McNair Paper Number 54, Chapter 5, October 1996
CARIBBEAN GEONARCOTICS
The Caribbean lies at what J(se Mart( once called "the Vortex of the Americas," making it a bridge or front between North and South America. European leaders recognized the strategic importance of this vortex soon after the 1492 encounter between Europe and the Americas. This strategic importance has persisted over the centuries, and it was dramatized in geopolitical terms during the Cold War. However, the strategic value of the Caribbean lies not only in its geopolitical value as viewed by state actors engaged in systemic conflict and cooperation. Over recent years the region has also been viewed as strategic by nonstate drug actors, also with conflict and cooperation in mind, but in terms of geonarcotics, not geopolitics.
Geonarcotics is a concept developed to explain the multiple dynamics of the narcotics phenomenon. It posits that:
Over and above this, the term captures the dynamics of four factors: drugs, geography, power, and politics.
Geography is a factor because of the global spacial dispersion of drug operations, and because certain geographic features facilitate some drug operations. Power involves the ability of individuals and groups to secure compliant action. This power is both state and nonstate in source, and in some cases nonstate sources exercise relatively more power than state entities. And politics, the fourth factor, revolves around resource allocation in the Lasswellian sense of the ability of power brokers to determine who gets what, how, and when. Since power in this milieu is not only state power, resource allocation is correspondingly not exclusively a function of state power holders. Moreover, politics becomes perverted, and all the more so where it already was perverted. (Note 1)
Although the Caribbean drug phenomenon involves drug production, consumption and abuse, trafficking, and money laundering, (Note 2)it is trafficking that best highlights the region's strategic value. Aspects of both the Caribbean's physical and social geography make it conducive to drug trafficking. Except for mainland Belize, French Guiana, Guyana, and Suriname, Caribbean countries are all island territories. Some are plural island territories, such as St. Vincent and the Grenadines, which comprise close to 600 islands, and the Virgin Islands, composed of about 100 islands and cays. Indeed, one, the Bahamas, is an archipelago of 700 islands and 2,000 cays. This island character permits entry into and use of Caribbean territories from scores, sometimes hundreds, of different places from the surrounding sea. For the mainland states, access is from various places from the Atlantic Ocean in the case of Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana, and from the Caribbean coast in the case of Belize. And when one adds to the matrix the inability of Caribbean countries to provide adequate territorial policing, their vulnerability to trafficking is more readily appreciated.
The most important location feature of the region's physical geography is proximity. This proximity is dual: to South America, a major drug-supply source, and to North America, a major drug- demand area. On the supply side, the world's cocaine is produced in South America, coming notably from Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, and Venezuela. Colombia alone produces about 80 percent of all the cocaine in the world, although only about 20 percent of worldwide coca leaf cultivation is done there. (Colombia's coca cultivation is reported to have grown 13 percent in 1995, making that country the world's second largest coca producer, after Peru. Bolivia's place is now reduced from second to third.) A significant proportion of global heroin and marijuana production also comes from South and Central America, especially from Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Paraguay, Brazil, and Guatemala. (Note 3)
On the demand side, the United States has the dubious distinction of being the world's single largest drug-consuming nation. An analyst at the Congressional Research Service reported in 1988:
America is consuming drugs at an annual rate of more than six metric tons (mt) of heroin, 70-90 mt of cocaine, and 6,000-9,000 mt of marijuana-80 percent of which are imported. American demand therefore is the linchpin of one of the fastest-growing and most profitable industries in the world. (Note 4)
By 1993, however, State Department estimates placed consumption of cocaine alone at 150-175 metric tons, valued at $15-17.5 billion. (Note 5) In April 1995, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, then head of SOUTHCOM and now the U.S. drug "czar," estimated that about 300 mt of the approximately 575 mt of cocaine available worldwide in 1994 were consumed in the United States. (Note 6)
As is evident from figure 3, there is not much distance between either the Caribbean and South America, or the Caribbean and the United States, especially the southern and northeastern parts of the United States. For example, except for French Guiana and Suriname, the distance of all Caribbean countries is less than 2,000 miles from Miami, and only seven of them are more than 2,000 miles from Atlanta and Washington, DC. As for distances between the Caribbean and some main South American drug centers, over 80 percent of Caribbean countries are no more than 1,000 miles from Caracas, and all except Belize (in relation to Caracas), French Guiana (in relation to Cali and MedellRn), and Suriname (in relation to Medell(n) are less than 1,500 miles away from Bogot(, Cali, Caracas, and Medell(n. The distances involved are often quite short. For example, the island of Bimini in the Bahamas is just 40 miles from the Florida Keys; a mere 90 miles separate Cuba from the United States; only 7 miles separate La Brea in southwestern Trinidad and Pedernales in northeastern Venezuela; the town of Lethem in southwest Guyana is a mere 75 miles away from the city of Boa Vista in northeast Brazil; and Eteringbang, Guyana, is only 28 miles from El Dorado, Venezuela. (Note 7)
Europe is also a huge drug consuming area. Despite the relatively great distance between that continent and the Caribbean region, the Caribbean is a major transit area for cocaine, heroin, and marijuana bound for Europe. (Note 8) Several reasons explain this. One is proximity between the Caribbean and South America. A second relates to commercial, communications, and other linkages between Europe and the Caribbean, which provide the institutional and other infrastructure for trafficking.
