A NEW phase in the war against drug trafficking was announced by National Security Minister Peter Phillips in Parliament on Tuesday.
The announcement came against the background of a frightening escalation of killings of policemen. Detective Corporal Erro Bell is the third policeman to be gunned down in less than three weeks and the seventh since the start of the year.
We believe the drug war and attacks on police are connected. For, as the Minister himself has said, the current levels of criminality are directly influenced by the trafficking. Our own reporting has pointed to the go-fast boats which bring cocaine from Colombia for transhipment elsewhere; and in that process are believed to smuggle in guns for their local confederates and others in the criminal underworld.
Guns are therefore a big part of the crime wave. The Minister's announcement of tighter screening of increased numbers of South American nationals in the western section of the island is the latest strategy to be pursued, and with good reason.
Recent reports have indicated a major shift in drug trafficking along some sections of the south coast of the island where normally fishing is a major economic activity.
Narcotics police have reported that they keep a close watch on the situation and have noticed an unusually high presence of South American nationals.
Monitoring this situation will require sensitivity in a country acutely dependent on tourism. For it may require diplomatic along with forensic skills to bring to justice clever drug traffickers posing as innocent tourist visitors.
This circumstance brings to mind the difficulty the police may have in monitoring Jamaican deportees who have fallen afoul of the law elsewhere and are deemed likely to turn to crime locally.
We raise this matter in view of the case earlier this month when the Court of Appeal threw out an appeal brought by the Attorney-General for a deportee to be declared a restricted person. We agree with the Court's decision that it should not "rubber stamp" evidence that did not support conduct which constituted a threat to public safety.
Similarly, the new strategy Mr. Phillips has declared must draw the line between welcome visitor and dangerous drug trafficker.
