Give the JDF Coast Guard what it needs

- File

JDF Coast Guard personnel and officials of the U.S. Embassy inspect one of five Rigid-hull Inflatable Boats which are being used to protect Jamaica's coastline.

Lloyd Williams, Senior Associate Editor

IN announcing the Commission of Enquiry to probe the July 7, 2001 killing of the 25 people in west Kingston, Prime Minister P. J. Patterson spoke of "new levels of criminality ... spurred by international dimensions, dedicated to overwhelm our security forces and any institutions which stand in their way".

This had to be an acknowledgement of the clear and present danger of the active presence in Jamaica of the powerful, crushing, corrupting tentacles of the Colom-bian drug syndicates.

And, please, don't be taken in by the hypocritical, holier-than-thou electioneering propaganda that has been assaulting our sensibilities for the last three months. It suggests that any illegal act committed in this country is perpetrated by activists from one political party and one party only.

The megabucks at the fingertips of the managers of Colombian cocaine big business buy protection, facilitation and co-operation from all "Ps" -- political partisans from whichever side of the fence and even from the police who are sworn to thwart them.

To put it another way, there are flourishing PNP and JLP drug warlords despite the inability of our politicians to recognise them as such although they benefit from favours from the drug dons.

Politicians often make fine table-thumping speeches. But when it comes to providing the resources to lift the promises from being just that, they fall woefully short.

In his July 15 speech, Mr. Patterson said in reference to the 'international dimensions', "There is a new criminal network, which we, like other countries, now have to confront."

The fact of the matter is that if Jamaica really wants to take on international cocaine trafficking trade head-on, it will have to give the Jamaica Defence Force Coast Guard the tools to do the job. Specifically -- "go-fast" boats.

For the last three years or so, Haiti, Jamaica and the Bahamas have been used continually by the Colombian and other cocaine-smuggling groups as delivery and storage points for the drug before moving it on to the United States or Europe. The estimate is that 30 per cent of the cocaine that gets into the United States each year is smuggled through the Caribbean.

The go-fast boats are the vessels of choice to transport the cocaine. These sleek, low-slung, speedy boats represent a minimal investment, which is complemented by their high cargo capacity, most of them capable of carrying up to 1,000 lb. or 454.5 kilos of cocaine on each run.

For the Jamaican law enforcement authorities to inflict any significant long-term damage to the cocaine trafficking and gun-running business from Colombia and elsewhere in South America to Jamaica, the JDF Coast Guard (with the assistance of the United States Coast Guard and other allies) has to be able to do three things.

First, it has to seize so much of the drug - and the guns - that the quantity of cocaine and the number of arms turning up here will fall significantly, registering a tangible effect on the mayhem they are causing here.

Second, it will have to provide a dependable and quick reaction to the specific threats posed by the drug smugglers.

Third, it will have to constantly keep the drug/arms traffickers off balance, riveting the message to drug smugglers and their friends here that they are always at risk to law enforcement action.

Every narco-student knows that drug traffickers alter their routes and methods continually in response to interdiction operations, always seeking the secure paths with the least resistance and the most profits.

A reason the cocaine smugglers have shifted their operations from the Eastern Caribbean to Jamaica over the last few years, has been the pressure put on them there by U.S., British and Dutch navy ships.

The International Narcotics Strategy Report 2000 says that data for the first half of 2000 indicate that the amount of cocaine transiting Jamaica quadrupled compared to the same period in 1999, making Jamaica the leading cocaine transhipment point in the Caribbean. In the first two quarters of 2000, about 36 tonnes of cocaine are estimated to have passed through Jamaica, compared to an estimated total of 31 tonnes for 1999.

But despite the significant increase in the estimated cocaine flow through Jamaica in 2000, the local authorities seized 1,624.4 kilograms of cocaine, far less than in 1999.

INCSR says that almost one half of this amount - 780 kilograms - was seized in a joint US Coast Guard/DEA/JCF/JDF operation.

Technical help

Facilitated by the Shiprider Agreement with the U.S. Government, the JDF could conceivably get all the technical help it can from fixed wing and rotary aircraft ranging from P-3 AEW planes with dome radar, to P-3 Slicks with detection systems designed explicitly for drug interdiction and C550 interceptor-jets for close tracking.

A helicopter chase in the dead of a dark, rainy night with tough-as-rock narco-agents rappelling to ground, might be dramatic enough, guaranteed to hit the headlines of newspapers and the TV evening news.

But helicopters need a place to land if fleeing drug felons are to be apprehended, and the police need a road to drive on to make their interdictions.

So unless the JDF Coast Guard gets its own go-fast boats to run the cocaine smugglers to ground and so beat them at their own game, our drug interdiction effort will show only minimal returns. Cut off the Colom-bian go-fast boats and you cut off the cocaine and the guns from that source.

Commander Craig Powell, the recently re-assigned Defence Attache at the U.S. Embassy in Kingston, describes go-fast boats as "the centre of gravity" of the cocaine trade between Colombia and Jamaica. He is right.

The Jamaica Defence Force Coast Guard needs some go-fast boats desperately if our law enforcement agencies are to begin to tackle the cocaine carriers on a level sailing field.

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