Third, because French Guiana, Guadeloupe, and Martinique are D(partments d'Outre Mer (DOMs) of France, Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Montserrat, and the Turks and Caicos are British dependencies, and Bonaire, Cura(ao, Saba, and St. Maarten are integral parts of the Netherlands, there are certain customs, immigration, and transportation connections between these territories and their respective European "owners," and these are exploited by traffickers. Some of the arrangements are similar to those involving the United States and Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, which also facilitate traffickers aiming for destinations in continental United States.
The Caribbean's vulnerability to trafficking and the prospects for continued trafficking make drugs a clear and present danger to the region. One way to understand the geography dynamics involved is to examine trafficking patterns and the modus operandi of traffickers.
TRAFFICKING PATTERNS
Apart from shipping their own marijuana to the United States, some Caribbean countries are important transshipment centers for South American cocaine, heroin, and marijuana bound for Europe and North America.
Bahamas
For more than two decades, the Bahamas, Belize, and Jamaica dominated this business. The Bahamas is an excellent candidate, given its 700 islands and 2,000 cays and strategic location in the airline flight path between Colombia and South Florida. For a typical cocaine trafficking mission, aircraft depart from the north coast of Colombia, arriving in the Bahamas 4 to 5 hours later. The cargo is dropped either to waiting vessels, or for later collection and placement on vessels, and then the final run is made to a U.S. point of entry. However, this is not the only trafficking method. Recently traffickers have been using other tactics, including use of Cuban waters to evade OPBAT (Operation Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos) measures. Cocaine seizures dropped from 490 kilos in 1994 to 390 kilos in 1995, while marijuana seizures increased dramatically from a 1994 figure of 1,420 kilos to 3,530 kilos in 1995. The number of people arrested for trafficking rose from 1,025 in 1994 to 1,565 in 1995. (Note 9)
Belize
The geography and topography of Belize also make that country ideal for drug smuggling. Apart from a long coast line and contiguous borders with Guatemala and Mexico, two major heroin and marijuana producers, there are dense unpopulated jungle areas and numerous inland waterways. Moreover, there are about 140 isolated airstrips and virtually no radar coverage beyond a 30-mile radius of the international airport at Belize City. While there still is air trafficking, recently there has been an increasing use of maritime routes. Crack has also been featuring more prominently. While 141 kilos of cocaine were seized in all of 1994, two seizures in January 1995 alone netted 636 kilos of cocaine. The overall 1995 cocaine seizures amounted to 840 kilos. (Note 10)
Jamaica
Jamaica has long been key to the drug trade, given its long coastline, proximity to the United States, its many ports, harbors, and beaches, and its closeness to the Yucatan and Windward Passages, as figure 2 shows. Trafficking takes place by both air and sea, using both legal and illegal airstrips for air operations, and cargo, pleasure, and fishing vessels for maritime ones. Many of the illegal airstrips are only 1,200 to 1,500 feet long, just enough length for use by Pipers, Cessnas, BE-100, and KingAir aircraft. Jamaica's west and south coast are the most popular areas for air trafficking. Apart from landings on strips designed or adapted for drug operations, landings have been made on roads, in cane fields, and on legal strips owned by bauxite and sugar companies. The Jamaica Defense Force (JDF) has destroyed close to 100 illegal airstrips, but as the JDF Chief of Staff explained, given the heavy limestone in many of the popular landing areas, operators are often able to make fields serviceable within 10 days of destruction.
Most of the cocaine air operations using Jamaica over the last few years have involved San Andres and Bogot< in Colombia, the Bahamas, Panama, and CuraHao. Traffickers do not rely only on illegal flights; legal commercial flights are also used. Particularly popular, and problematic for Jamaican officials, was the commercial link between San Andres and Montego Bay. That connection was severed in September 1994, but there are still commercial flights linking Jamaica and Bogot(. Now, according to military intelligence sources, the drugs go from San Andres to Bogot(, and then to Montego Bay or Kingston. (Note 11)
Although the Bahamas, Belize, and Jamaica are still important drug trafficking centers, countermeasures there and in South and Central America have prompted traffickers to seek and develop alternative routes, bringing eastern and southern Caribbean countries into greater prominence since the early 1990s. The shifts are of such a magnitude that, in November 1994, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands were designated by the United States drug "czar" as High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTAs), a designation surely appropriate to other areas in the region. Moreover, because of the increased drug activity, in July 1995 the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) upgraded its presence in Puerto Rico from "Office" to Field Division, increasing its staffing and assigning a special agent to oversee the Caribbean, formerly done from Miami. The Division became operational on October 1, 1995.
Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles
These are said to serve as vital links in the transshipment of cocaine and heroin from Colombia, Venezuela, and Suriname to the United States and Europe. Aruba, Bonaire, and Cura(ao are very close to Venezuela, from which much of the drugs confiscated in these islands come. Trafficking in the Dutch Caribbean generally involves the use of commercial and private airlines, air cargo flights, and cruise ships, although ship containers have also been used. In Suriname, for example, in 1994 one seizure alone netted 207 kilos of cocaine concealed in cargo waiting to be shipped to Europe.
