U.S. to Fight Drug War With Trade

By MICHELLE FAUL

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (AP) Two senior U.S. officials say President Clinton
will link the fight against drugs to helping develop tiny Caribbean economies
dwarfed by the resources of drug traffickers.

Clinton's drug czar, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, and his special counselor for the
Americas, Thomas McLarty, said the U.S. administration would work to increase
trade opportunities for Caribbean countries.

But they offered no new money to supplement slumped U.S. aid to the region at
talks ending Saturday to set an agenda for the first summit of U.S. and
Caribbean leaders.

Prime Minister Owen Arthur of Barbados indicated the link could introduce a
new phase in relations between the United States and Caribbean nations, which
have felt ignored by Washington after the Cold War.

``Our deliberations ... very often breaking new ground ... have been enthused
by the sense that we are looking to build a new partnership with the United
States,'' Arthur told the news conference Friday.

The 14member Caribbean Community had feared the United States would focus
only on the drug war at the May 911 conference, continuing push for pacts
allowing U.S. law enforcers to pursue suspected traffickers into their
territorial air space and waters.

While most Caribbean countries have signed such agreements, Jamaica and
Barbados have held out to negotiate broader pacts including shared
intelligence and cooperation to prevent gunsmuggling from the United States.

Caribbean negotiators argued that weak economies encourage the corruption on
which international drugtrafficking organizations thrive.

``I think we finally got through to them. The breakthrough was at this
meeting,'' said Clement Rohee, the foreign minister of Guyana.

McLarty suggested Caribbean nations join the InterAmerican Development Bank
and said the United States also could support bids for development funding
from the World Bank.

``We should be able to understand that guns and violence and money laundering
and drug smuggling are all linked and that none of these can be addressed
without taking into account the economic security, the economic growth of the
nations,'' McCaffrey said.

Caribbean economies once buoyed by generous U.S. aid have lost thousands of
jobs, mainly in the garment trade, because of the North American Free Trade
Agreement.

At the same time, the United States has been demanding increased investment
in fighting drugs since the Caribbean has become a major transit point for
drugs that reach the U.S. mainland from producers in South America.

The islands now have major drug abuse problems and associated crime.
McCaffrey noted that Caribbean countries no longer dismiss the drug issue as
purely an American problem because the United States has the largest number
of consumers.

Arthur said only a few issues remained unresolved, including the Caribbean
argument for NAFTAtype parity and the U.S. challenge to the Caribbean's
privileged banana trade with Europe, on which small countries like Dominica
depend.