The raid was highly unusual.

For one thing, a US surveillance plane monitored the operation from the air.

The target was Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, a drug lord wanted for extradition to the US.

He did eventually wind up on trial in New York, where he now faces sentencing for assault and racketeering.

But that raid left more than 70 people dead, and only six guns were recovered, leaving a lot of questions unanswered.

An investigation by the New Yorker magazine suggests there were multiple extra-judicial killings. And the DEA filmed it all.

Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Mattathias Schwartz, who wrote about the case in the December 12 issue of the New Yorker magazine.

Read the Transcript
The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a coproduction of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston. A police raid in the gang-controlled Tivoli Gardens neighborhood of Kingston, Jamaica would normally not make international news, but the raid there in May of last year was highly unusual. For one thing, a US surveillance plane monitored the operation from the air. The target was Christopher “Dudus” Coke, a drug lord wanted for extradition to the US. He did eventually wind up on trial in New York where he now faces sentencing for assault and racketeering, but that raid in 2010 left more than 70 people dead and a lot of questions in its wake. Mattathias Schwartz wrote about the case in the December 12 issue of the New Yorker. The shocking charges of extrajudicial killings are what you focus on in this story. What did you find, did the Jamaican security forces go into Tivoli Gardens and start killing indiscriminately?

Mattathias Schwartz: That is what a lot of people who I found very credible in Tivoli Gardens told me. I was not there, but I did my best to corroborate everything that I heard. And what I came away with were many extremely credible accounts of extrajudicial killings carried out by the Jamaican security forces.

Werman: In your story you focus on one man, this guy Radcliffe Freeman, who grew up with Coke when they were kids. Freeman was killed in the Tivoli Gardens raid, but I’m wondering if you can tell us his story and why you think it’s symbolic of a seeming shoot now ask questions later strategy when the police entered Tivoli Gardens last year.

Schwartz: Yeah, I probably came across you know, at least eight or nine stories like Radcliffe Freeman’s. And I chose his because he had passed a background check to work at the US embassy. So I felt like he had good credentials.

Werman: And he was taken away, seemingly in good shape by the police, and then he ends up dead.

Schwartz: Yeah, I spoke to multiple witnesses who were there who told me that they last saw him in police custody unarmed, sitting on the ground near his home. I spoke to someone who’s familiar with his autopsy, and he was shot more than 10 times. Now one thing I wanna make sure we get to is that the US was involved in this operation, and that’s something that the Jamaican government denied on more than one…

Werman: Well, that’s what I was gonna ask you next because the one other major thing you focus on in the story is this US Homeland Security Department aircraft that was circling above Tivoli Gardens while the Jamaican security forces went in. What was it doing there?

Schwartz: The aircraft was shooting live video of the ground and passing information through officials affiliated with the US embassy, who then passed the information on to Jamaican officials who were partially responsible for the raid. So you know, looking at everything we know, you don’t know for certain whether the US government knew what was gonna happen. It was a very chaotic situation. There had been gunmen in Tivoli Gardens. There were barricades around Tivoli Gardens. But looking at everything we know I mean it’s easy to see how the US government might have been complicit in the death of more than 70 Jamaican citizens, including one US citizen. Now, one very interesting fact about this live video that the plane was shooting of the ground is a copy of this video currently resides, you know, the US government has it, the DEA has a copy and I believe the Department of Homeland Security also has a copy. So, this is live video of the ground in Kingston where this massacre is said by so many people to have taken place. The US government is refusing to release the video even though it could confirm or possibly refute these very disturbing allegations.

Werman: What has the US government said about this plane and the information that it was passing to perhaps the Jamaican authorities?

