CAYO CONFITES, Cuba -- The only line of defense here against Colombian drug traffickers bound for the United States consists of an aging Soviet-era patrol boat, a British radar system with a six-mile range and 15 Cuban soldiers.

"We are seeing a systematic increase in the amount of drugs dropped by air here, then picked up by fast boats and taken out of our waters," said Col. Fredy Curbelo, an Interior Ministry official. "Our Soviet launches are 20 years old and can go 27 knots, while the drug traffickers can easily go at 45 knots.

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HAVANA - On Oct. 1, 1996, U.S. Coast Guard officers watched in frustration as the Honduras-registered freighter Limerick -- sinking, abandoned and carrying a large quantity of cocaine -- drifted into Cuban waters and seemingly out of their reach.

As it happened, however, the Cuban government was more than willing to help.

Alerted by a Coast Guard request relayed through British diplomatic channels, Cuban authorities hauled the ship to shore and -- with help from U.S. law enforcement agents -- discovered the hidden cargo, which they turned over to U.S. authorities for use in the trial of the ship's captain and crew. Cuban border guards even flew to Miami to testify.

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Congressional Stance Hampers U.S. Role

CAYO CONFITES, Cuba - On this sandy speck of land off the northern coast of Cuba, the only line of defense against Colombian drug traffickers bound for the United States consists of an aging Soviet-era patrol boat, a British radar system with a six-mile range and 15 Cuban soldiers.

"We are seeing a systematic increase in the amount of drugs dropped by air here, then picked up by fast boats and taken out of our waters," said Col. Fredy Curbelo, an Interior Ministry official who recently accompanied an American reporter on an unprecedented tour of counter-drug installations in Communist-ruled Cuba. "Our Soviet launches are 20 years old and can go 27 knots, while the drug traffickers can easily go at 45 knots. We are doing what we can with our resources, but we are limited in what we can do."

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Cuba's communist government is not involved in drug trafficking is cooperating with the United States in fighting the illegal trade in the Caribbean, the top U.S. anti-drug official said Friday. The White House's drug policy director, Gen.Barry McCaffrey, said Cuba was very interested in discussing the issue with Washington, which has not had diplomatic ties with Havana since 1961.

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WASHINGTON - Cuba has shown willingness to help the United States fight the international drug trade but has been largely ineffective at it, the Clinton administration's anti-narcotics policy-maker said Saturday.

Only a small portion of the drugs that come into the United States come through Cuba, Barry McCaffrey said, but the island's location and a growing tourist market could make it an opportune target for drug traffickers.

"I don't think it's a significant problem on balance yet, but as we look to the future, my own assumption is that it will become one," McCaffrey told The Associated Press. "It's worth being worried about."

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INSPIRED by the Pinochet affair, Cuban exiles in France want Fidel Castro tried there for alleged crimes including drug trafficking, writes Phil Davison. A French judge on Friday rejected their case, but is there any truth in the claims?

US agents suspect President Castro may have condoned some cocaine deals before the mid-1980s, though to help his sinking economy rather than for self-gain, and may have turned a blind eye to others. But they say there is absolutely no evidence against him, and that he clamped down on trafficking in 1989 after the Panamanian strongman, Manuel Noriega, was indicted in the US for drug smuggling. General Noriega was later captured after an American invasion of his country and jailed in Miami for 40 years.

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HAVANA - Seeking an end to a long and brutal guerrilla war that has killed tens of thousands, Colombian President Andres Pastrana on Friday turned for help to the region's most famous guerrilla, Fidel Castro.

Castro, who once sought to export socialist revolution throughout Latin America, has stepped back from that role in recent decades, saying armed struggle is no longer an effective route to power.

Still, Pastrana, who has made winning peace with Colombia's leftist guerrillas the key aim of his new administration, hopes to use the Cuban leader's influence and leftist credentials to further Colombia's latest effort at a peace settlement.

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HAVANA -- (AFP) -- President Fidel Castro has accused two Spanish businessmen of using Cuba as a major drug export staging point for cocaine shipments between Colombia and Europe.

Castro made the accusation in a speech late Tuesday before 5,000 police officers celebrating the 40th anniversary of the National Revolutionary Police. The speech was broadcast by Cuban television 24 hours later.

He said Jose Llorca and Jose Herrera "probably" participated in international drug-trafficking operations "under the guise of import-export" business for Artesania Caribena Poliplast, a plastic manufacturing company the two men set up in Cuba.

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Two Cuban exiles and a French photographer have lodged formal complaints with a Paris court against the Cuban president, Fidel Castro, accusing him of international drug trafficking and crimes against humanity, their lawyer said yesterday.

