How America Is Trying to Reclaim Its Backyard...

THE 'COKE' WARS

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited Barbados late last week in
what was the final leg of a Latin American and Caribbean tour --
that also included stops in Peru and Colombia. Gates' visit to
Barbados, where he held talks with regional security chiefs, has
been viewed by experts as an attempt to gauge progress in the Obama
administration's Caribbean Basin Security Initiative, which was
launched in late December 2009. It remains unknown at the time of
writing whether a security delegation from Trinidad & Tobago
attended the talks. When contacted on Wednesday afternoon, a
spokesman at the Ministry of National Security could shed no
further light on the matter. "I am not sure who, if anyone, will be
attending. We are in the middle of an election campaign and they are
busy with that at the moment."

The Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI) is a multilateral
agreement involving all 14 Caricom member states, as well as the
Dominican Republic and the United States. While in theory the
initiative allows for US assistance on a multitude of security
issues, its primary remit is to assist regional efforts aimed at
combating international drug trafficking and transnational organised
crime. At its inception in December 2009, Julissa Reyonoso,
Assistant Secretary of State told Congress that: "The initiative
will help the Caribbean nations address a wide spectrum of
issues affecting the safety of our citizens across a
15-nation region with which we share close historical and cultural
ties." She further added however that: "Stemming the flow of
narcotics remains forefront in our national interest."

When testifying before members of the Senate subcommittee who would
ultimately determine funding for the CBSI, Stephen C Johnson, a
former Assistant Secretary for Defense, stated that: "$US 3.2
billion over 25 years (spent in the region) is insignificant to what
the United States currently spends on security assistance in other
parts of the world." Johnson's words obviously had the desired
effect, in that the subsequent budget allocated to the CBSI was
reported to be around $US 37 million; to be spread over a
five-year period. While all the reports coming out of Barbados have
so far been positive, a government-level meeting dealing with
organised crime and corruption in the region was probably the last
thing that the Jamaicans wanted right now. Diplomatic ties between
the US and Jamaica are currently at a low ebb due to the
latter's refusal to extradite a Jamaican man currently wanted
on multiple felony charges by the American authorities.

Christopher "Duddus" Coke is suspected of being involved in serious
crime, including international arms and drug trafficking, but
repeated US requests to extradite him have been continually rebuffed
by the Jamaican authorities. The Americans believe that the lack of
cooperation by the government in Kingston stems from Coke's alleged
links to senior members of the ruling party. As a result, the US
State Department's annual International Narcotics Control Strategy
Report pulled no punches in launching a withering attack on
high-level public corruption in Jamaica. The report highlighted
that: "Pervasive public corruption continues to undermine efforts
against drug-related and other crimes, and plays a major role in the
safe passage of drugs and drug proceeds through Jamaica. For the
first time, corruption ranked first to crime and violence as the
area of greatest concern for Jamaicans. It remains the major barrier
to improving counter-narcotics efforts.

Indeed, Jamaica's delay in processing the US extradition request for
a major suspected drug and firearms trafficker with reported ties to
the ruling party highlights the potential depth of corruption
in the government." The Jamaicans totally refute the allegations
and state that they simply oppose Coke's extradition on a matter of
principle; in that the wiretap evidence against him was illegally
obtained. Nevertheless, many people believe that it is they who will
blink first in this modern-day depiction of David versus Goliath.
Indeed, Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding has since tasked the
Attorney General to re-examine the facts of the case pertaining to
the American request. Some Jamaicans feel that in this current
period of global austerity, their government stands little to gain
by angering the Americans. One concerned citizen remarked that,
"When they (the US) thought that Manley was flirting with Castro in
the early 70s, the Yanks put such a finan! cial squeeze on us that
I don't think our economy ever fully recovered. We can ill afford to
cross them again."

Analysts in the region have long since maintained that the end of
the Cold War, along with the dramatic rise in Islamist terrorism in
the Middle East and elsewhere, has led to America largely shifting
its international focus away from its tropical neighbours, to other
parts of the globe. Gates' Latin American jaunt, however, is but
another in a string of high-profile visits to the region by an
administration less than two years into its tenure. It follows hard
on the heels of Hillary Clinton's recent trips to Latin America and
Obama's attendance at Trinidad's Summit of the Americas in April
last year. Notwithstanding the change of government and vastly
increased numbers of casualties, when one compares the speed and
alacrity with which the US reacted to the Haitian catastrophe, to
its sluggish and lackadaisical response to its own New
Orleans disaster, we get the sense that this is an
America attempting to re-assert itself in a region that it probably
feels! it has neglected for too long.

High-profile recent wars such as Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as
Vietnam and Korea before that, make it harder to sell the fact that
the United States has intervened more times in the Caribbean Basin
than in any other part of the world. Some in the region may also be
of the mind that those interventions have not always been favourable
to, or in the best interests of, the local peoples. So whether this
rekindled Latin American/Caribbean 'love affair' is a genuine desire
to improve the region's lot, or is simply a flexing of the American
muscle in the face of an increasingly belligerent Venezuela, and a
resurgent Russia -- both of whom are expanding their sphere of
influence in the Caribbean domain -- remains to be seen.

Kito Johnson

Scotland Yard policeman