Schwartz: Well, you know, I have this document that with the New Yorker’s help I was able to secure through the Freedom of Information Act, and it confirms the existence of this plane. It confirms that it was flying above Tivoli Gardens at this place and time. It says you know, it was recording video. It includes the words “all scenes were continuously recorded.” And then you know, I talked to official sources at the DEA and the US State Department and other agencies and they confirmed to me the information was passed from the plane to the Jamaican security officials who you know, had a role in conducting the raids. So again, it’s hard to know at this point exactly who knew what when, but it does appear to me that the US government was providing help and assistance and information to an operation that by all accounts was a massacre.

Werman: Mattathias Schwartz wrote the article A Massacre in Jamaica in the December 12 issues of the New Yorker. Mattathias, thanks very much for speaking with us.

Schwartz: Thank you for having me.

Werman: We contacted a number of US government agencies for comment. The Drug Enforcement Administration replied with a statement; it says that “at no time did any DEA representative make operational decisions as this was a Jamaican government operation.”

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Read the Transcript
The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is the world. There’s seemingly no end to the juicy diplomatic tidbits we’re getting to nibble on, courtesy of wiki leaks. Here’s one of the latest. It comes from a U.S. diplomat in Havana. He wrote about a growing rift between Cuba and Jamaica over anti- drug trafficking effort. Apparently Cuban officials complained to the United States, that Jamaicans are doing nothing to stop smugglers who use Cuban airspace and waters to transport drugs destined for the U.S. As information feeds the suspicion that the traffickers have bought the cooperation of Jamaican politicians and law enforcer’s. Karen Madden James is the BBC correspondent in Jamaica she’s now in Kingston. What has been the reaction there in Kingston to these leaked cables?

Karen Madden James: Well, the initial reaction from the government has been a very defensive stance. They have said they will issue a full sum, official response, later today. However the initial response has been one that, look, we have always cooperated with the U.S. government’s fight against drugs. We have no official that any government officer or agency is involved in drug smuggling. So right now, we are, we the media that is, in wait and see mode, to get that response from the government.

Mullins: Does this indeed though, feed into the allegations in the past there is some kind of involvement among Jamaican politicians and law enforcers in this kind of drug smuggling activity.

James: It’s certainly does [??], uh this coming on the heels of the whole, Christopher did us cold ex-tradition of fear, and accusation from elsewhere that the government has not done enough, and in fact, government sources, government officers are involved in the illegal trade. This is not good news for them.

Mullins: Well you mentioned there, Karen, uh, Christopher’s Dudas coke, this is a man, a drug lord who we’ve reported on the past, who was arrested in June after a violent man hunt. The delay in getting him was due to, it’s been said at least said at least political connections and i wonder if there’s any information in the leaked cables from Wiki leaks about the case of this particular man Christopher Dudas Coke.

James: Not as yet but can’t I tell you, Lisa, that ever since this whole Wiki Leaks thing came to Jamaica knowledge. Most people have been saying there must be a cable concerning this particular issue. But so far, nothing has been leaked, nothing has come to our attention.

Mullins: Thank you, very much, Karen Madden James, BBC correspondent in Kingston Jamaica, thanks.

James: OK Lisa.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

• Jolly Boys homepage
• Picture gallery
• Global Hit on Facebook

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

LISA MULLINS: It’s been a tough year for music fans in Jamaica. Urban violence and a two-month state of emergency put a damper on Kingston’s legendary dancehalls this past summer. And some of the country’s biggest stars are sidelined with legal woes. All the turmoil has Jamaicans seeking something new. Or something kind of old. Madeleine Bair reports from Kingston.

MADELEINE BAIR:  A crowd fills the chic Redbones Blues Café on a Saturday evening. Diners pick at rum cake and order tropical libations at the marbled bar. Young women in heels squeeze into seats in front of the stage. The place teems with urban sophistication. Until the band begins to play. There’s a banjo, a pair of shakers, and an old man in suspenders plucking bass notes from a wooden box. The Jolly Boys aren’t the typical fare at Kingston clubs. And neither is their vintage brand of Jamaican folk music known as mento. Mento was all the rage in Jamaica some six decades ago. But the Jolly Boys think its due for a revival. Leading the effort is the 72-year-old singer who prances around the bandstand like a teenager.