Serge Lewisch said he had filed the complaints on behalf of Ileana de la Guardia, the daughter of a former Cuban army colonel executed in 1989 in a drug-smuggling scandal; Pierre Golendorf, a French photographer imprisoned in Cuba for three years; and Lazaro Jordana, a Cuban artist who also spent four years in jail.

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HAVANA, Jan 7 (Reuters) - President Fidel Castro, who has kept a tight rein on Cuba's isolated society during 40 years in power, has vowed to get tough on rising crime on the island, particularly prostitution, drugs and human smuggling.

But in a marathon speech, broadcast into early Thursday, Castro pinned most blame for the recent crime surge on foreign influences associated with Cuba's opening to tourism and business from abroad this decade.

"Crime is one of the factors that have grown in these times, as new forms of delinquency have arisen that we are not accustomed to," Castro told a 5,000- strong audience at a ceremony for the 40th anniversary of his Revolutionary National Police force in Havana's Karl Marx theatre.

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HAVANA (AP) Fidel Castro is demanding a crackdown on rising crime in Cuba, calling it a threat to the revolution and urging greater U.S. cooperation in the fight against drugs, terrorism and human trafficking.

Crime has "internal political consequences," Castro told an auditorium full of police this week in a long speech celebrating the 40th anniversary of the National Revolutionary Police.

"On you depends internal order, and if we lose the battle for internal order, then we lose everything," Castro said in the first part of the speech broadcast late Wednesday on state television. The second portion was to be aired Thursday night.

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November 2, 1998 HAVANA -- Cuban police have launched an energetic crackdown on crime in Havana, which has seen growing hordes of prostitutes and a surge in violent acts.

Prostitutes, who once swarmed tourist locales, and the shadowy men offering cheap cigars and independent taxis have all but disappeared from the streets.

Dozens of new police cars patrol nightly, stopping suspicious vehicles and ordering any prostitutes still bold enough to go outside to return home.

Prostitution is not a crime in Cuba, but an order by a Cuban police officer usually is enough to get anyone off the street. Cuban authorities occasionally round up prostitutes and put them on buses back to their provincial hometowns. Pimping and pandering -- making money off a prostitute -- is seen as a much more serious offense and can mean several years in prison for repeat offenders.

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BOGOTA, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Colombian President Andres Pastrana said on Monday that he believed Cuba could play a ``very important'' part in fledgling efforts to end Colombia's long-running guerrilla war.

Pastrana, who was elected Aug. 7, spoke as he prepared to leave for the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Durban, South Africa, where he said he would hold talks with Cuban President Fidel Castro among other world leaders.

``It will be our first direct talks,'' he said of the planned meeting with Castro, which is set for Wednesday. ``And I think the part that Cuba can play in the country's peace process is very important.''

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HAVANA - The tightly wrapped packages drift ashore without warning. Regalos, Cuban police call them. Gifts.

And more and more of these drug-laden gifts are turning up lately, a sign that the Caribbean is again awash in cocaine.

Cuban officials are worried, especially now that the country has opened its doors to tourists and foreign investors.

"Tourism brings drugs," said Fernando de Cossio, a senior official at the Cuban Foreign Relations Ministry. "Greater contact with the outside world brings drugs. More airlines traveling to Cuba brings drugs."

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Where There's Smoke Demand for Cigars Fuels Smuggling of Cuban Contraband

