JAH BOB MARLEY AND THE CIA.

By Wade A Bailey.

While researching the book Rastafari and its Shamanist Origins. I stumbled upon quite inadvertantly some intriuging aspects of Bob Marleys life his faith in Jah or Haile Sellassie, and the possible involvement of the CIA in the assination attempt on his life.

 

Bob Marley was a Rastafari of enormous talent,passion and a steadfast faith in Jah Rastafari or Haile Sellassie who Rastafari

deem to be God. In the last days of his life the events leading up to his death, his baptism into the Ethiopian Orthodox faith as a Christian and his subsequent name change in said church as Berhane Sellassie (Light of the Trinity),  coupled with the conflicting testimonies by his closest family members and some confidantes like Judy Mowatt a female vocalist in the I Three, his death to this day is shrouded in mystery and increasingly subjected to conspiracy theories by many writers and investigators. Chief amongst the suspects behind the attempt on his life is the CIA even his death from cancer is being labeled by some to have been a "deeply laid plot by the CIA". To every rumour there is a gist of truth so we at the NAZARITZE Blog, began investigating and seperating fact from hearsay, gossip mongering and these are the fascinating things that we found.

Before the assasination attempt on his life Marley met with various members of warring political factions in Jamaica in an attempt to broker a truce between the JLP and PNP factions.

Michael Manley who claimed to be a "democratic socialist", had dared incur the wrath of the American administration by openly hobnobbing with Fidel Castro and Maurice Bishop the Grenadian Marxist leader at that time, America went on to invade Grenada Bishop and some of his cronies were murdered by Grenadians under the control of the CIA.

The people who carried out the attack on Bob Marley and his associates were aligned to the JLP which was in the opposition at that time. The JLP was aligned with American interest's regionally and was in direct contact with the American Administration through the American Embassy in Kingston Jamaica,throughout the Caribbean it was rumored that Cuba would invade the other islands and subject them to Communist rule, it was a voltatile time filled with paranoia and uncertainty stoked by CIA machinations . Through the Freedom of Information Act we have gained access to many of those cable grams and communiques leading up to the assasination attempt on Marley and after his death. The cables alone reveal the extreme paranoia of the American Administration then and now concerning what they termed a "A progressive youthful Black Messiah", Bob Marley was deemed such a messiah by the CIA and from their own cable grams and communiques from Washington to Kingston and vice versa we can observe quite frankly a sinister macabre series of events directly and in some cases indirectly being orchestrated throughout the Caribbean and being launched through the American Embassy in Kingston Jamaica.
Before the Eric Gairy government was toppled in Grenada by the New Jewel Movement of Maurice Bishop, the island was a tourist resort and many of the hotels were prostitution fronts, that were ran by Gairy cronies. Walter Rodney was holding reasoning sessions with Rastafari brethren in Kingston and elsewhere at that time. Rodney a professor at the UWI Mona campus in Jamaica was an ardent Marxist intellectual, who was widely travelled and knowledgable in African history. His association with the Rastafari was a cause for concern for both the PNP and the JLP as well as the CIA, who had all such persons under heavy survaillance. It is within this backdrop that the events leading up to the assasination of Bob Marley unfolded. 

Here are some interesting excerpts and factual tidbits for the astute to chew on.