Seizures in Aruba for 1995 totalled 153 kilos of cocaine, 366 kilos of marijuana, and 4 kilos of heroin. In the Netherlands Antilles the figures were 111 kilos of cocaine, 810 kilos of marijuana, and 8 kilos of heroin. (Note 12) In January 1996, while operating near Grand Cayman, the British frigate HMS Brave recovered $200 million worth of cocaine that had been dumped at sea earlier. All together, there were 3,000 pounds of cocaine in 40 bales. (Note 13) Overall for the Cayman Islands in 1995, 548 people were arrested for trafficking, and confiscated drugs totalled 314 kilos of cocaine and 2.6 mt of marijuana. (Note 14)
Cuba
Cuba's strategic location has caused it to be used for trafficking, apparently both with and without official sanction. One 1983 DEA report dates official Cuban involvement to 1991, suggesting that there were economic and political motives involved. Cuban officials have also been indicted in the United States for trafficking. One of the earliest cases of importance was in November 1982 when four senior officials were convicted in absentia.
Andres Oppenheimer asserts that Fidel Castro and Colombian drug operators once had a long association, based mainly on political convenience. Castro is said to have first ordered his intelligence agencies to penetrate the Colombian drug networks in the 1970s to gain access to what then appeared as potentially one of Latin America's most powerful economic and political forces. Indeed, he says, "When the Carter administration launched exploratory dialogue with the Castro regime in the late 1970s, one of the things the Cubans offered was to help stop drug smuggling through the Caribbean. The proposal died when normalization talks collapsed." (Note 15)
Cuban involvement in trafficking commanded the greatest attention in 1989 when several top military officials were convicted and given harsh sentences for trafficking, corruption, and other infractions. Several analysts indicate that the participation of military officials in the smuggling of drugs and other commodities was not done mainly to profit individual officers, but to satisfy economic needs of the military in particular, and economic and political interests of Cuba generally. Evidence suggests that Cuba's military and political high command knew about the trafficking in drugs and other contraband, and that they colluded in it. But they turned on the architects of the operations when it became politically inconvenient to have their operations continue.
Although there is no credible evidence of present Cuban Government involvement in trafficking, there is evidence of the practice in Cuba. For example, in April 1992, 29 Cubans in the city of Camaguey were found guilty of possessing and trafficking in cocaine. Some were also convicted of currency and weapons possession charges. (Note 16) Cuban officials reported that 3.3 mt of cocaine were seized in 79 different cases during 1993. Reported seizures for 1994 were 238 kilos of cocaine and 1.1 mt of marijuana. (Note 17)
Haiti
Several factors explain Haiti's trafficking vulnerability and involvement: geographic location, poorly monitored coasts, mountainous interior, about 20 unpatrolled airstrips, inadequate law enforcement resources, and corruption. In Haiti, the complicity of military and other officials has been well established. (Note 18) The DEA estimated in 1993, for instance, that 2 to 4 tons of cocaine passed through Haiti, mostly with the blessings of military officials. In April 1994, Gabriel Toboada of the Medell(n cartel told a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing that Lt. Col. Joseph Michel FranHois, then commander of Haiti's police, collaborated in the shipment of tons of cocaine during the 1980s. According to the testimony, the deal had been sealed in 1984 following Fran(ois's visit to Medell(n. Haiti was reportedly used as a bridge to the United States, with both the flights and the cargo protected by the military. (Note 19) Officially reported cocaine seizures have been increasing recently, but the figure plunged in 1995: in 1992, the figure reported was 56 kilos; 1993, 157 kilos; 1994, 716 kilos; and 1995, 550 kilos. (Note 20)
Guyana
This country has recently become an important center of operations. Like other Caribbean countries, Guyana's trafficking use saw its graduation from marijuana to cocaine and heroin. The earliest known trafficking case was in June 1979, when a trader from the bauxite mining city of Linden arrived from Jamaica with 60 pounds of compressed marijuana. (Note 21) Cocaine and some heroin now enter Guyana from all three neighboring countries: Brazil, Suriname, and Venezuela. Cocaine seizures in 1993 were 463 kilosC1,000 percent higher than in 1992. The exceptional 1993 figure was due to one dramatic seizure in June 1993, when 800 pounds of cocaine were dropped from air into the Demerara river, along with $24,000 and huge quantities of Colombian and Guyanese currency. Several Guyanese, Colombians, and Venezuelans were implicated in the affair. (Note 22)
During 1994 alone, 56,707 kilos of marijuana were confiscated, up from 15,654 kilos seized in 1993. And in January 1995, 5,000 pounds of marijuana valued at $2 million were discovered behind a false fiberglass wall of a container about to be shipped from Georgetown to Miami. (Note 23) Only 51 kilos of cocaine were reported seized for the entire 1995, but it is credible to suggest that the decline from the 1994 figure of 76 kilos "does not necessarily indicate a decrease in the amount of drugs transiting the country. It may be the result of more sophisticated techniques and coordination on the part of drug smugglers or an insufficient drug enforcement unit, or both." (Note 24)
The air, sea, and land routes developed for smuggling contraband into Guyana from Brazil, Venezuela, and Suriname during the economic crisis of the 1970s and 1980s have now been adapted to narcotics trafficking. A further complication is the fact that the borders with these neighboring countries are very long: 1,120 kilometers with Brazil, 745 kilometers with Venezuela, and 600 kilometers with Suriname. Moreover, traffickers are able to take advantage of the country's large size (214,970 square kilometers), the coastal habitation, and absence of adequate manpower and equipment to police the territory. In relation to air trafficking, for example, there are 92 legal airports (private and public), most of them in remote parts of the country where the physical and social geography provides clear advantages for traffickers. Like elsewhere in the Caribbean, trafficking in Guyana is not done only by air runs dedicated to drug delivery or collection; commercial flights are also used.
