. It seems fair to suggest that less damage would have been caused by simply relocating events to the north coast, away from the violence. On the other hand, if that was not possible then maybe the situation is far more serious than even the worse reports from Jamaica indicate.

Frederick Brown

USA