With the recent violence in Jamaica and the controversy over alleged drug lord, Christopher “Dudus” Coke, many people are talking about the infamous Jamaican Shower Posse and the neighborhood of Tivoli Gardens, where they have their base. What is being ignored largely by the media, is the role that the American government and the CIA had in training, arming and giving power to the Shower Posse.
It is interesting that the USA is indicting Christopher “Dudus” Coke, the current leader of the Shower Posse for drug and gun trafficking, given that the CIA was accused of smuggling guns into Jamaica and facilitating the cocaine trade from Jamaica to America in the 70s and 80s. In many ways Dudus was only carrying on a tradition of political corruption, drug running, guns and violence that was started with the help of the CIA.
Christopher “Dudus” Coke’s father was was Lester Coke, also known as Jim Brown, one of the founders of the Shower Posse and a fellow champion and protector of the impoverished Tivoli Gardens neighborhood in Kingston. Coke was a political enforcer and bodyguard to Edward Seaga, the leader of the Jamaican Labour Party.
Seaga’s opponent Michael Manley had begun to adopt “socialist” stances and began openly criticizing American foreign policies and meeting with U.S. enemy, Fidel Castro, in the 1970s. Given the Cold War the US was having with Russia, the CIA did not want Jamaica to be friendly with communists.
According to Gary Webb’s book,”The Dark Alliance,” Norman Descoteaux, the CIA station chief in Jamaica began a destabilization program of the Manley government in late 70s. Part of that plan was assassinations, money for the Jamaican Labour Party, labor unrest, bribery and shipping weapons to Manley’s opponents, like Lester “Jim Brown” Coke.
Author, Daurius Figueira writes in his book, “Cocaine And Heroin Trafficking In The Caribbean,” “In fact, it meant that illicit drug runners linked to the JLP were integrated into a CIA linked illicit drugs guns and criminal trafficking pipeline.”
Former CIA agent, Philip Agee, said “the CIA was using the JLP as its instrument in the campaign against the Michael Manley government, I’d say most of the violence was coming from the JLP, and behind them was the CIA in terms of getting weapons in and getting money in.”
One of Lester Coke’s associates, Cecil Connor, would claim that he was trained by the CIA to fight political wars for the JLP through killing and spying. Connor would stuff ballot boxes and intimidate voters to help the JLP win elections. Connor would go on from being a political thug to being part of the international Jamaican based cocaine ring known as the Shower Posse. He wound up testifying against Lester Coke and his cohort Vivian Blake, only to return to his native St. Kitts to become a drug kingpin who almost held the country hostage.
Christopher “Dudus” Coke’s father, Lester Coke has also been accused of working with the CIA. Timothy White speculates, in his biography of Bob Marley, “Catch A Fire,” that Jim Brown was part of a team of armed gunman that attempted to assassinate Bob Marley led by JLP enforcer Carl “Byah” Mitchell. Authors Laurie Gunst and Vivien Goldman also make the same assertions in their books, “Born Fi Dead” and “The Book Of Exodus.” Marley’s manager Don Taylor claims that one of Marley’s attackers was captured and admitted that the CIA had agreed to pay him in cocaine and guns to kill Marley.
Lester Coke would later be burned to death in a Jamaican jail cell, while awaiting extradition the the United States. Many people have claimed that he was killed so he wouldn’t reveal his secrets dealing with the CIA, JLP and criminal activity.
In its efforts to destabilize the Jamaican government in the 1970s, the CIA created a group of drug dealing, gun running, political criminals. Through the cocaine trade, these criminals would eventually become more powerful than the politicians they were connected to. The CIA destabilization program did not only destabilize Jamaica in the 70s, but it destabilized Jamaica for the next 40 years.
Given the secrecy of both CIA and Jamaican society, it is unclear exactly what was the CIA’s role in creating the Shower Posse. Did they give them guns? Were they given cocaine? Were they trained how to smuggle drugs? Did the CIA use the Shower Posse to try and kill Bob Marley? These are all questions that the CIA should answer.
If what is alleged about the CIA is true, then they are partially responsible for the cycle of gun trafficking, gun smuggling and violence that plagues Jamaica today. If the US can extradite the son of one of the CIA’s political enforcers for trafficking guns and cocaine, shouldn’t the CIA be investigated for training Jamaicans on how to conduct political warfare, arming them, giving them cocaine and helping them traffic it? Given the revelation that the CIA allowed Nicaraguan drug dealers to sell cocaine in the US to fund their revolution against their communist government, it is not that far fetched to believe that they would arm Jamaicans to with guns and give them cocaine to fight communists in Jamaica.
There we have it former CIA agents and convicted Gangsters and political gung Thugs all on record stating that they were recruited, trained and outfitted by the CIA with American made weaponry that outranked those of the Military and the Jamaican Police force.
The criminals also admitted to being paid in Kilo's of Cocaine by the CIA. Talk about a "Pogrom of Destabilization of a Democratically elected Sovereign Government", the American CIA.