Guyana's physical geography makes it also vulnerable to maritime trafficking. Guyana, whose name is derived from an Amerindian word that means "Land of Many Waters," has hundreds of inland rivers and creeks. Moreover, there are 13 huge rivers that flow into the Atlantic Ocean, and each of those rivers has a network of tributaries. The maritime traffic is also facilitated by the fact that the network of rivers also runs into Brazil, Suriname, and Venezuela. For example, the Takatu river in southwest Guyana flows into the Parima, a tributary of the Rio Negro, which flows into the Amazon in Brazil.
The Guyana situation is clear evidence of the vulnerability of Caribbean countries to drug trafficking and other operations. Geography apart, a contributor to this situation is the absence of adequate military and police resources for credible responses. In effect, the state lacks the power to exercise proper political and territorial jurisdiction over the nation. Top army, coast guard, and police officials in many parts of the region have expressed frustration at not only the inability to adequately protect their countries' borders against trafficking, but also at being the pawns of traffickers who often create successful small interdiction diversions in order to execute large operations. (Note 25)
MODUS OPERANDI
Drug trafficking brings out the creativity and ingenuity of drug operators and the people who collude with them. People have used every possible orifice of the human anatomy, every possible piece of clothing, all manner of fruits and vegetables, and a variety of craft, furniture, and other things for the conveyance of drugs. In so far as the human anatomy is concerned, use has been made of the vagina, anus, arm pits (to strap packages of drugs), the abdomen and the back (to strap packages), the tongue (by placing drugs under it), both natural and false hair, thighs (where drugs are strapped on inner thighs), and the stomach and intestines. Indeed, there are people-called swallowers or mules-who specialize in the use of the stomach and intestines. One Eastern Caribbean official related a case where a leg wound was used. Condoms with cocaine were found in the wound and within the bandaging of the wound.
Drugs have also been found in fish, rice, cake, pepper sauce, coconuts, yams, bananas, "coffee beans" (where the beans are cocaine pellets stamped to the shape of coffee beans and dipped in coffee syrup), cheese, butter, cans of fruit, beer, and juice, cigarette packaging, vegetables, detergent, furniture and furniture fixtures, lumber, pi(atas, mannequins, bales of cloth, mail, ceramic tiles, ice cream, bottles of shampoo and mouthwash, video tapes, frozen vegetables, concrete posts, wooden coat hangers, rum (where liquid cocaine is purported to be coconut rum), and countless other objects. All sorts of clothing are used, including shoes and sneakers with false soles and heels. Both dead and live birds and animals are also used to convey drugs. And in one attempted candy disguise, 1,000 pounds of cocaine packed inside candy containers were seized upon arrival in New York in March 1996, having come aboard an American Airlines flight from Puerto Rico. (Note 26)
People of all ages and of both sexes are involved in trafficking, and old women are sometimes used, because they do not fit the trafficker profile used by law enforcement agencies. But some are caught. In one case, a 63-year-old Honduran-born American citizen was arrested in Guyana with 6 pounds of cocaine in her underwear. She was about to board a British West Indian Airways (BWIA) flight to New York when one of the packages fell from under her. The woman, Gwendolyn Martinez, a grandmother, later admitted that she had been recruited in Brooklyn for the job. Upon conviction she was sentenced to 10 years in jail. (Note 27) Martinez was one of several "granny mules" arrested during 1993 and 1994 in Guyana and Trinidad.
Some operations are very sophisticated, using digital encryption devices, high-frequency transmitters, cellular telephones, beepers, radar tracking devices, flares and sensors for air drops, and other equipment. Some trafficking is done individually, but most of it is conducted through networks. Most of the networks could not exist or succeed without the collusion of people in government and private agencies in various positions and at all hierarchical levels: people in shipping companies, customs and immigration agencies, warehouses, police forces, the military, airlines, export and import companies, stores, cruise ships, trucking companies, and factories, for example. Some officials collude by acts of omission: they just fail to perform certain acts, go to certain places, or return to their posts at a certain time.
Thus, while the recent global turbulence and transformations have altered the strategic environment in many ways, because of the continued salience of some issues and the heightened dynamics of others, the Caribbean strategic environment still holds some clear and present dangers. Drug trafficking presents some of these dangers. The implications of trafficking go beyond merely the consequences of being transit centers, partly because not everything intended to go through the region actually does so. Some of the cocaine and heroin remain, both by default and by design, as payment for services, for example, in the latter case. Partly because of all this, throughout the Caribbean there are problems of drugs-related crime, arms trafficking, and corruption. What, then, is being done about the narcotics phenomenon?
NATIONAL COUNTERMEASURES
A range of coping strategies to counter drug trafficking is being adopted. Countermeasures are multidimensional, multilevel, and multiactor, a reflection of the nature and scope of the drug phenomenon. They need to be multidimensional because drug operations and their impact are multidimensional; they need to be multilevel-national, regional, and international-because drug operations and many of the problems they precipitate are both national and transnational; and they have to be multiactor for the two above reasons, plus the fact that countries lack the necessary individual capabilities to meet the threats and challenges. Hence, responses come not only from governments, but also from national Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), International Governmental Organizations (IGOs), and International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs).
