Thomas  Menino, mayor of Boston

US State Department releases damning report on drug trafficking

Sunday March 02 2008

In its “International Narcotics Control Strategy Report 2008”, released last Friday, the department identified Jamaica as a “major drug transit country and the Caribbean’s largest producer of marijuana and marijuana derivative products.”

It added that the seven Eastern Caribbean countries — Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts/Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent & the Grenadines — are “vulnerable” to drug trafficking from South America to markets in the US and Europe.

In addition, the department said Haiti is a “major transit country for cocaine and marijuana from South America and the Caribbean, respectively."

In Suriname, the report said the government’s inability to control its borders, inadequate resources, limited law enforcement training, lack of a law enforcement presence in the interior of the country, and lack of aircraft or patrol boats allow traffickers to move drug shipments via land, sea, river, and air “with little resistance.”

The report said in 2007, co-operation between Jamaica and US government law enforcement agencies remained strong, resulting in drug seizures, arrest of drug-traffickers, and disruption of drug organizations in Jamaica.

But it said the “ambitious legislative agenda” initiated in 2007 only resulted in the passage and implementation of the Proceeds of Crime Act and the new anti-trafficking law.

“Despite numerous well-documented corruption scandals, there were no prosecutions of high level officials,” the report said, noting that new Prime Minister Bruce Golding has promised various security initiatives, such as a consolidated anti-corruption National Investigative and Intelligence Agency to tackle Jamaica’s “pervasive public corruption.”

The report said Jamaica is a major drug transit country, due to the difficulty to patrol the coastline, over 100 unmonitored airstrips, busy commercial and cruise ports, and convenient air connections.

“In 2007, an increase in murder and other violent crime coupled with a thriving ‘guns for ganja’ trade between Jamaica and its neighbors, that was abetted by systemic corruption within the police, customs service, and judicial system, continued to tax an already over-burdened law enforcement and judicial system,” it said.

In the Eastern Caribbean, the report said illicit narcotics transit is done mostly by sea, in small “go-fast” vessels, larger fishing vessels, yachts and freight carriers, with little narcotics airdrop activity.

It said, recently, there has been the increased trend of using sailing yachts to transport drugs from the Caribbean to Europe.

The report identified St. Vincent & the Grenadines as the “largest producer of marijuana in the Eastern Caribbean and the source for much of the marijuana used in that region.”

“Extensive tracts are under intensive marijuana cultivation in the inaccessible northern half of St. Vincent,” it said.

“The illegal drug trade has infiltrated the economy of St. Vincent & the Grenadines, making some segments of the population dependent on marijuana production, trafficking and money laundering,” it added.

However, the report said, total cultivation is not at the level which would designate St. Vincent & the Grenadines as a major drug-producer because “it does not significantly affect the United States.”

It said compressed marijuana is sent from St. Vincent & the Grenadines to neighboring islands via private vessels. In addition, the report said St. Vincent & the Grenadines has also become a “storage and transshipment point for narcotics, mostly cocaine, transferred from Trinidad & Tobago and South America on go-fast and inter-island cargo boats.

“Boats off-loading cocaine and weapons in St. Vincent & the Grenadines will return to their point of origin carrying marijuana,” the report said.

Neighbouring St. Lucia, the report said, is “a well-used transhipment site for cocaine from South America to the US and Europe,” stating that cocaine arrives in St. Lucia in go-fast boats, primarily from Venezuela, and is delivered over the beach or off-loaded to smaller local vessels for delivery along the island’s south or southwest coasts.

It said marijuana is imported from St. Vincent & the Grenadines and grown locally as well.

“Foreign and local narcotics traffickers are active in St. Lucia,” the report said, pointing out that they have been “known to stockpile cocaine and marijuana for onward shipment.”

In 2007, the report said air smuggling of narcotics to Haiti from Venezuela increased by 38 per cent and that the Réné Préval administration continues “the struggle to overcome pervasive corruption, weak governance and mismanagement.

“Haiti’s law enforcement institutions are weak and its judicial system dysfunctional,” it said, noting that with the support of the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), the Haitian National Police (HNP) have conducted a “successful campaign” in the Port-au-Prince area to disrupt gang elements involved in kidnapping, drug trafficking, and intimidation.

But the report said although the campaign decreased criminal activity in those areas, the government of Haiti has yet to deliver the “sustained police presence needed to curb the gangs’ criminal activity.

“Haiti’s 1,125 miles of unprotected shoreline, uncontrolled seaports, numerous clandestine airstrips, along with a struggling police force, dysfunctional judiciary system, corruption, and weak democracy make it an attractive strategic point for drug traffickers,” it said.

The report said cocaine and, to a lesser extent, marijuana, is trafficked through Haiti to the United States and, in smaller quantities, to Canada and Europe.

In addition to being shipped directly to the United States, it said drugs brought into Haiti also are moved overland into the Dominican Republic for onward delivery to the US and Europe.

The report said South American cocaine transits Suriname en route to Europe, Africa, and, to a lesser extent, the United States.

“The lack of resources, limited law enforcement capabilities, inadequate legislation, drug-related corruption of the police, courts and military, a complicated and time-consuming bureaucracy, and overburdened and under-resourced courts inhibit the GOS’s (Government of Suriname) ability to identify, apprehend, and prosecute narcotic traffickers,” it said.

“Suriname’s sparsely populated coastal region and isolated jungle interior, together with weak border controls and infrastructure, make narcotics detection and interdiction efforts difficult,” it added.

The report said Guyana is a transit point for cocaine destined for North America, Europe, and the Caribbean, but not in quantities sufficient to impact the US market.

In 2007, it said domestic seizures of cocaine were three times higher than the previous year due to improved counter-narcotics measures at the working level, although all but one of these seizures were minor in scale.

The report lauded the Bharrat Jagdeo administration for laying “the groundwork for an enhanced security sector by agreeing to a reform program sponsored by the British government.

“It also arrested Terrence Sugrim, an accused drug trafficker wanted by the US, and initiated the extradition process,” it said.

But the report lamented that, after over two years of launching the National Drug Strategy Master Plan for 2005-2009, the government “has not effectively implemented it.

“Cooperation among law enforcement bodies is fragmented and minimally productive; weak border controls and limited resources for law enforcement allow drug traffickers to move shipments via river, air, and land without meaningful resistance,” the report said.

It said while there are no official estimates of marijuana hectarage in the Bahamas, cultivation of marijuana by Jamaicans is a “continuing trend.”

It said the majority of marijuana seized in 2007 was in plant form grown by Jamaican nationals on remote islands and cays of the Bahamas. The report said cocaine arrives in the Bahamas via go-fast boats, small commercial freighters, or small aircraft from Jamaica, Hispaniola and Venezuela.

US law enforcement officials said, sport fishing vessels and pleasure crafts then transport the cocaine to Florida, “blending into the legitimate vessel traffic that moves daily between these locations."

The report said larger go-fast and sport fishing vessels transport marijuana shipments from Jamaica to the Bahamas, which are then moved to Florida in the same manner as cocaine. The report said Trinidad & Tobago, located seven miles off the coast of Venezuela, is a “convenient” transhipment point for illicit drugs, primarily cocaine and marijuana and also heroin.

“Increased law enforcement success in Colombia has led to greater amounts of illegal drugs transiting the Eastern Caribbean,” it said. “This does not have a significant effect on the US market."