During This time, Michael Manley was campaigning as a virtual Messianic figure wielding the Rod of Correction, an elaborately decorated riding stick that was presented to him as a gift by H.I.M. Haile Sellassie during his Ethiopian visit. . He was also campaigning on a  farmiand poor people would support.ng agenda and other programs that  Rastafari and certain progressives were in favor of.
Confusion set in as a result of the wily Manley setting the elections shortly after the Peace Concert (which Marley did free of charge). Marley participation was construed as political by many.

Many people are claiming that Marley was injected with cancer by CIA operatives that was said since I was a child growing up.
Through research I have found no evidence to support the Cancer injection theory. What I have found solid evidence for is the failed assisination attempt on Marley was a covert CIA operation. The intent was to prevent Marley from becoming in their own words "A progressive youthful Black Messiah", that is the reason he was targetted for elimination by the CIA.
Presently the CIA has a glut of classified documents on Bob Marley that they refuse to release. Anyone studying the Rastafari and Bob Marley can never understand both subjects without a thorough study of Caribbean politics and history. From its inception the Caribbean has bred and continues to breed charismatic figures who gain mass appeal far beyond their native shores. In the time that Marley was alive many men were targetted for extermination by the CIA Marley was a Rastafari. Many Rastafari were known to 'reason" with progressives such as Walter Rodney, because of his own academic ties and background Michael Manley seized upon the  popular trend of the time in order to cast himself as a hip politician in the know. Manley was never a serious Marxist he was a Machiavellian politician with a thirst for power, he simply manipulated events as a means to further his agenda.
Suffice it to say that I feel I have presented plausible fact based evidence from some of the key players during the period in question and Iam satisfied that with the links provided interested persons can conduct their own research.


As promised below is an excerpt unedited from the Christian Science Monitor website. On the Christian Faith of Bob marley with personal testimony from Abuna Yesehaq Marleys Bishop and the man who performed the rites at his funeral.


Although Marley sang and spoken about being a Rasta, some say he converted to Christianity before his death. Abuna Yesehaq, archbishop of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in the Western Hemisphere who died in 2005, admitted that he baptized Marley about one year before his death.
Yesehaq appeared in a 1984 interview with Jamaica Gleaner's Sunday magazine, titled "Abuna Yesehaq Looks Back on 14 Years of Ministry in Jamaica," in which he spoke about Marley's desire to become a Christian long before his death.
"Bob was really a good brother, a child of God, regardless of how people looked at him," Yesehaq said. "He had a desire to be baptized long ago, but there were people close to him who controlled him and who were aligned to a different aspect of Rastafari. But he came to church regularly."
In the interview, Yesehaq addressed claims that Marley's terminal cancer was the motivation behind his acceptance of Jesus Christ as his personal savior.

"When he toured Los Angeles and New York and England, he preached the Orthodox faith, and many members in those cities came to the Church because of Bob," Yesehaq said. "Many people think he was baptized because he knew he was dying, but that is not so. He did it when there was no longer any pressure on him, and when he was baptized, he hugged his family and wept, they all wept together for about half an hour."
Judy Mowatt, a reggae and gospel singer who formerly sang backup for Marley in the group I Threes, recalled learning about Marley's conversion to Christianity in an interview with Cross Rhythms radio. Mowatt spoke with her former bandmate and Marley's wife, Rita, about the late musician calling out to Jesus Christ on his death bed.
"When Bob was on his dying bed, his wife Rita called me on the phone and said to me that Bob was in such excruciating pain and he stretched out his hand and said, 'Jesus take me.' I was wondering to myself, 'Why is it that Bob said Jesus and not Selassie,'" Mowatt questioned. "Then I met a friend of mine and he said his sister, who is a Christian, was a nurse at the hospital where Bob was before he passed on, and she led him to the Lord Jesus Christ. So when Rita saw him saying 'Jesus take me,' he had already received the Lord Jesus Christ in his life."
Bob Marley died from cancer in 1981 at the age of 36. Yesehaq conducted the rites for the musician's funeral.