ALBERT MINOTT:  My name is Albert. Albert Minott.

BAIR: Minott is old enough to remember when mento was the music to listen to in Jamaica. As a child he watched adults dance late into the night to mento bands, like Lord Flea.

MINOTT: Way back in the ‘50s, ‘60s, mento was for everybody. You would have the mento dance and it would be at the market house, or the courthouse, or at the Jamaican pier.

BAIR: But mento began to fall out of favor in the 1960s when record players and radios began to proliferate here.

MINOTT: All of a sudden from the radio coming in, they covered up mento and they put the ska and all those on top.

BAIR: Then came reggae and dancehall. Groups like Toots and the Maytals covered Lord Flea songs. Mento groups themselves disappeared or were relegated to kitschy hotel shows.

MINOTT:  As long as guests is in the hotel or in a guest house, we’d always play.

BAIR: That’s what the Jolly Boys were doing a few years ago, when a man sitting at the bar invited them to play at a private party. The man was Jon Baker, a British expat who runs a label and recording studio in Jamaica.

MINOTT: He came over and said, hey, that song you’re singing, Evening Dress, my guests over there love it, Albert. I want you guys to come over tomorrow and see me. And that’s where it started.

BAIR: The result is the album, Great Expectations, released this month in the UK. It has the backing of a label, a modern drum set, and songs that resonate with a new audience. The album features covers of songs, including Amy Winehouses’ Rehab. When the video came out this summer, the Jolly Boys became an internet sensation. Minott says mento is back and so is his band.

MINOTT: It’s started to happen. I can’t walk down the street now.

BAIR: Minott says on their drive to Kingston before the show, the Jolly Boys were hounded by fans.

MINOTT: There is a lot more to come. Because I am not going anywhere now. I’m still here.

BAIR: For The World, I’m Madeleine Bair, Kingston, Jamaica.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN:  I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston.  A couple of weeks ago we told you about a massive police operation in downtown Kingston, Jamaica.  Jamaican authorities had been trying to apprehend Christopher Dudus Coke.  He is a major drug dealer wanted by the U.S. and Jamaica was supposed to catch him and extradite him.  But Coke got away and the manhunt continues for him across the island nation.  During the raid on Coke’s neighborhood, the Tivoli Gardens section of Kingston, at least 73 civilians were killed and some human rights groups are worried that when the police and military went in looking for Mr. Coke they might have been less restrained than they should have been.  The BBC’s Nick David reports from Kingston.

NICK DAVIS:  The four days of street battles were triggered by the hunt for Christopher Coke aka Dudus, a man wanted by the U.S. on drugs and gun running charges.  The operation now seen as the start of a sustained assault on gang culture in poor communities across the island has seen wide support.  But allegations of extra judicial killings are dividing the nation.  Wilton Hill Drive is where three young men of the community died.  Locals say they were unarmed.

INTERPRETER:  They knocked on the door, boom, boom, boom and just kicked it in.  Those three youths, they weren’t involved in anything.

DAVIS: As I walk into the house where the shootings took place there are blood stains across the house, there’s still so much blood here, it’s unbelievable.  I’ve never seen so much blood.  Most people in the area are still loyal to Dudus and as such many are resentful against the security forces.  But there are only a few people that are willing to speak about what they saw.  This 25-year-old claims that he witnessed deaths after soldiers took him from him home.  This man says the soldiers grabbed him along with five others, but he knew one of the soldiers so he was separated from the rest and put on a truck.  As the truck drove off he says he heard a barrage of shots.  He looked back and the five men were dead.  Seventy-three civilians and more and more questions are being asked over how the operation was handled.  I asked Colonel Rocky Meade from the Jamaica Defense Force directly about the claims of human rights abuses and if he could guarantee his troops’ behavior.

