Pubdate: Wed, 26 May 1999
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Copyright: 1999 The Seattle Times Company
Contact:  http://www.seattletimes.com/
Author:  Douglas Farah, The Washington Post

JOINT ANTI-DRUG EFFORT WITH CUBA BLOCKED

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."

Notwithstanding Cuba's dire economic problems, which were exacerbated after
the collapse of its Soviet patron in 1989, the government of President Fidel
Castro is mounting what counter-drug experts in Europe and the United States
say is a serious, if underfunded, effort to block the flow of illegal drugs
through Cuba.

Cuba's program has so impressed U.S. law-enforcement officials that they
would like to cooperate further with their Cuban counterparts, who already
have provided discreet assistance in several major cases. There's just one
problem: Some members of Congress, with backing from many Cuban Americans,
are dead set against any cooperation between Havana and Washington, which
have not had diplomatic relations since 1961.

"From our point of view, the policy makes no sense," said a senior U.S.
law-enforcement official. "We can't close off the Caribbean (from drug
traffic) without dealing with Cuba, and they have shown a willingness to
cooperate with us by acting on all the information we pass on to them. It is
a major hole that needs to be plugged."

Just 90 miles from Florida, Cuba is an ideal transshipment point for illegal
drugs bound for the United States, according to U.S. law-enforcement
officials, who estimate that about 30 percent of the cocaine reaching the
United States from Colombia passes through the Caribbean. Yet for now,
counter-drug cooperation is limited to information exchanged on a
case-by-case basis between the U.S. Coast Guard and Cuba's border guards via
fax or an antiquated telex system.

In contrast, the counter-drug cooperation between Cuba and such U.S. allies
as Great Britain, Spain, Colombia and France is growing. Cuban officials
said they would welcome increased cooperation with the United States in
fighting drug traffickers even in the absence of any progress toward lifting
the U.S. economic embargo against the island.

"You would think that if there were any area in which we could work
together, this would be it," said Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's
legislative assembly and the government's point man for relations with the
United States. "It shows a lack of will by the United States. Both sides
would benefit from broader, systematic cooperation."

Earlier this month, Barry McCaffrey, the Clinton administration's director
of national drug-control policy, said the United States "probably ought to
be willing to encourage" dialogue with Cuban authorities on counter-drug
cooperation. But McCaffrey has been under attack from Cuban-American
lawmakers and their allies in Congress, who have long contended that
Castro's government is not fighting drug smugglers but assisting them.

In a Dec. 30, 1998, letter, Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Fla.; Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla.; and Dan Burton, R-Ind., demanded that McCaffrey
address "the issue of the Cuban government's participation in
narco-trafficking and take all necessary actions to end the Clinton
administration's cover-up of that reality."

In an angry response on Jan. 28, McCaffrey, a retired army general, said he
was "insulted" by the tone of the letter, "categorically" denied a cover-up
and said there was "no conclusive evidence to indicate that Cuban leadership
is currently involved in this criminal activity."

Despite McCaffrey's comments and pleas from the Justice Department, the DEA
and the Coast Guard, there are no plans to improve the level of counter-drug
cooperation between the two countries, senior administration officials said.

With 42,000 square miles of territorial waters and 4,195 islands and small
keys, Cuba is a smuggler's paradise. Most of the cocaine shipped through
Cuba is dropped by low-flying aircraft near uninhabited keys, where it is
retrieved by traffickers in speedboats. Those boats then ferry it to larger
ships en route to the United States or other destinations such as Mexico,
Haiti and Jamaica.

David Ridgway, British ambassador to Cuba, described anti-drug cooperation
between his country and Cuba - most of it $400,000 per year for training -
as "first class." Cuba's "political commitment is very strong," he said in
Havana. "We are satisfied our money is well-spent."

Thanks to British aid, airport immigration officials can now run computer
profiles of passengers to determine which ones are likely to be involved in
drug trafficking. Since 1994, when the tourism boom began in Cuba, 215
foreigners have been arrested for drug trafficking. Luggage is checked by
drug-sniffing dogs trained in France.

Anti-drug efforts also are focused on Cuba's new free-trade zones, through
which most goods are shipped without being inspected, making them favorites
of drug traffickers. Last Dec. 3, for example, Colombian police seized 7.7
tons of cocaine in Cartagena, Colombia, bound for Spain by way of Havana.
Cuban and Colombian authorities determined that the route had been used at
least three times before it was discovered.

Cuban law-enforcement authorities say they are motivated by a desire to keep
drug use from gaining a foothold on the island.

For decades after Castro's 1959 revolution, illegal drugs were virtually
unknown in Cuba. But in recent years, as the tourism boom has brought in
outside influences and U.S. dollars, marijuana, cocaine and crack cocaine
have begun to infiltrate the island, authorities said.

According to the Interior Ministry, Cuban authorities discovered 30 loads of
cocaine washed up on shore last year - compared with 12 in 1994 - because
traffickers missed their rendezvous points or intentionally dumped it to
avoid arrest. They recovered 68 such loads in the first three months of this
year.

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