AN OUTPOST IN THE BANANA AND MARIJUANA WARS

KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent and the Grenadines -- When American troops helped
destroy more than one million marijuana plants in December in the rugged
northern regions of this island, growers were outraged.

They protested on radio and in front of government offices.

They appealed to business and political leaders.

They even started a petition drive to ask President Clinton for damages.
"The Americans are not showing any real concern for our economic and social
development," said Junior Cottle, chairman of a group of marijuana growers
who described himself as "representative of the ganja man." Cottle said he
did not grow marijuana but did smoke it. Marijuana is not legal here. But
its production in the remote mountains has, American officials said, taken
off in recent years, making St. Vincent the second largest grower in the
Caribbean, after Jamaica. Growers said they were turning to the crop to deal
with an unemployment rate that is officially 20 percent but that many people
here say is far higher. The animosity directed at the United States comes
from two directions. Residents have a feeling that Washington has abandoned
this corner of the world, now that the Cold War is over and it no longer
sees a Communist threat in the Caribbean. There is also a marked hostility
against Clinton for waging war with Europe over banana trade preferences,
the legitimate backbone of the economy. The nub of the dispute is that
Europe unfairly favors bananas grown by its former colonies, including this
onetime British outpost, where English is spoken and cricket is a favorite
sport.

The preference discriminates against American companies that produce
bananas, the United States says. Officials here say removing the import
protections would deal an economic catastrophe to countries that have little
capacity to grow anything else and whose bananas are costly to grow. Some
government and business leaders say the United States risks undermining its
anti-drug efforts in the region if banana growers turn to drugs -- not just
marijuana, but also trafficking in Colombian heroin and cocaine as
alternatives. At the very least, some Caribbean experts note, the banana
issue is creating such deep resentment that it may compromise the
willingness of Caribbean countries to continue cooperating in anti-drug
efforts. "When Caricom countries meet in July, I think you'll see a bold
statement of resistance," said Ivelaw Griffith, a Caribbean expert Florida
International University in Miami. Caricom is the Caribbean Community, the
regional economic association. Marijuana growers here are seeking to anger
the public against further eradication while exploring an agenda that
includes promoting marijuana for medicinal purposes and pushing for job
creation in fishing and nonbanana agriculture. The president of the Chamber
of Industry and Commerce, Martin Barnard, said of the U.S.' stance: "People
don't understand it. They're saying, 'What more can they do to us?' " Prime
Minister James F. Mitchell, who asked for the mission in December, refused
to see the farmers, telling them in a terse letter in November that his
government was "firmly opposed to the illegal drug trade." Mitchell said in
an interview that he would like to see even more American assistance to curb
marijuana cultivation and the heroin and cocaine trafficking through the
Caribbean. But he said he regarded the friend in drug control as a foe on
the banana front. "We have a property-owner democracy, and that's what's
been threatened, our quality of life," he said. American trade officials
said that they did not want to hurt Caribbean banana producers and that
there were ways to protect them like subsidies to bring down banana prices.
At the University of Miami in February, the Clinton administration's
director of drug policy, Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, declined to comment on the
banana problem, calling it "a complex issue." But McCaffrey said he did not
accept the argument that "it's either this or drugs." "Nobody turns to
marijuana or opium or cocaine production as a survival mechanism," he said.
"They turn to that because you can make more money." But drug riches are not
readily apparent at the house of a 39-year-old banana farmer who also grows
marijuana and identified himself only as Nebo. He lives in the northeastern
town of Georgetown, an hour's drive from here, in an unpainted
concrete-block shell with two bedrooms and a family of seven. As the sweet
smell of marijuana wafted in from somewhere around the house, Nebo said his
10,000 marijuana plants yielded an income that was at least 10 times the
revenue from his three acres of bananas.

Nebo said he had no reason to grow bananas anymore except that "it's in the
culture." "It's been in my family," he said. "I just keep doing it. Right
now I'm taking my income from ganja to support the banana crop. Ganja has
been beneficial to me. It's paid for my house, schooling, food, the bills."
Another banana grower in Georgetown, Iris Walker, said she and her husband
would never resort to drugs.

But she said marijuana farmers should be accepted as a necessary evil,
underscoring the feelings of many residents. "It's illegal," Ms. Walker
said. "But if some people don't do it, they don't have bread for the
children." She called the Americans "selfish." Government officials said
they were trying hard to diversify the economy to reduce the reliance on the
banana crop, which is recovering from a slump caused by bad weather and low
prices. Tourism in St. Vincent and the Grenadines earns three times as much
as bananas. But officials say that the agricultural dollar goes longer
because it is spent locally and that no industry can yet replace bananas in
importance. Marijuana growers and their supporters say they stand ready to
help. "We're ready to be part of the process," Cottle said. "The fact that
we come out and talk illustrates the magnitude of the problem."