COLONEL ROCKY MEADE:  No, clearly I can’t guarantee that because I wouldn’t have been at the forefront of the operation.  I can say that that would be inconsistent with our modus operandi.  We brief the soldiers to function, but if there are any such allegations and we can get sufficient information to act on, we will investigate it and any such discovery will be prosecuted.

DAVIS: But that’s unlikely.  The Jamaica Defense Force, JDF, have been responsible for the deaths of over a thousand civilians in the last four years alone without a single conviction.  Dr. Carolyn Gomes is the head of Jamaicans for Justice, the island’s main human rights group, and says investigations may not get to the truth.

DR. CAROLYN GOMES:  One of the difficulties has been the JDF operation.  Because the JDF do their own investigation and do their own holding to account, so they say.  And so it has been extremely challenging to civilian authorities to even get access to the notes of those investigations, or the outcomes of those investigations.

DAVIS: The country’s public defender, Earl Witter, has already recommended to the Prime Minister, Bruce Golding, that a Commission of Inquiry be set up to look into the conduct of the island security forces and then, a judicial inquiry.  He has investigators in a temporary office Tivoli Gardens already looking into allegations, taking statements, and carrying out forensic examinations of buildings in the area.

MALE VOICE 1:  We shall be investigating all the allegations of abuse or excess or atrocities committed by the security forces.  We shall go where the evidence takes us.  So far our investigations have turned up certain evidence and or evidentiary material which will be factored into our investigations which we are approaching with an open mind and as objectively as possible.

DAVIS: On Wilton Hill Drive they’re starting to sweep up and start again.  The clean up of crime is seen as good thing by many Jamaicans.  But while the allegations of human rights violations continue, and with Dudus still at large, the success of this operation and those that follow hang big concerns over taking on the gangs by force. For The World, I’m Nick David, Kingston, Jamaica.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

• 1972′s “The Harder They Come” trailer
• Jimmy Cliff’s official website

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN:  There have always been two Jamaicas.  There’s the sun splashed Caribbean island that dances to a reggae rhythm and welcomes visitors to fancy resorts.  Then there is the other Jamaica, of gun smuggling, political corruption and drug lords.  This week the more malevolent forces in Jamaica converged to produce an explosion of violence.  Security forces in the capital, Kingston, are clashing with supporters of an alleged drug lord who is wanted in the U.S.  At least 27 people have been killed.  The BBC’s Nick Davis is in Kingston.  He says the police and soldiers are searching in the Tivoli Gardens district for Christopher “Dudus” Coke.

NICK DAVIS:  It’s a joint operation between the Jamaica Defense Force, the Jamaica military and also the police force as well.  They’re going in there, literally going house to house, door to door looking for the man you mentioned earlier on, Christopher Dudus Coke, a man who has a huge amount of support in the area.  So much so, that as soon as an arrest warrant was issued for him, his supporters, or people who are believed to be his supporters took the fight to the police by attacking a number of police stations around the capital.

WERMAN: And apparently yesterday the operation was so intense that planes arriving at Kingston International Airport had to fly around the city to avoid grenade launchers and choppers over the compound of Christopher Dudus Coke.

DAVIS: The concern is that it’s believed that some of these people in Tivoli Gardens in Denimtown have managed to get access to very high caliber, 50 caliber, weapons which could actually bring down a plane, even a jetliner because they’re so powerful.

WERMAN: Nick, tell us who Christopher Coke is and the mystique surrounding what that is all about and why he’s been so difficult to apprehend.

