ACCESSION NUMBER:00000
FILE ID:96052309.LAR
DATE:05/23/96
TITLE:23-05-96  COAST GUARD, GAO SAY CARIBBEAN DRUG TRAFFIC WORSE

TEXT:
(Traffickers becoming more sophisticated)  (570)
By Bruce Carey
USIA Staff Writer


WASHINGTON -- More trafficking and sophisticated evasion techniques by
drug cartels together with reduced government funding to fight them is
making U.S. drug interdiction efforts increasingly difficult in the
Caribbean, say the General Accounting Office (GAO) and the Coast
Guard.

Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Robert Kramek and GAO official Jess
Ford delivered this message May 23 to a panel of the House of
Representatives Committee on Government Oversight. The two officials
said that the problem has been growing worse for some time despite
valiant efforts to address it.

"The situation in the transit zone has changed since the early 1990s,"
Kramek told the panel, the Subcommittee on National Security.

Non-commercial maritime traffic has replaced much of the general
aviation smuggling that was employed in the past. Smugglers are no
longer easily thwarted by randon patrols and boardings, the admiral
said.

"Although that tactic can be effective in deterring some
(trafficking)," he added, "smugglers are getting smarter and employing
advanced technology that makes them harder to sort and tougher to
monitor undetected."

An example of this, Kramek said, is the accuracy of commercially
available satellite navigation systems. These allow traffickers to
rendezvous at a specific point without the use of radio, which could
betray their location to authorities, said Kramek.

Kramek asserted that it is impossible to board every vessel in the
Caribbean. Thus, good intelligence and technology to identify
traffickers is a growing necessity in the anti-drug effort. He urged
Congress to approve the Clinton administration's request for funds
that would allow the Coast Guard to coordinate with the Defense
Department's Southern Command in seeking out and seizing illicit drugs
in the Caribbean.

Ford testified to the subcommittee in connection with GAO's release of
a special report on the drug problem in the Caribbean. GAO, the
congressional investigative agency, reported that cocaine traffickers,
in particular, have been shifting their operations from air smuggling
to seaborne smuggling in order to get their illicit wares into the
United States.

Ford said that a part of U.S. strategy has been to strengthen the
resolve of Caribbean and Latin American nations to support the U.S.
anti-trafficking regime. She noted that the State Department has
entered into agreements with some countries to increase air and sea
patrols.

But she added that U.S. officials interviewed by GAO agree that these
countries lack the capabilities needed to conduct such anti-drug
operations. These officials expressed the view that anti-drug efforts
also are inhibited by corruption in some countries, she said.

"Budget reductions for interdiction efforts in the transit zone have
reduced the ability of DOD (Defense Department) and law enforcement
agencies to identify, track, and intercept drug traffickers," Ford
said. The result, she added, has been a decline in the number of
seizures of cocaine.

The administration has not yet developed a plan to implement a cocaine
eradication strategy in the Caribbean, Ford said.

Thus far, the Office of National Drug Control Policy does not have the
authority to command the assets of U.S. government agencies such as
the military in dealing with the Caribbean situation, Ford said in
summary of the GAO report conclusions. Nor has it fully resolved
issues of intelligence sharing among agencies, she said.
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