Source: Los Angeles Times (CA) Contact: 213-237-4712 Website: http://www.latimes.com/ Pubdate: Tue, 7 Jul 1998 Author: George Gedda, Associated Press Writer CORRUPTION CLOUDS ANTI-DRUG EFFORTS WASHINGTON--A U.S. drug enforcement official recalls the despair he felt not long ago when he walked into a meeting with counternarcotics officials from a Caribbean country and found two of them sporting top-of-the-line Rolex watches. To the U.S. official, the Rolexes meant these agents were on the take from the very people they were supposed to be pursuing. Corruption of local officials has been one the chief obstacles the Clinton administration has faced in its efforts to counter the growing problem of drug trafficking in the Caribbean. An estimated 30 percent to 40 percent of U.S.-bound narcotics that originates in South America traverses the Caribbean. With their numerous unpoliced islets, it's hard to imagine a more opportune conduit for drug smuggling than the Caribbean islands, many of which are too small and resource-poor to fend off multibillion-dollar cocaine cartels. Some of these criminal enterprises can use the islands' array of financial institutions to disguise their proceeds. U.S. officials are worried that Panama, located just north of Colombia, will become a prime transit point for cocaine traffickers once, as expected, Panama-based U.S.-antidrug flights are grounded when the Panama Canal reverts to local control at the end of 1999. Some Caribbean officials contend that ungenerous U.S. economic policies toward the region make it ripe for illicit activities to flourish. Because of the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mexico has easier access to U.S. markets than Caribbean countries do, and as a result, thousands of jobs have migrated to Mexico from Jamaica and other countries. U.S. actions in the World Trade Organization also mean vulnerable eastern Caribbean banana growing countries will lose their preferential access to European markets. Jamaican Ambassador Richard Bernal believes narcotrafficers could actually seize control of an entire island in the area, citing the 1979 takeover of Grenada by 40 determined leftists. U.S. officials say narcotraffickers need only take control of an island's infrastructure to meet their needs, not the whole island. But these officials believe recent advances in U.S.-Caribbean cooperation on the counternarcotics front offer cause for optimism. The centerpiece of the U.S. strategy are maritime drug interdiction agreements that the State Department has negotiated with 19 Caribbean countries and dependent territories The agreements provide the authority for U.S. vessels to engage in patrols, boardings, searches, seizures and arrests in foreign waters. Hot pursuit of suspect vessels and aircraft also is authorized. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said last April after meeting with 15 Caribbean foreign ministers that cooperation also is being sought to curb money laundering. "Our goal is to construct a web of legal arrangements and law enforcement actions that will discourage international criminals from acting, and leaving no place to hide if they do," she said. In all, U.S. officials believe they intercepted about one-third of the estimated 430 tons of cocaine shipped from South America to the United States last year. Some Caribbean countries were reluctant to enter into the maritime agreements, seeing them as an erosion of their sovereignty. But U.S. officials say these concerns seem to diminish if the United States is perceived as playing fair, is willing to offer reciprocity and provides genuine assistance. The foreign minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Ramesh Maraj, said the alternative to the agreement with the United States was to let drug barons take over his country's sovereignty. But a number of Caribbean countries found the U.S. approach heavy-handed, said Gillian Gunn Clissold of Georgetown University. She noted that the Caribbean countries would have preferred to negotiate the maritime agreements on a regionwide basis but bowed to U.S. insistence on a bilateral approach. This made it easier for the powerful U.S. to dictate terms to individual small states. Clissold said these agreements were presented to the Caribbean nations on a take-it-or-leave basis. "No effort was made to tailor each agreement to the specific concerns of each state," she said. Copyright Los Angeles Times - --- Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)