Pubdate: Wed, 05 Jan 2000
Source: Orlando Sentinel (FL)
Copyright: 2000 Orlando Sentinel
Contact:  633 N.Orange Ave., Orlando, FL 32801
Website: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/
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Author: Maya Bell, Miami Bureau

U.S. HEARS ISLAND'S DRUG-WAR NEEDS

SWEETWATER -- Puerto Rico's former attorney general delivered an 
after-Christmas wish list to Congress on Tuesday, telling members that the 
commonwealth is unprepared to keep pace with traffickers who have turned 
the island into a staging area for cocaine and heroin destined for the 
United States. But not for lack of trying.

Jose Fuentes Agostini, who resigned as Puerto Rico's top law-enforcement 
official last week, said state and federal soldiers in the island's war 
against drugs have established an award-winning intelligence center but are 
stymied by an overburdened federal court system and shortages in personnel 
and response equipment.

And come March, he said, the island's anti-drug task force may be forced to 
sit and watch from the sidelines as cocaine-laden planes leave the jungles 
of Colombia.

That's when a new radar capable of detecting planes flying in a distant 
region will begin operating from Puerto Rico. Two such "relocatable 
over-the-horizon radars" already are in use in Texas and West Virginia, and 
the third one in the Caribbean will help drug agents keep abreast of South 
American hot spots.

"We'll know whenever any aircraft takes off from the jungles of Colombia, 
but how will we respond?" Fuentes asked the House Committee on Government 
Reform, during a South Florida hearing on drug trafficking in Cuba and 
Puerto Rico. "The capabilities are not there."

As one solution, he suggested that Puerto Rico's anti-drug forces be 
allowed to use eight Blackhawk helicopters assigned to the Puerto Rican 
National Guard. With two engines each, the choppers are ideal for flying 
for extended periods over the ocean, Fuentes said. But sharing the 
Blackhawks with the guard, which uses them primarily for training, wouldn't 
come cheap. A mere hour's flight costs about $2,200, and each helicopter 
would have to be equipped with infrared equipment for surveillance.

The Coast Guard cutters that ply the Caribbean are equally ill-equipped, 
Fuentes said. Shipboard personnel have little trouble spotting small boats 
that speed to Haiti to drop off loads of drugs, which are later brought 
overland to the Dominican Republic, and then smuggled on wooden boats to 
Puerto Rico for easy distribution to the United States.

Catching them, though, is a different story. The cutters, Fuentes said, 
can't chase boats zipping along at more than 50 mph. So, added to his wish 
list are nine inflatable "go-fast" boats, one for every active cutter. The 
cost: about $150,000 each.

Fuentes also requested:

Two more federal judgeships and magistrates for Puerto Rico, bringing the 
total to nine. One of the island's seven federal judgeships has been vacant 
for seven years, Fuentes said, creating a backlog that has all but 
paralyzed civil cases and severely crippled criminal cases.

A quadrupling of immigration officials in Puerto Rico, from 40 to 160. 
Fuentes said that 95 percent of the all drugs ferried into Puerto Rico are 
brought by illegal aliens from Colombia or the Dominican Republic, yet U.S. 
immigration officials insist that the problems of drugs and illegal aliens 
are unrelated.

Fuentes' requests did not fall on deaf ears. Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., the 
committee chairman who has assailed the Clinton administration for slashing 
anti-drug efforts abroad in favor of domestic prevention and treatment 
programs, said he will send a letter outlining Puerto Rico's needs to 
President Clinton and other government officials.
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