National countermeasures are wideranging in scope, if not sufficiently substantive in character. They include law enforcement, education, interdiction, demand reduction, rehabilitation, intelligence, crop substitution, airport and seaport management, financial services regulation, and legislation. There is no regionwide standard for most of the countermeasures, although countries emulate successful models elsewhere and common practices do exist. The kind and impact of countermeasures introduced depend essentially on three things: perceptions of the predicament, national capability, and foreign support.
Public sector resources are insufficient to design and implement narcotics countermeasures. This is more so because countermeasures need to be both multidimensional and simultaneous. In other words, circumstances are such that one cannot apply education, and then rehabilitation, and then interdiction. As a matter of fact, no set of measures can really be undertaken only sequentially. Education, rehabilitation, interdiction, and other measures have to be applied at the same time. Indeed, in many places it was a failure to adopt simultaneous measures, based on misperception of the situation, that has contributed to its deterioration.
Most countries have therefore adopted an inclusive approach, actively reaching out locally to NGOs and corporate agencies for partnership in countermeasures. Generally, though, even the combined available resources of governments and NGOs are insufficient, making foreign state and non-state assistance necessary. In some cases the foreign support becomes so central to programs that its withdrawal results in the program's collapse. A case in point is Operation Buccaneer in Jamaica. That program began in 1974 with some ambitious aims: eradication of all marijuana cultivation; arrest of all persons, equipment, aircraft, and marine vessels engaged in trafficking; and destruction of all illegal airstrips. It involved joint army-police operations heavily supported by the United States. The U.S. obligations were usually for salaries for 25-30 people to cut and burn marijuana fields, fuel for the helicopters, boats, and vessels used in operations, funds to purchase chemicals, equipment, and supplies to cut and spray fields; and the lease of Bell 205 helicopters for use by the JDF air wing. The United States also provided vessels for the JDF Coast Guard, and helped with intelligence gathering.
Operation Buccaneer was interrupted for 11 years, largely because of U.S. antipathy toward the socialist posture of the Michael Manley government. Operation Buccaneer recommenced in 1985 and continued as an annual exercise, interrupted only in 1988 when Hurricane Gilbert hit Jamaica and destroyed most of the island=s marijuana fields. Because of budget constraints, the United States stopped funding Operation Buccaneer in 1993. However, residual funds from previous years enabled a drastically reduced operation to be conducted in 1994. Operation Buccaneer finally ceased in December 1994. (Note 28)
Foreign assistance is not only bilateral, but multilateral, as will be seen later. Aid sometimes comes from places with generally little interest in the Caribbean, which suggests that the rationale behind the assistance is often not the specific country getting it, but the issue concerned; the fact that drugs constitute an interdependence issue is what really matters. In one case, Germany gave DM 4,500 (J$75,000) toward drug rehabilitation in Jamaica. The money was given in December 1993 for Patricia House, a rehabilitation facility for recovering addicts that had been established in 1991 with support from the European Community, the Jamaican government, and Richmond Fellowship, a Jamaican NGO. (Note 29)
Virtually all Caribbean countries have national drug councils that are supposed to set policy on countermeasures. They usually are composed of officials from various government bodies as well as NGOs and the private sector. The National Council on Drug Abuse (NCDA) of Jamaica, the Programa para la prevenci\n del uso indJbido de drogas (PROPUID) of the Dominican Republic, the National Advisory Council on Drugs (NACD) of Guyana, the National Council for Drug Abuse Prevention (NaCoDAP) of the Netherlands Antilles, and the National Drug Council (NDC) of the Bahamas are a few examples of these bodies. Understandably, structures vary from country to country.
National Master Plans are considered the ideal tools for establishing national strategies and mechanisms for combating drugs. There are Master Plans in over 18 places, including, in order of adoption, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Grenada, the Netherlands Antilles, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia, Antigua-Barbuda, the British Virgin Islands, Haiti, Belize, Anguilla, Barbados, Turks and Caicos, Aruba, Bermuda, Dominica, and Cuba. (Note 30) Some of the Plans are preliminary; others are complete. However, there two problems with Master Plans, one of which the United Nations International Drug Control Program (UNDCP) notes: "A severe lack of consistent, pertinent, reliable, and comprehensive data on drug abuse and trafficking seriously inhibits proper assessment of the actual situation, and precludes planning of appropriate counter-measures." (Note 31) A second problem pertains to implementation: for a variety of resource and other problems the implementation record in many places is very poor.
Several Caribbean countries have mounted demand reduction programs, and at least one has pursued crop substitution. Trinidad's demand reduction program is actually one strand of a two-pronged national drug control strategy. The second aspect is supply control. The overall plan attempts to develop a comprehensive and integrated response to ensure that the problems are addressed from all fronts simultaneously. The hope is to modify behavior through public education and positive influences on attitudes and values. Prevention through education is seen as a continuous process involving the psychological development of children, the training of teachers, professional and community leaders to deliver programs, and the treatment, rehabilitation, and social reintegration of the addicted population. Recognizing the need for multidimensional, multiactor efforts, the Trinidad plan also caters for interagency and international cooperation, both state and non-state.
