1046: Haiti, Jamaica major Caribbean drug transit stops (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Jim Loney

     MIAMI, March 1 (Reuters) - Plagued by corruption, Jamaica and Haiti
are two of the Caribbean's major transit stops for South American cocaine
headed for lucrative markets in the United States and Europe, according to
the U.S. government's annual report on the global drug trade released on
Friday.
     Jamaica, the leading Caribbean stop for South American cocaine and
also the region's top producer and exporter of marijuana, estimates that 70
to 100 tonnes of cocaine are shipped through the island each year,
routinely brought by speedboats across the Caribbean Sea from Colombia's
north coast.
     In troubled Haiti, weak democratic institutions, corrupt officials, a
fledgling police force and eroded infrastructure provide South American
narco-traffickers a "path of minimal resistance," the report said.
     The report also named the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic as
"major" transit countries for U.S.- and Europe-bound drug shipments from
South America.
     The myriad islands of the Caribbean, their thousands of secluded coves
and tens of thousands of miles of poorly patrolled coastline, have long
provided easy sailing for South American traffickers. They use speedboats,
small planes and secret compartments on freighters to ship goods to market.
     The report said corruption "continues to undermine law enforcement and
judicial efforts" against drug crime in Jamaica, a former British colony of
some 2.5 million people.
     It said the government in March 2001 enacted a new law against
corruption but did not prosecute any senior government officials for
facilitating drug production or distribution or for laundering drug money.
     Several Jamaican police officers and military personnel were arrested
on drug charges, the report said. In October the entire staff of a police
station was transferred over charges that it under-reported cocaine
seizures.
     Twelve percent of U.S.-bound cocaine moves through a corridor along
Jamaica, Cuba and the Bahamas, which has some 700 islands -- many
uninhabited -- stretching from north of Haiti to just off the coast of
Florida.
     The Bahamas has roughly a dozen major drug organizations, some of
which offer "money-back guarantees" to Jamaica cartels to transport drugs
to the United States, the report said.
     In Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas and frequently referred
to by critics as a "narco-state," the report said there were allegations
that traffickers had high-ranking help to move cocaine.
     "Corruption remained a major problem and traffickers enjoyed the
protection of some legislators, senior GOH (government of Haiti) officials
and police," the report said.
     Noting Haiti's political chaos and flagging economy, the report said
"drug trafficking was one of the few lucrative businesses in Haiti and
represented a source of income for many Haitians."
     The report said traffickers last year shifted back to a previous
pattern of sending speedboats from Colombia to Haiti's unprotected south
coast.
     Few marine patrols make it easy to ship cocaine into Haiti; lack of
law enforcement allows small planes to fly in unimpeded and official
corruption, lack of a strong judiciary and a desperate population created a
"nearly risk-free environment" for traffickers, the report said.
     U.S. coordination with Cuba in anti-drugs efforts increased last year
and the Communist-run island is not a major producer or transit point, the
report said. But President Fidel Castro's government still provides less
information on trafficking and domestic consumption than the United States
wants and remains a "country of concern" to U.S. authorities, it said.
     Eastern Caribbean nations, the Netherlands Antilles, Guyana, Suriname
and Trinidad and Tobago all serve as lesser shipping grounds for South
American cartels, the report said.
     Drug trafficking and derivative crimes like money laundering and
political corruption "threaten the stability of the small, independent
democratic countries of the eastern Caribbean" like Antigua and Barbuda,
St. Lucia and Grenada.
     "To varying degrees, the destructive nature of the drug trade and
organized crime-related corruption have damaged civil society in all of
these countries," the report said.