U.S. HEARS ISLAND'S DRUG-WAR NEEDS

SWEETWATER -- Puerto Rico's former attorney general delivered an
after-Christmas wish list to Congress on Tuesday, telling members that the
commonwealth is unprepared to keep pace with traffickers who have turned
the island into a staging area for cocaine and heroin destined for the
United States. But not for lack of trying.

Jose Fuentes Agostini, who resigned as Puerto Rico's top law-enforcement
official last week, said state and federal soldiers in the island's war
against drugs have established an award-winning intelligence center but are
stymied by an overburdened federal court system and shortages in personnel
and response equipment.

And come March, he said, the island's anti-drug task force may be forced to
sit and watch from the sidelines as cocaine-laden planes leave the jungles
of Colombia.

That's when a new radar capable of detecting planes flying in a distant
region will begin operating from Puerto Rico. Two such "relocatable
over-the-horizon radars" already are in use in Texas and West Virginia, and
the third one in the Caribbean will help drug agents keep abreast of South
American hot spots.

"We'll know whenever any aircraft takes off from the jungles of Colombia,
but how will we respond?" Fuentes asked the House Committee on Government
Reform, during a South Florida hearing on drug trafficking in Cuba and
Puerto Rico. "The capabilities are not there."

As one solution, he suggested that Puerto Rico's anti-drug forces be
allowed to use eight Blackhawk helicopters assigned to the Puerto Rican
National Guard. With two engines each, the choppers are ideal for flying
for extended periods over the ocean, Fuentes said. But sharing the
Blackhawks with the guard, which uses them primarily for training, wouldn't
come cheap. A mere hour's flight costs about $2,200, and each helicopter
would have to be equipped with infrared equipment for surveillance.

The Coast Guard cutters that ply the Caribbean are equally ill-equipped,
Fuentes said. Shipboard personnel have little trouble spotting small boats
that speed to Haiti to drop off loads of drugs, which are later brought
overland to the Dominican Republic, and then smuggled on wooden boats to
Puerto Rico for easy distribution to the United States.

Catching them, though, is a different story. The cutters, Fuentes said,
can't chase boats zipping along at more than 50 mph. So, added to his wish
list are nine inflatable "go-fast" boats, one for every active cutter. The
cost: about $150,000 each.

Fuentes also requested:

Two more federal judgeships and magistrates for Puerto Rico, bringing the
total to nine. One of the island's seven federal judgeships has been vacant
for seven years, Fuentes said, creating a backlog that has all but
paralyzed civil cases and severely crippled criminal cases.

A quadrupling of immigration officials in Puerto Rico, from 40 to 160.
Fuentes said that 95 percent of the all drugs ferried into Puerto Rico are
brought by illegal aliens from Colombia or the Dominican Republic, yet U.S.
immigration officials insist that the problems of drugs and illegal aliens
are unrelated.

Fuentes' requests did not fall on deaf ears. Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., the
committee chairman who has assailed the Clinton administration for slashing
anti-drug efforts abroad in favor of domestic prevention and treatment
programs, said he will send a letter outlining Puerto Rico's needs to
President Clinton and other government officials.