KINGSTON HUMANITARIAN IN U.S. JAIL ON DRUG CHARGES

Local News - A 74-year-old Kingston humanitarian who has devoted the last
23 years to helping poor people in Central America is facing 30 years in
jail after being arrested on drug charges in Louisiana.

Ed Shaw, a retired high school teacher who started a fund to help the poor
of Belize and who was honoured by city council in 1997 for his work, was
charged with possession of cocaine in Louisiana last October.

The charges have shocked those who know him here. They say it's
inconceivable that he could be involved in criminal activity.

Louisiana State Police arrested him and three other men after they found
cocaine and weapons in an SUV in Covington, La. Shaw has been charged with
felony possession of cocaine over 400 grams.

Shaw is being held on $250,000 bail and has been imprisoned for the last
six months. He faces a mandatory minimum 30 years in prison if convicted of
the felony at trial, which is tentatively set to start later this month.
Friends and supporters in Canada say Shaw is guilty of nothing more than
being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

information is sketchy

Information on the case is sketchy and often third-hand. Shaw had dropped
in to see friends in Rio Verde, Mexico, following the funeral of his
brother in Toronto.

Shaw had helped establish several small businesses in Rio Verde, where he
also sponsored soccer teams and hoped to open a cultural museum.

Court documents show he drove from Mexico to Texas, then set out for
Florida to visit friends there. He was travelling with an Alberta man he
knew in a two-vehicle convoy

The pair stopped in Covington and checked into a motel, where Shaw stayed.
His friend went to see two other men who were having trouble with their truck.

The truck was having gear trouble and the three visited a wrecker to
inquire about the cost of having it towed to Florida, their eventual
destination. Told the cost was $1,000, the men offered to pay cash, and
just a month after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, that made the wrecker
suspicious. He called police to report his suspicions. Police, with the
help of a dog, searched the truck and discovered the cocaine and several guns.

Inside the vehicle, they also found a note indicating the motel where Shaw
was staying with the Alberta man.

The note was Shaw's only connection to the men's vehicle and the drugs, but
based on that, Louisiana State Police arrested Shaw and charged him along
with the other three.

He has been incarcerated ever since.

Relatives who flew down to visit him recently say he is in relatively good
spirits and is helping other inmates with their schooling and giving
language lessons. The state considers him a maximum security risk so he is
shackled and wears a distinctive red-striped prison uniform.

Supporters, of whom he has many, are starting an Ed Shaw Legal Defence
Fund, which they hope will raise enough money to fly character witnesses
down to Louisiana for his trial, which has been delayed a number of times
already. They are adamant that Shaw would never be involved in the
activities of which he is accused.

"No. There's no way Ed would get involved in this kind of thing," said
David Pulver, who has known Shaw for years and who has visited him and
written about his efforts to help impoverished Central Americans.

"He's always been a good man. He's always supported the right causes," said
Port Hope's Ken Tancock, who met Shaw more than 50 years ago when the two
were undergraduates at Queen's.

"It's just not Ed at all," said retired priest Tim Coughlan of Belleville,
who has known Shaw for more than 20 years and was impressed with Shaw's
Central American efforts when he toured the area as part of his own
international humanitarian work.

"I just don't believe that at all."

He suggested Shaw was a very trusting man who had been used by his
travelling companion.

"Ed is such an innocent person who would trust you right away," he said. "I
think Ed's been taken advantage of and he's paying a terrible price for it.
This has been going on since the fall."

Shaw's cousin, Kathryn Elliott of Perth, has visited Shaw with her husband
and says she is trying to rally support for him.

"He's my favourite relative and I totally respect him," she said yesterday.
"He's loved all over Belize. We know how wonderful he is."

Shaw himself is being held incommunicado. He has limited time at one of the
institution's few phones and jail guards are polite but firm: Inmates don't
get messages.

The prosecutor on the case did not return repeated calls from The
Whig-Standard.

The arrest came out of the blue. Shaw has devoted his life to helping
others and living among the poorest people on the continent.

In 1979, Shaw used his early retirement pension from Ernestown Secondary
School to set up a small development fund in South America.

Called Partnerships in Latin America, the goal of the fund was to help
villagers by providing small loans and technical support for small
enterprises. He has supported projects in Mexico, Belize and Honduras. Shaw
figures he has pumped more than $150,000 of his pension into the fund over
the years, and has solicited donations to advance his work.

Among its successes have been a trade school for young South Americans, a
furniture factory, a women's weaving co-op, a company that manufactured
school supplies and a Mexican chili and spice store, creating jobs for
chili producers.

Typically, the fund would advance a small amount of seed money and if the
enterprise showed promise, provide a larger amount of investment money that
would be paid back interest-free.

"Here's how we did it," Shaw told The Whig-Standard in 1997, explaining how
a $150 investment resulted in 12 full-time jobs for fishermen.

"[The fund] lent part-time fishermen the money to buy materials to make
lobster traps. They sold the traps and saved $500 in a few months. So we
said that's good enough. You make that a down payment on the motor and
we'll lend you enough to build your own boat. Now they're in business."

He also assisted on numerous projects to improve the quality of life for
people in the region - projects such as drainage systems which helped
victims of the area's natural disasters and even helped villages secure
land rights against giant logging concerns.

Although he no longer lives in Kingston, he returns to the city at least
once a year to visit his many friends and raise support for his initiatives.

* Shaw has received many letters of character reference for use in
pre-trial discussions and at his trial and would welcome more. They can be
sent to Ed Shaw, C708, P.O. Box 908, Covington, La., 70434. Local efforts
to support him are headed by Kathryn Elliott of Perth, who can be reached
at (613) 278-0259 or bowmana@mac.com.