| Gordon,
a villager whose family has been fishing the waters off
Jamaica's south-eastern coast for generations, needed
a little extra cash. So one day last year, another fisherman
introduced him to a local cocaine smuggler. Gordon became
a bit player in a growth industry. In his 18-foot-long
boat, he makes regular pick-ups at prearranged spots a
few miles offshore. Occasionally he's called at the last
minute to pluck floating packets from the sea when they
are jettisoned by traffickers spotted by the U.S. and
Jamaican coast guard patrols.
It
is dangerous work─but very tempting in a land
where times are hard and hopes are scant.
`Fishing
can't send my kids to school. Fishing can't buy a new
motor for my boat,' said Gordon, who only gave his first
name. Smuggling cocaine more than doubled his income,
Gordon said, sipping rum at a seaside bar and ruminating
upon the $15,000, 45-horsepower Yamaha engine that now
graces his boat.
Gordon,
38, refused to give his last name for fear of the law,
but he spoke openly about his activities. While locals
refused to discuss Gordon specifically, they confirmed
that cocaine smuggling by fishermen is widespread.
`I
hear it happens all up and down the coast,' said Reddy
Gilson, 32. `This kind of thing is hard to keep secret.
One man shows up with money, new shoes, new clothes,
more money than he had before, and everyone knows where
he got it from.'
John
Tom, 24, who steams fish on the roadside, said: `We
all know what's going on. You can't call the police
and tell them what you know. If they see you talking
to a police officer they'll come and kill you and your
family.'
Jean-Luc
Lemahieu, manager of the Barbados-based United Nations
program to fight drugs in the Caribbean, said the phenomenon
is rather new in Jamaica. `Up to two or three years
ago, the impression was that Jamaica's major problem
was marijuana,' he said.
Colombian
traffickers began routing more shipments through Jamaica─as
well as Haiti─as U.S. authorities clamped down
on smuggling through their Caribbean territory of Puerto
Rico and as enforcement improved in the Dominican Republic,
Mr Lemahieu said.
Located
about halfway between Colombia and Florida and offering
a well-established network of gangs as allies, Jamaica
is an attractive alternate transit point.
`Where
we used to see maybe one boatload of cocaine a week,
we're now seeing three to four boatloads of cocaine,
each weighing' 800 to 1,800 pounds, said Beres Spence,
head of Jamaica's police narcotics division. `Traffickers
can access every inch of our shoreline, but it would
be impossible for us to cover every inch.'
Mr
Spence and foreign analysts estimate that, at most,
a fifth of the cocaine passing through Jamaica is intercepted.
A record 5,500 pounds was seized last year, more than
double the amount of the year before. While the increase
might reflect better detection, it also suggests a rise
in trafficking.
Most
of the cocaine is shipped on slim vessels outfitted
with powerful engines that can travel from the northern
coast of Colombia to Jamaica in about a day.
Only
a small amount of the cocaine is consumed by the local
market, where a kilogram fetches $6,000. Most is smuggled
to the U.S. where the same amount sells for $20,000.
Most
smugglers stockpile large shipments here with the help
of people like Gordon, then send smaller deliveries
north on airline flights, cruise ships, or smaller boats.
With
unemployment running officially at 15%, and in reality
much higher, finding `mules' to carry the drugs is easy.
Over a thousand Jamaicans out of a population of 2.6
million were arrested for possession of cocaine during
the last two years, and most were also charged with
attempting to export the drug, police say.
The
extent of Jamaica's role is summed up by one statistic:
according to U.S. Customs, 64% of those arrested for
cocaine smuggling at U.S. airports between October 1998
and September 1999 were coming from Jamaica, though
not all were Jamaican.
Mr
Spence said the Air Jamaica hub in Montego Bay, with
flights going to major cities in Europe and North American,
was a `hub for drug smuggling.'
American
officials cite the 1998 `shiprider agreement' allowing
U.S. ships and airplanes to chase smugglers into Jamaican
waters and airspace as a sign that officials here are
serious. But corruption hampers the efforts, says the
U.S. State Department.
`Corruption,
especially among members of the security and law enforcement
forces' remains a serious problem, said the department's
most recent report on Jamaica, published in April 1998.
Many
of Kingston's gangs were created in the 1970s to fight
turf wars on behalf of political parties. The drug business
has helped make them independent, but they retain a
loose affiliation with politicians that, Mr Leinahieu
suggested, might hamper interdiction.
`The
Jamaican politicians created a Frankenstein and they
have not controlled it,' Mr Lemahieu said. `They are
trying to get rid of the ties. How far they will succeed
only the future will tell.'
Yet
while smuggling activities are up, cocaine use has not
flourished among Jamaicans─partly because the
popular, marijuana-consuming Rastafarians despise the
drug. `It's never been accepted the way marijuana has,'
said Winston Mendes-Davidson, head of Jamaica's Medical
Association.
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