Read more at http://global.christianpost.com/news/bob-marley-died-a-christian-not-rastafarian-claims-archbishop-68800/#tzihulvjmKuZYOXY.99

I cant end this post without first acknowledging Gary Webb the Investigative Journalist, who wrote dark alliance month's after his book was written he was found, in his apartment with two gunshot wounds from point blank range to the head. The police labeled the shooting a suicide. Highly unlikely how could Webb shoot himself not once but twice at point blank range?. The long arm of the CIA.!


Alexander Cockburn, Jeffrey St. Clair:

Verso, 1998 - 408 pages

A shocking expose of the CIA's role as drug baron. On March 18, 1998, the CIA's Inspector General, Fred Hitz, told astounded US Reps that the CIA had maintained relationships with companies and individuals that the Agency knew to be involved in the drug business. More shocking was the revelation that the CIA had received from Reagan's Justice Department clearance not to report any knowledge it might have of drug-dealing by CIA assets. Many years' worth of CIA denials, much of it under oath to Congress, were sunk. Hitz's admissions made fools of some of the most prominent names in US journalism and vindicated others that had been ruined. Particularly resonant was the case of the San Jose Mercury News, which published a sensational series on CIA involvement in the smuggling of cocaine into black urban neighborhoods, and then under pressure conspired in the destruction of its own reporter, Gary Webb. In Whiteout, Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair finally put the whole story together, from the earliest days, when the CIA's institutional ancestors cut a deal with America's premier gangster and drug trafficker, Lucky Luciano. This is a thrilling history that stretches from Sicily in 1944 to the killing fields of Laos and Vietnam, to CIA safe houses in Greenwich Village and San Francisco where CIA men watched Agency-paid prostitutes feed LSD to unsuspecting clients. We meet Oliver North, as he plotted with Manuel Noriega and Central American gangsters. We travel to little-known airports in Costa Rica and Arkansas. We hear from drug pilots and accountants from the Cali Cartel. We learn of DEA agents whose careers were ruined because they tried to tell the truth. Cockburn and St. Clair show how the CIA's complicity with drug-dealing criminal gangs was part and parcel of its attacks on labor organizers, whether on the docks of New York, Marseilles, or Shanghai. They trace how the Cold War and counter-insurgency led to an alliance between the Agency and the vilest of war criminals like Klaus Barbie, or fanatic opium traders like the mujahedin in Afghanistan. Cockburn and St. Clair horrifyingly affirm charges of outraged black communities that the CIA had undertaken enduring programs of experiments on minorities. They show that the CIA imported Nazi scientists straight from their labs at Dachau and Buchenwald and set to work, developing chemical and biological agents, tested on blacks, some of them in mental hospitals. Cockburn and St. Clair dissect the shameful way American journalists have not only turned a blind eye to the Agency's misdeeds, but also helped plunge the knife into those who tried to tell the truth. Fact-packed and fast-paced, Whiteout is a richly detailed excavation of the CIA's dirtiest secrets. For anyone who wants to know the real truth about the Agency, this is the book to start with.

 to start with.

Seven Stories Press, 1999 - 574 pages

Dark Alliance is a book that should be fiction, whose characters seem to come straight out of central casting: the international drug lord, Norwin Meneses; the Contra cocaine broker with an MBA in marketing, Danilo Blandon; and the illiterate teenager from the inner city who rises to become the king of crack, "Freeway" Ricky Ross. But unfortunately, these characters are real and their stories are true.

In August 1996, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb stunned the world with a series of articles in the San Jose Mercury News reporting the results of his year-long investigation into the roots of the crack cocaine epidemic in America, specifically in Los Angeles. The series, titled "Dark Alliance," revealed that for the better part of a decade, a Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to Los Angeles street gangs and funneled millions in drug profits to the CIA-backed Nicaraguan Contras.

Now Gary Webb has pushed his investigation even further in his book, Dark Alliance: The CIA, The Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Drawing from recently declassified documents, undercover DEA audio and videotapes that have never been publicly released, federal court testimony, and interviews, Webb demonstrates how our government knowingly allowed massive amounts of drugs and money to change hands at the expense of our communities. Congressional inquiries into these allegations are ongoing; results of the internal investigations by both the CIA and the Justice Department are pending.