INDEPENDENT SENATOR Professor Munroe, has painted an even wider canvas than our Sunday Gleaner exposé implicating policemen in drug trafficking. The Senator's Friday night speech pointed to the effects of the cocaine threat arising from an influx of Colombians who are believed to be masterminding the transhipment of the drug through to its major market in the United States.
This Colombian invasion was first reported by the Sunday Gleaner from as far back as January this year. At that stage we described what in effect was an upgrading of a primarily ganja traffic to the more pernicious "coke" or "white lady".
A major point of last Sunday's exposé was that the controversy over wire-tapping might have tended to mask its raison d'etre: i.e. the spread of drug trafficking and its corrupting influence.
It's bad enough that a significant cadre of the constabulary is implicated. As Professor Munroe puts it, "there is a clear and present danger that the tens of millions of Americium dollars involved in this trafficking is buying and corrupting not only elements within the police force, but individual politicians, customs and correctional officers... and ultimately judges and prosecutors are in danger as well".
That, we submit, is a frightening scenario. For if the effectiveness of law enforcement as well as the justice system is compromised, what is left to halt the slide into narcotic anarchy?
Just last week two Colombians, convicted of illegal entry by way of speedboat, were somehow spirited out of the General Penitentiary, provided with passports and plane tickets and flown out of the island before their official release. It was a sample of the corruption that can make a shambles of the nation's security system.
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