DAVIS: It really depends on who you speak to.  If you go into Tivoli Gardens, if you go into Denimtown, Hannatown, he’s basically a folk hero.  He’s a man who looks after people in his community.  That’s where he’s from and he helps them out, he does everything he can, pretty much as far as they’re concerned, to make their lives better.  Much more so that the state.  You speak to the U.S. government and they say he’s one of the most dangerous drug smugglers in the world and really a man who needs to be brought to justice.  That’s the plan.  They have spent the last nine months trying to persuade the Jamaican government to do that.  Been many, many delays. The Jamaican government initially refused the extradition request because they said the information which was presented to them had been gathered illegally.  Because of that they said no, but with immense amounts of pressure put upon the Prime Minister, when it became clear, actually in the background you can hear the police vehicles heading downtown.  So much pressure had been put on him, because it became clear that his Jamaica Labor Party had actually lobbied against that warrant in the U.S. that he basically turned around, did a little bit of a flip flop and got the extradition order signed and that warrant of arrest processed and that’s really what ignited the whole of downtown Kingston.

WERMAN: You point out that he’s kind of enjoyed a certain amount of protection from Jamaica’s Labor Party, has that been consistent throughout the years, or is this a more recent invocation of nationalism by Prime Minister Bruce Golding?

DAVIS: This situation is not new in Jamaica.  In fact, everybody pretty much takes it for granted that’s the way things are.  Politicians year in, year out, make big announcements over it’s time for us to separate the link between the gangs and the politicians.  This goes back to not far from the days of independence of Jamaica back in the sixties.  People who wanted power went to the local criminals because there were so many people in these urban areas that if they managed to get the local strongman to give them support, they would be able to get votes.  It’s a situation which still continues and its one which now is even more prominent because if the Jamaica leader in his own constituency which is also where Christopher Coke is said to have all this power, actually went out of his way to make sure that people lobbied on behalf of him, it really makes people question what’s going on.

WERMAN: So the U.S. Justice Department describes Christopher Dudus Coke as one of the most dangerous drug lords in the world.  What happens to this case now?  He is going to get extradited to the U.S. or no?

DAVIS: It all depends on whether or not he gets arrested.  Jamaica Constabulary Force doesn’t have a great reputation when it comes to getting people.  They’ve been accused of murders in the past.  Many people believe that because Christopher Coke’s father who was also wanted on drugs charges, died in a police jail here while he was waiting to be extradited, under circumstances which are not very clear, there’s still no known reason why he died, but seemingly he was burned to death in the cell.  It’s sort of understandable that maybe Christopher Coke wouldn’t want to give himself up.  But there’s much speculation that he’s trying to make a deal in some respects, maybe with the U.S., but nothing has been confirmed.

WERMAN: The BBC’s Nick Davis in Kingston, Nick thank you very much.

DAVIS: Thank you Marco.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

• www.calypsorosediva.com
• Wikipedia: Calypso Rose

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN: All across the United States there are celebrities.  Not the kind of people who regularly grace Hollywood gossip shows or people magazine.  These are people who are celebrities in their home companies.  But move to relative amenity and the hope of a better life here in America. For today’s Global Hit I would like to introduce you to such a person.  She lives in New York City and is a musical legend in her native Trinidad and Tobago.  Along with Harry Belafonte she introduced Calypso to listeners far beyond the Caribbean.  I have the chance to meet McArtha Sandy Lewis earlier this year.  I know not exactly a household name but her stage name should ring a bell.

CALYPSO ROSE: I am McArtha Linda Sandy Lewis otherwise known as Calypso Rose.

WERMAN: And McArtha, I understand was a name that was given to you because somebody in your family must have admired Douglas Macarthur the famous American general.

CALYPSO: My mother.

WERMAN: What did she like about him?

ROSE: In the late 30′s and early 40′s, I was born in 1940.  When the war was going on it appears that General Macarthur they used to be dropping leaflets in Tobago.  I was born in Tobago.  About what was going on in the war.  And at night the planes would come and drop the leaflets and drop food and rice and all different things so she loved that.  So she says this baby I’m carrying if it’s a boy I’m going to call him Macarthur.  And if it’s a girl I’m going to call her McArtha.  M-C-A-R-T-H-A.  And there I came.  So that’s how come I got the name McArtha.  [LAUGH]

WERMAN: So Americans were dropping rice and food and leaflets during Trinidad and Tobago during the war.  Was that to win the hearts and minds of the Trinidadians?