The demand reduction project began in October 1994 and runs through October 1997. It has four main components: research and information; community prevention; school prevention; and treatment and rehabilitation. Several target beneficiaries have been identified, among them: 150,000 people in five communities; students, teachers, and administrators in select schools; addicts and their families; and governmental and non-governmental agency workers involved in counternarcotics work. The project is proceeding on two main tracks. The first addresses improving the ability to design and implement demand reduction programs. The focus here includes enhancing national research capabilities, public drug education, school prevention, treatment and rehabilitation, and training government and NGO officials.
The second track emphasizes the development and implementation of intensive demand reduction activities in five communities: The communities are: San Fernando, in southwest Trinidad; Arima, in northern Trinidad; Chaguanas, the northwest section of the island; Scarborough, in southern Tobago; and Laventille, in northwest Trinidad. These five communities were selected based on several considerations. First, they are representative of different types of drug problems affecting Trinidad and Tobago. Second, they offer a fairly wide geographic spread, allowing models to be tested in a diverse selection of the country's population. Moreover, they are places where the social infrastructure and community and political organizations are sufficiently developed to give the project a reasonable chance of success.
The project is estimated to cost $1.9 million; $462, 469 from local sources, and the remainder from the UNDCP. This project is actually Phase II of a longer term initiative, the first part of which ran from October 1992 to October 1994. Several things were accomplished during the first phase, including the training of 161 community leaders in basic drug abuse prevention, preparation of educational materials, and establishment of the NADAPP Secretariat. Given what officials in Trinidad and Tobago consider as current and projected drug consumption practices, the expectation is that several other phases will be necessary after the current one is completed. (Note 32)
The crop substitution program in Jamaica has three aims: assisting growers who are experiencing economic hardships because of marijuana eradication countermeasures; encouraging potential marijuana growers to grow alternative crops and raise livestock; and assisting growers and their dependents to adapt to the pursuit of income substitution activities. In specific terms, the plan is to establish 1,520 acres of permanent and semipermanent crops and 700 acres of cash crops, and provide 1,890 farmers with chicken broilers for poultry rearing.
The project area covers farms in the parishes of St. Ann, St. Catherine, St. Elizabeth, and Westmoreland-the parishes with the highest marijuana production. With information from soil, land use, climate, and market considerations, three models were developed. The first consists of 1-acre units divided into sections for cash crops, permanent or semi permanent crops, and poultry farms, each with 100 birds initially. Model II involves 2-acre units to be used similarly, but with a different size allocation for the three sets of things. Model III consists of 3-acre units divided as follows: one acre for permanent or semipermanent crops; half-acre for cash crops; and the rest for a 200-bird poultry house.
Approximately 2,000 farmers are expected to benefit from the program in the first year, increasing by 1,000 in the second and third years. Substitute crops include yams, carrots, coffee, citrus, papaya, and sugar cane. Training will be offered to farmers, as will be basic farm tools such as forks, machetes, and files. The nonagricultural aspect of the program includes creation of cottage industries for processing agricultural produce, the production of crafts using goat skin and straw, dressmaking, embroidery, and other needlecraft. Women are the principal target for these activities, but men are not excluded.
The program began in late 1994 and is expected to cost J$234 million over its 3-year duration. Funding comes from the Jamaican government, and grants from local NGOs, IGOs, and foreign governments. This program builds on a 1988 pilot project in southwest St. Ann, where farmers were given J$1,700 worth of seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides each in an effort to encourage the shift away from marijuana cultivation. The St. Ann experiment had considerable problems, but was judged as fairly successful. Notable in this regard has been the commitment of many farmers to reinvest part of their profit to extend the substitute acreage initially cultivated. (Note 33)
Like crop substitution initiatives in Latin America, the efforts in Jamaica raise the issue of the comparative economic advantage, from the standpoint of the farmers, of cultivating marijuana as opposed to the alternative crops. The planners in Jamaica are realistic but hopeful in this regard, noting that "While is it is not realistic to expect this plan to generate income capacities as marijuana production, a sufficient level of income will be generated devoid of the risk and negative social impact [that comes] with production of the illegal crop." (Note 34)
One troubling area in several countries is rehabilitation. Some countries have several clinics and hospitals with rehabilitation programs. In the Bahamas, for example, rehabilitation is offered at the Sandilands Rehabilitation Center, at Doctors Hospital, and elsewhere. In Trinidad and Tobago, it is undertaken at New Life Ministries, Mount St. Benedict, Caura, Rebirth House, and elsewhere. But some countries, notably in the Eastern Caribbean, have absolutely no rehabilitation capability. What is worse, there are places without facilities where addiction is worsening, because of the fallout from increased trafficking. In Guyana, one of these places, (Note 35) and in other places that lack rehabilitation facilities, addicts are usually treated at public mental institutions and private medical clinics.
REGIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL COUNTERMEASURES
Caribbean counties participate in a variety of regional and international networks. Some of them, like the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD), the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF), the OAS Money Laundering Expert Group (OAS-MLEG), and the UNDCP, are devoted solely to combatting drugs. For some of them, such as the Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police (ACCP) and the RSS, drugs are part of a wider mandate. Like national efforts, regional and international initiatives are multidimensional, covering the very areas dealt with nationally. But unlike the national level, regional and international operations see less NGO and INGO involvement, and more from states and IGOs.