SAN DIEGOThe sweetest forbidden fruit at the border nowadays is not white, powdery or from Colombia. And it may not seem like the biggest threat to the Western world. But U.S. Customs Service officials are all fired up about a recent surge of the smuggling of Cuban cigars into San Diego. In recent weeks, there have been backtoback record seizures at the San Diego border, netting a cache of nearly 5,000 cigars with an estimated value of $283,500 on the black market, San Diego customs spokeswoman Bobbie Cassidy said. The August seizures put San Diego squarely on the map of the Cuban contraband cigar trail, an exploding black market fueled by the yuppie cigar craze and a worldwide dictate that Cuba makes the champagne of puros. "It's big money," said Rudy Camacho, top U.S. Customs administrator in San Diego. "It's a new smuggling trend, and it's indicative of the demand the American consumer has out there." Nationwide, seizures of Cuban cigars have increased sixfold in the past three years, to more than $1.1 million worth in fiscal 1996, according to the Customs Service. That's a leap from $318,401 in 1995 and a mere $142,014 in 1994, according to the service, which officials say reflects an increase in black market prices for the cigars as well as in seizures. "It's the forbidden fruit factor," said Mike Sheehan, spokesman for customs in Miami, where Cuban cigars have become a status symbol for the terminally hip of South Beach. "The fact that it's illegal and difficult to obtain makes it all the more desirable." San Diego got its first whiff of the problem Aug. 1, when customs inspectors at the San Ysidro border crossing found 2,025 cigars in the trunk of a 1972 Oldsmobile driven by Leonard Powell, 33, of Aliso Viejo, according to Assistant U.S. Atty. Bruce Smith, the prosecutor in the case. The cigarshighend brands such as Montecristo, Romeo y Julieta, Cohiba Esplendidoswere valued at $121,500, a customs statement said. On Aug. 23, customs officials found 2,700 cigars crammed in the trunk of the 1997 Chevrolet Cavalier driven by John Daniel Mejia, 26, of Montebello, Smith said. The Customs Service puts the value of that cache at $162,000. Smith said both men were accused of failure to declare imported goods and knowingly possessing smuggled goods. They are to be arraigned Sept. 16. If convicted, they could face up to five years in jail and fines of up to $10,000, he said. In Miami, a hotbed of opposition to Cuban leader Fidel Castro, smugglers are sometimes accused of violating the Cuban trade embargo. That can bring stiffer penaltiesup to 10 years in prison and $100,000 finesbut defendants often get probation and financial penalties, customs officials say. At the heart of Cuban cigar fever is the trendiness of cigars. In the past few years, cigars have become favored accessories for the likes of Demi Moore and Arnold Schwarzenegger. They have inspired the glossy specialty magazine Cigar Aficionado, whose cover has featured everyone from supermodel Claudia Schiffer to Castro, the man who made Cuban cigars emblematic. Cuban handrolleds have a reputation as the best. The image endures in the face of critics who say the Communist country's capacity to maintain quality has been hurt by the economic crisis after the crumbling of the Soviet bloc. Like Marlboro cigarettes, Cuban cigars have a mystique loaded with the machismo of a modern hemispheric maverick every bit as masculine as the cowboyFidel Castro. The desirability of Cuban cigars is so undisputed that it is a leitmotif of that ultimate arbitrator of the yuppie zeitgeist, "Seinfeld." Kramer's love of Cubanos is a running gag. Even a San Diego federal official admitted that he, too, sometimes sampled an occasional Havana cigar while in Baja California. But the only people allowed to bring Cuban cigars into the United States are those returning directly from Cuba on a licensed trip, according to a U.S. Treasury statement. They can bring up to $100 worth, for personal use, not resale, it said. The smuggling trend is a new one in San Diego, where Freon, endangered parrots, snakeseven a Siberian white tigerhave been found at the border. But there's nothing new about Cuban cigarsor trips to Cubain Baja California. South of the border, aromatic counters of Cuban cigars have become common at tourist hotels, restaurants and stores. There is a weekly flight from Tijuana to Cuba, with a stopover to pick up passengers in Monterrey, that U.S. officials suspect brings some of the black market cigars. Before the August seizures, customs officials found handfuls of Cuban cigars three or four times a week in car traffic across the world's busiest border, San Ysidro, spokesman said. Customs officials say there is plenty of incentive for U.S. distributors to discreetly sell them, since highquality Montecristos can fetch $100 each. Customs officials say Los Angeles and San Francisco are major consumer cities, along with New York and Miami. In Southern California, customs officials believe that more than a few cigar shops secretly stock Cuban brands. Upscale restaurants and cigar clubs patronized by wealthy clientele are another suspected source. But no one is planning a public crackdown, officials say. "The public should not be concerned that we're out there investigating every lightup of a Cuban cigar," said Ed Logan, the special agent in charge of customs investigations along the California border. At a time when international drug smuggling is a major concern, there seems to be a limit to how far law enforcement is willing to go to protect America from the Cuban cigar threat. "These are cigars, after all. It's not heroin," said Mike Sheehan, one of the Customs Service's nationwide experts on the issue.

Copyright Los Angeles Times

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By Pascal Fletcher

HAVANA, April 25 (Reuter) Cuba, which has reported increased drugs seizures by its security forces in recent years, is drawing up a new antidrugs law to cope more effectively with drug trafficking and drug use, a Cuban justice official said on Friday.

``The law is being prepared. It is at the draft phase,'' Roberto Rodriguez Lastre, a prosecutor from the Cuban ProsecutorGeneral's Office, told a seminar on Cuban antidrugs policy held in Havana.

Rodriguez said Cuban authorities were anxious to introduce the new legislation promptly. It was possible that it could be approved next year, he added.

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