ROSE: Of the Caribbean people [LAUGH] yes.

WERMAN: So tell me where the name Calypso Rose came from.

ROSE: It was given to me by a tent manager.  When I see a tent manager in Trinidad and Tobago they have what you call the Calypso tent.  The Calypso tent where I put kind of a season, a lot of Calyposians go and do their new compositions.  And the two tent managers they say, “Now we gonna change your name.  And we go call you from today Calypso Rose.”  Calypso is identifying the island of Trinidad and Tobago and Rose is the mother of all flowers.

WERMAN: A lot of entertainers think long and hard about picking a stage name.  You were given a stage name were you happy with it?

ROSE: Oh yes, I was happy, indeed I was happy.

WERMAN: I think a lot of Americans think about Calypso and they think steel pan and they think parties.  But Calypso has a very strong social, kind of observational tradition.

ROSE: It has been.  Years ago before I start singing “you can buy news people” so the Calypsonians they used to create and write Calypso so we could hear.  And say, “Oh, like the envision [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Pharaoh when the world was greener and all this thing with  this be writing Calypso and then we used to know what was going on in the other world.  But now that things have changed immensely that the [SOUNDS LIKE] media for the public.

WERMAN: Why not?  What changed?

ROSE: They are not writing anything more to make the public aware consciously of what is happening.  In politically, economically, or Calypso to make you laugh like that.  Look, I have written a lot and lot of calypso’s and one of the calypso’s I’ve been questioned lately, “A Man Is a Man”.  Why did you write that calypso “A Man Is a Man”?  2 girls in an argument, an argument on the pavement, 2 little girls were in an argument, the argument on the pavement.  They been arguing about a man.  Whatever will it be like when they become a woman.  So I join the conversation, they asked me to give them my opinion, so I tell them look, a man is a man.  The man is [SOUNDS LIKE] faced like a frying pan.  Oh be a man oh man a cool man.  Any man, could give you satisfaction.”  Now this is something that I have created and by bringing it to reality people are saying, “Oh you know that is true.”  Women are speaking true of man, so why must you pick and choose a man, when a man is a man?  So I said there’s no distinction.  Whether the man be one foot or one hand he could still make you happy.  [LAUGH]

WERMAN: That’s a very modern feminist statement.

ROSE: Thank you very much.  Today Calypso tend to have lost all of those flavors.  The people still want Calypso and that is what I intend to give them ’till I die.  Give them Calypso.  “[FOREIGN LYRICS IN CALYPSO SONG]”

WERMAN: That is Caribbean legend Calypso Rose, I spoke with her in her apartment in Jamaica, New York where she’s lived for the past 26 years.

ROSE: “When Calypso’s rose was small, mommy, mommy used to make me [INAUDIBLE] says before you get my ring she will choose the man for me.  Take the women out because every man in the hospital she said, she can’t [INAUDIBLE] where I tell she a man is a man…”

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Can you name the island yet?? Ok maybe a couple more clues are in order: So, this island is famous for its Blue Mountains that are home to Blue Mountain coffee.

At the western end of the island there’s Bluefields Beach where you can grab an ice cold Red Stripe to quench your thirst.

That’s the local beer. It goes best with something called jerk.

Photo: Caroline Ford / Wikipedia

We’ll stop in for lunch when we return with the answer…

It’s a roadside stand along the southern coast of Jamaica. Jamaica is the answer to our quiz today.

This is where you’ll find Omar, a 26 year old Jamaican. He’s standing over the fire in a sawed off oil drum. Omar’s cooking up traditional Jamaican jerk.

Omar cooking Jamaican jerk. Photo: Mariana Schroeder

Reporter Mariana Schroeder stopped in for lunch and sent us this postcard:

Download MP3