One regional plan calls for the establishment of a Regional Training Center for Drug Law Enforcement. The proposal, by Jamaica, is for that agency to serve as a resource base for technical advice to Caribbean governments, and to systematize the region's anti-drugs law enforcement training. The Center, to be funded by the United States, the UNDCP, and CICAD, will become part of an existing criminal justice complex that includes the Police Staff College and the Jamaica Police Academy. Initially to be ready by the end of 1993, its opening has been delayed by incomplete needs assessment and delayed funding. However, it is expected to become operational in September 1996. (Note 36) Recognizing the key role of intelligence in all counternarcotics efforts, the ACCP agreed in May 1994 to pursue an allied initiative: the creation of a Regional Drug Intelligence System. (Note 37)
Many Caribbean countries, including Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, and Guyana, already have United States-sponsored Joint Information Coordinating Centers (JICCs) that are linked electronically with the DEA operational and analysis center in Texas called the El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC). However, several Caribbean officials have stressed the importance of having a system within the region to serve the region since most of the JICC intelligence data flows are unidirectional: from Caribbean JICCs to EPIC.
Caribbean countries are also part of several international counternarcotics regimes. Among these are the 1961 United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs; the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances; the 1972 Protocol amending the 1961 Convention; and the 1988 Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. Indeed, one Caribbean country , the Bahamas, has the distinction of being the first country to ratify the 1988 Convention, on January 30, 1989. The Convention includes provisions on drug trafficking, money laundering, organized crime, and related issues, such as arms trafficking. It requires states that are party to it (120 up to May 1996) to strengthen laws concerning financial reporting, extradition, asset forfeiture, and other subjects. It also urges adherents to improve cooperation in intelligence, interdiction, eradication, and other areas.
As of May 1996, all Caribbean countries except Belize and Cuba had ratified the 1988 Convention, ratification of which is now viewed by the international community as a litmus test of commitment to battling drugs. Thus Caribbean countries are good international citizens. Yet this is only part of the reality. There is a point beyond ratification where Caribbean countries are delinquent. More critical than ratification of treaties is execution of their provisions, and all Caribbean countries are remiss, for various reasons, including administrative lethargy, and technical, financial, and other resource limitations. Of course, there is variation among countries of the extent of delinquency.
About 90 percent of the regional and international countermeasures involve foreign supportCby states, IGOs, and INGOs, in various combinations. Because the regional and international agencies involved recognize the importance of coordinating their assistance, several of them formed a coordinating mechanism in 1990. Called the Bridgetown Group because it is centered in the Barbados capital, it includes representatives from the American, British, Canadian, Dutch, and French diplomatic missions in Barbados (and in Trinidad and Tobago in the case of the Dutch and French missions), the OAS, and the UNDCP. The Group meets every 6 to 8 weeks to coordinate programs. The success of the Bridgetown Group has led to the creation of four other groups: the Georgetown Group (in Guyana); the Port of Spain Group (in Trinidad and Tobago); the Santo Domingo Group (in the Dominican Republic); and the Kingston Group (in Jamaica). (Note 38)
Most Caribbean countries have signed Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties (MLATs) with the United States, among them Antigua-Barbuda, Jamaica, the Bahamas, Belize, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, Suriname, St. Kitts-Nevis, and Trinidad and Tobago. MLATS provide for training, joint interdiction, asset sharing, extradition, intelligence, and material and technical support. Some countries, like the Bahamas and Jamaica, have long had several complementary agreements with the United States.
Some agreements provide for ship-rider arrangements, which allow Caribbean military and police personnel to sail aboard U.S. Coast Guard ships to authorize the boarding of suspect vessels in Caribbean waters and arrest suspects and confiscate their drugs. Among the most recent complementary arrangements were those put in place between the U.S. and Trinidad and Tobago. Signed by Prime Minister Basdeo Panday and Secretary of State Warren Christopher on March 4, 1996, the agreements provide for maritime and air counternarcotics operations as well as for extradition. (Note 39)
It is useful to note that although no formal agreement exists between Cuba and the United States, ocassionally there has been meaningful antidrug cooperation. One example of this occurred in September 1993 when Cuba granted permission for U.S. aircraft to enter Cuban airspace in hot pursuit of suspected traffickers aboard a speedboat. Following the chase, Cuban maritime authorities detained the vessel and two suspects. They delivered the narcotics (720 pounds of cocaine) and the suspects to U.S. officials. (Note 40)
Other bilateral narcotics treaties exist. Belize, for example, has agreements with Mexico for intelligence exchange and Mexican assistance with demand reduction and rehabilitation, among other things. Bilateral agreements also exist between Suriname and Colombia, Cuba and Guyana, Suriname and Guyana, Venezuela and Guyana, Suriname and the Netherlands, Cuba and Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela, Jamaica and Mexico, Cuba and Panama, and other sets of countries. These cover a range of joint and individual initiatives. In one unique case, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela signed a pact that provided for joint air patrols. (Note 41) Unfortunately, it was never fully implemented.
