CUBAN OFFICIALS: OPENNESS MAY INCREASE DRUG TRAFFIC

HAVANA - The tightly wrapped packages drift ashore without warning.
Regalos, Cuban police call them. Gifts.

And more and more of these drug-laden gifts are turning up lately, a sign
that the Caribbean is again awash in cocaine.

Cuban officials are worried, especially now that the country has opened its
doors to tourists and foreign investors.

"Tourism brings drugs," said Fernando de Cossio, a senior official at the
Cuban Foreign Relations Ministry. "Greater contact with the outside world
brings drugs. More airlines traveling to Cuba brings drugs."

The Cubans have cause for concern, drug-trade experts say. At just 90 miles
from U.S. shores, the island would make an ideal transit spot for Colombian
cocaine and heroin. Its air and sea defenses are limited. It has an
extensive black market, which could be the beginnings of a smuggling
infrastructure. And its people are hungry for dollars.

"I would expect that in the future it would be a logical place for drug
criminals to go," said retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, head of the White
House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Already, Cuban authorities have detected increased numbers of smugglers
slipping through their country's waters. But they say they can't always
keep up with traffickers' powerful, low-slung boats.

"We have very old vessels, some dating practically to World War II. Because
of that, we can't always catch the traffickers" said Jose Luis Galvan, a
drug-trade specialist at the Ministry of Justice in Havana.

It's not that Cuban authorities take smuggling lightly. Nonbelievers need
only recall the case of Arnaldo Ochoa, a division general and hero of the
Cuban revolution. He and three other military officials were executed after
being found guilty of trafficking in 1989.

Prosecutors said that even if Gen. Ochoa had pumped his "blood-stained"
drug money into Cuba's military and the fledgling tourist industry, it was
"a disgrace."

And Cuban President Fidel Castro declared: "No revolution is viable if it
has to depend on drug trafficking."

Problems in region

Since the episode, there have been no serious signs of drug corruption in
Cuba, American agents say. Other Caribbean nations, such as the Dominican
Republic and Haiti, haven't been so fortunate.

"The Caribbean is becoming a major problem for trafficking," said Felix
Jimenez, a senior Drug Enforcement Administration official who headed the
agency's Puerto Rico office. "Seizures and the number of trafficking
organizations have increased dramatically."

Traffickers are believed to smuggle more than 100 tons of cocaine through
the Caribbean and into Florida, Texas and other states every year.

As some would say, it's deja vu all over again.

The last big surge in the Caribbean came in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
American drug agents and others cracked down, arresting hundreds of people
and seizing thousands of tons of cocaine and marijuana.

Much of the flow then shifted to the west. And by the early '90s, as much
as 70 percent of the U.S.-bound cocaine was passing through Mexico. Now
that number is as low as 53 percent and dropping, DEA agents estimate.

Anti-drug efforts along the U.S.-Mexico border explain part of the shift
back to the Caribbean. But many Colombian traffickers are returning simply
because it's cheaper, DEA agents say.

"The Colombians were getting fed up with the Mexicans," said William
Mitchell, special agent in charge of the DEA's Miami office. "The Mexicans
were charging them a kilo of merchandise for every kilo moved. So if the
Colombians were moving a ton of cocaine through Mexico, they had to pay the
Mexicans 500 kilos of cocaine. That's a very dear price to pay when you can
move it through the Caribbean for one-fifth the cost."

It's not just the money. By paying the Mexicans in drugs and not cash, the
Colombians "created their own competitor," Mr. Mitchell said. "They don't
want to do that again."

The return to the Caribbean caught a lot of people off guard. And some of
the smaller, weaker countries, such as St. Vincent, Antigua and Anguillas,
are in danger of becoming "narco-nations," some law enforcement officials say.

The Colombians don't mind. They just want to take care of business,
American agents say. And the Dominicans, in particular, have turned out to
be loyal partners.

"The Dominicans are very hungry for power and money," Mr. Jimenez said.
"They don't mess around. The cocaine shipments that pass through their
hands are sold, converted into cash and money is delivered back to the
Colombians. There are no rip-offs."

Marino Vinicio Castillo, head of the Dominican Republic's anti-drug
program, blames geography.

"Look at a map," he said. "As a transit point between Colombia and the
U.S., we're like some big aircraft carrier out there in the Caribbean."

Cuban involvement

Things aren't so dire in Cuba, said a spokesman for the United Nations
International Drug Control Program in Barbados. "Trafficking is not that
much of a threat. Yet."

Small-time dealing has risen, Cuban officials concede. People have
discovered they can earn precious hard currency selling drugs, so not all
the drug packages that float ashore are turned in to authorities.

"More people than before are keeping the drugs they find. Or they'll turn
in part of what they find and sell the rest to foreigners," Mr. Galvan
said. "Suppose someone sells $30 worth of drugs. That's a fortune for a
Cuban."

Many Cubans make just $25 or $30 a month. The country has been going
through desperate economic times since the breakup of the former Soviet Union.

Despite the hardship, violent crime is rare and many tourists say they feel
safer in Havana than in most American cities. Cuban officials add that drug
use is practically nonexistent, and the country's only two
drug-rehabilitation centers cater to foreigners.

Even so, Cuban officials say they want to learn all they can about the drug
phenomenon, even if it's from the United States, their old Cold War enemy.
After all, Mr. Galvan said, the best way to combat international drug
syndicates is to join forces.

"You can't just erase Cuba from the map," he said.

As a sign of their goodwill, the Cubans say they turned over to the United
States 6.6 tons of cocaine found hidden aboard a 219-foot freighter called
the Limerick in October 1996. The U.S. Coast Guard had boarded the ship in
international waters after it began to sink, but it drifted into Cuban
territory.

Two Colombians were arrested. A Cuban intelligence officer and three border
guards later testified against them in Miami, and the suspects were each
slapped with more than 50 years' jail time.

Ivelaw Lloyd Griffith, author of the book Drugs and Security in the
Caribbean - Sovereignty Under Siege, said Americans and Cubans actually
cooperate more often than people think. But given the long-standing U.S.
opposition to the Castro regime, it's a forbidden subject, he said.

"People don't want to shout about it from the rooftops," he said.
"Officially, the attitude is that we don't deal with the Cuban government."

A State Department report from March contends Cuba didn't interdict any
sea-going narcotics shipments in 1997. The 5.7 tons of marijuana and other
drugs seized were picked up at sea or along the shore after traffickers
missed their mark, the report said.

Cuban officials criticize the Americans for judging other countries rather
than cutting back the U.S. demand for drugs. They add that they would
welcome greater cooperation with American authorities.

"But there's no willingness by the U.S. to have a comprehensive cooperative
agreement," Mr. Cossio said.

Asked if the United States ought to do more, retired Gen. McCaffrey said,
"It's a question I rush to avoid."

Pausing a moment, he added, "Cuba is eager to cooperate on drugs. We need
to think about what we need to do in the future."

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski