VISA MOVE TO STEM DRUG TRADE

Home Office Plan Prompted By Mounting Police Alarm Over Jamaican
Yardie-Style Shootings

All Jamaican visitors to Britain will be required to obtain a visa before
they travel, under a Home Office plan being considered in an fresh attempt
to clampdown on crack cocaine smuggling.

The step, which will affect more than 400,000 people who travel every year
from Jamaica, many of them to visit relatives in Britain, will spark an
outcry among the black community in Britain that they are being unfairly
targeted.

Whitehall sources con firmed to the Guardian last night that the move is
being considered and comes amid mounting alarm within the police over the
level of Jamaican Yardie-style shootings, particularly in London.

No decision has been taken by the home secretary, David Blunkett, and a
Home Office spokeswoman would only say last night: "We keep all visa
requirements under constant review."

Only last month Phil Sinkinson, the deputy high commissioner in Jamaica,
claimed that one in 10 passengers flying from Jamaica to Britain were
actually drug mules, many of them women.

He said desperate poverty was the motivation for many couriers, who were
single mothers. "If you consider you have a BA flight and an Air Jamaica
flight going out every day, more or less, you need tremendous resources to
screen every passenger."

He said as much as 30kg (66lb) of cocaine was being smuggled on every
flight from Jamaica. The passengers were carrying them in plastic bags they
had swallowed.

The Metropolitan police backed up the claim and said they believed half the
crack cocaine being sold in Britain came from Jamaica.

More than 40 people were arrested and UKP250,000 of crack cocaine seized
from two recent flights alone to Heathrow and Gatwick.

The imposition of a visa regime will make it harder for casual drug
smugglers to simply step on a plane, and will also give the police and
immigration authorities a chance to track the whereabouts of some of those
believed to be involved in the drug trade and tackle overstayers.

But it will also mean that the 90% of other passengers will have to apply
for a visa before visits to Britain.

The refusal of visas for family visits including weddings and funerals is
already a major source of complaint within the Indian and Pakistani
communities in Britain. Jamaican families may face similar difficulties
when the visa regime comes in.

The flow of visitors from the Caribbean to Britain has nearly tripled in
the past 10 years as air fares have dropped. Last year, according to the
Office of National Statistics, more than 1.7m jour neys were made between
Britain and the Caribbean.

An increase in drug-related gun crime in London has prompted the Home
Office to consider the move. Some 20 of the 36 shootings in the capital
last year involved "black-on-black" incidents and the police believe many
are linked to turf wars between Jamaican Yardie gangs attempting to control
the crack cocaine trade.

Jamaica does not impose a visa regime on visitors from the Commonwealth,
Europe or North America, with the exception of visitors from Nigeria.