Intelligence and interdiction measures are among the most costly of countermeasures, and they involve considerable technology, which Caribbean countries lack. This partly explains the sustained and significant U.S. role. Once during the 1980s there were ground-based air radar systems in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI); Guant(namo Bay, Cuba; and Borinquen, Puerto Rico; and five sea-based aerostat radars in the Bahamas, some with both sea and air detection features. An aerostat radar itself is an airborne surveillance system that consists of unmanned, tethered, helium-filled balloons that carry radar. Each aerostat cost about $10 million to install and near $4 million to operate annually during the 1980s. (Note 42) Radars were also used at Lovers Leap in Jamaican from August 1991 to December 1994 as part of the Caribbean Basin Radar Network (CBRN). (Note 43)
One intelligence and interdiction countermeasure of some distinction, which uses some of this technology, is OPBAT. It started in 1982 as a U.S.-Bahamas operation dedicated to apprehending airborne smugglers in the Bahamas. U.S. equipment, primarily helicopters, and personnel are used to transport and assist Bahamian, and later TCI, law enforcement officials in apprehending suspected smugglers. OPBAT uses DEA, U.S. Coast Guard, and U.S. Army personnel and equipment at the OPBAT sites in the Bahamas. In addition, DEA and U.S. Coast Guard personnel direct OPBAT helicopter maneuvers and coordinate all interdiction operations from the OPBAT headquarters in the U.S. embassy in Nassau.
Over the years supplementary operations were mounted. For instance, in September 1986 Operation Bandit was initiated by U.S. Customs to improve apprehension response time. Use was made of helicopters based in Florida, with Bahamanian police and military aboard to authorize arrests and seizures in the Bahamas. In October 1986, SEABAT (Sea Based Apprehension Tactics) was launched to provide ship-based launch platforms for helicopters with Bahamian law enforcement personnel aboard. OPBAT has been credited with securing hundreds of arrests and the seizure of thousands of tons of cocaine and marijuana, as well as hashish and other drugs. Indeed, it was considered so vital that a multilateral treaty, involving the Bahamas, Britain (for TCI), and the United States was signed on July 12, 1990, extending the OPBAT basing network from three bases to four, the fourth being at Great Inagua, the southernmost island of the Bahamas. (Note 44)
Also of importance is CBNR, mentioned earlier. At its operational peak, it drew signals from 17 radar sites in 10 countries. However, CBRN has been plagued with problems. Each site covers only 180 miles, and sites are often non-functional because of bad weather or poor maintenance. CBRN is being replaced with a system that is more sophisticated. In June 1995 the Cayman Islands site was closed following earlier site closures in Honduras, Costa Rica, and Panama.
The system that will replace CBRN is ROTHRCRelocatable Over-the-Horizon RadarCoriginally designed to track Soviet bombers, and can scan many times further than conventional radar. A prototype ROTHR was established in Virginia in April 1993, and a second system in Texas underwent final testing during September 1995. Puerto Rico is to be the site of the third ROTHR. The Pentagon explained that the first two sites can scan 2,000 miles on a clear day, and 1,600 miles on a day with atmospheric disturbances. Thus, they can sweep most of the Caribbean, Central America, and northern Colombia and Venezuela. (Note 45)
ROTHR uses a technology different that conventional line-of-site microwave radar. It works by bouncing signals off the ionosphere, the outer region of the atmosphere that begins about 30 miles from the earth. The fully functional system in Virginia consists of two installations, about 70 miles apart. One, in New Kent, consists of 32 antennas; the other is in Chesapeake. The latter is the receiver site, with 372 pairs of 19-foot tall aluminum poles arranged in two parallel rows stretching 1.5 miles. As might be expected, ROTHR is even more expensive that CBRN: $12 million each, with annual operating costs of between $12 million and $14 million per facility. (Note 46)
The way the United States pursues some of its unilateral and joint countermeasures has often been a problem for some Caribbean countries. United States law enforcement officials are known to have pursued suspects into the territorial waters of Caribbean countries, making arrests in those countries' jurisdictions, sometimes without even courtesy notification of the arrests. There has often been virtual coercion by U.S. agencies in the selection of personnel for local drug enforcement operations, and in the design and implementation of countermeasures.
Caribbean leaders have often protested such affronts to their sovereign authority. The most public occasion was in July 1988. Writing on behalf of CARICOM, the then Chairman of CARICOM, Antigua-Barbuda Prime Minister Vere Bird, Sr., wrote to President Ronald Reagan protesting "attempts to extend domestic United States authority into neighboring countries of the region without regard to the sovereignty and independent legal systems of those countries." (Note 47) In essence, this is part of the dilemma of Caribbean countries where drugs are concerned. Michael Morris puts it aptly: AThe policy dilemma posed by the drug trade for small Caribbean states is that individually [and even collectively] they cannot control the drug trade, but that a US-controlled, anti-drug strategy for the region may impinge on national sovereignty." (Note 48)
There is considerable "muddling through" in the design and implementation of narcotics countermeasures in the region. Various factors account for this: capability limitations, administrative lethargy, a "rock-and-hard-place" dilemma in which policy makers find themselves partly because drug operations have both negative and positive aspects, and the fact that decisions about many national programs, not to mention the regional and international ones, are not made solely by local elites. What is worse, there is a troubling sense of fatalism in some places, which is dangerous for several reasons: it affects adversely the psychological buoyancy of people involved in combatting drugs; it contributes to greater cynicism in the general population of countries; and it emboldens drug operators with the possibility that they might increase the scope of their operations in the region. (Note 49)
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