CUBA-US: Nations Cooperate on Drugs Case Despite Best Intentions

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Oct 8 1996 (IPS) - The fact that no love is lost between the Cuba and the United States has not prevented them from working together against the drug traffickers of the Caribbean region, despite constant attempts to promote animosity.

And even more impressively, this endeavour led to the discovery of 2,100 kg of cocaine in a vessel intercepted by the Cuban authorities after the US coastguards had warned them of its entry into territorial waters.

According to a communique from the Cuban Interior Minister, a vessel named the “Limerik,” sailing under the Honduran flag, was detained by US coastguards who decided to abandon ship after attempting to refloat her for several hours because of the “high risk of sinking.”

This information was sent to Havana in the early hours of Oct. 2 in a radio message from the Miami Coastguard Service, which said the boat had drifted off towards Cuban waters after its 12 crew members – all Colombian and Ecuadoran – had been evacuated.

The free floating “Limerik” was rescued on Oct. 3, 10.5 nautical miles south of Punta Sabanalamar, in the province of Guantanamo, 971 kilometers east of Havana, and a thorough investigation of the body of the vessel revealed 2,100 kgs of well- hidden cocaine.

Cuban television broadcast the event as showing the persistence of the government in the war on drug trafficking early this week.

The Interior Ministry communique coincided with the signing of the “Hot Pursuit” agreement between 13 Caribbean nations and the United States, allowing the US to enter the other countries airspace and territorial waters when on the tail of drug traffickers.

However, Cuba has not signed on to this agreement as it considers granting this access to the United States amounts to a violation of the sovereignty of the Caribbean countries.

Cuba’s Justice Ministry, which is in charge of the nation’s anti-narcotrafficking policy has maintained a constant flow of information on the action carried out this year.

Granma, the official Communist Party daily, reported that in the first five months of 1996, 113,548 kg of marijuana, 77,700 of cocaine and 12 of hasish have been picked up, in one way or another, along the coast.

Local observers claim these reports are purposely stated in order to counteract a campaign by groups of Cuban exiles in Miami claiming the authorities, and even President Fidel Castro himself, are involved in the trans-Caribbean drug trafficking rings.

Stories in the Miami press claiming one of the Colombian narcotraffickers caught recently was carrying a photograph of himself alongside Castro was written off by officials here as “one more attempt to attract international condemnation for Cuba.”

Experts at the US Interests Section in Havana said it was no coincidence that this information appeared just days after the General Council for International Civil Aviation cleared Cuba of blame in the shooting down of two US civilian aircraft on February 24 this year.

Cuban exile and US Republican deputy Lincoln Diaz Balart, claimed Washington was hiding evidence linking the Cuban authorities to groups trafficking illegal drugs to the United States for “inexplicable reasons.”

However, in late July, sources in the US antidrugs agency admitted that it had no such information.

Meanwhile, the Foreign Ministry in Havana reported that, in fact, the nation invests considerable amounts of resources to prevent the nation from becoming a springboard to other countries and “especially to the leading drug market in the world: the United States.”

The Interior Ministry communique released earlier this week said Cuba had informed the correct US authorities of what they had found in the rescue, and the preliminary results of investigations.

The local government stressed its will to contribute to the investigation although, according to the report, the United States has deliberately kept itself off the list of more than 25 states with which Cuba has anti-drug trafficking cooperation agreements.