- Ian Allen/Staff Photographer
Dr. Peter Phillips, Minister of National Security, and Sue Cobb, U.S. Ambassador after signing the new Shiprider Agreement last Friday.
Lloyd Williams, Senior Associate Editor
THE GOVERNMENTS of Jamaica and the United States on Friday renewed the Jamaica-U.S. Agreement Concerning Co-operation in Suppressing Illicit Maritime Drug Trafficking (Shiprider Agreement), stepping up their united efforts to combat drug trafficking.
The agreement is enforced through The Maritime Drug Trafficking (Suppression) Act, 1998, which came into effect on February 24, 1998.
Friday's signing calls to mind the virtual stand-off between the United States of America and this nation over the issue of safeguarding national sovereignty.
At the heart of the problem was the illegal drug trade, its destructive and corrupting nature and the efforts of the United States to combat it.
The dominant view throughout Latin America, the Caribbean and, of course, Jamaica, (which by then was a major transhipment centre for Colombian cocaine en route to the United States, and the major producer and exporter of marijuana in the Caribbean), was that Uncle Sam was being his big, bad bullying self, threatening that these nations sign a standard agreement, or be de-certified.
WAR ON DRUGS
It was felt that the U.S., while waging its so-called war on drugs, wanted to ride roughshod over the small nations of the Caribbean, and had displayed lack of tact and respect for other nations' sovereignty.
And the Caribbean's contention was that if the United States did not have this insatiable demand for drugs, then there would be no suppliers no buyer, seller starves.
It was the United States that threw down the gauntlet. Patricia Lasbury Hall, then director of the Office of Latin American and Caribbean Programmes, Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, U.S. Department of State, addressed the opening of the Caribbean Regional Drug Law Enforcement Centre on the Police Staff College grounds, Twickenham Park, south central St. Catherine, on September 27, 1997. The centre, built with U.S., United Nations and Jamaican funds, serves the training needs of the entire English-speaking Caribbean. Its programmes provide for the training of resident magistrates, police, military and customs personnel and drug control administrators, among others.
Speaking on drug trafficking problems specific to the Caribbean, she pointed to the need for a Shiprider Agreement.
Said Ms. Hall: "All of you here today know too well how modern technology has increased trafficker transport efficiency. In the Caribbean in the late 1980s we saw more drugloads delivered by general aviation. We, therefore, geared up our defences, with radar protection, sophisticated aircraft sorting techniques, and cellular intercept equipment and put more pressure on air trafficking with the inevitable effect of pushing drug traffickers towards maritime routes."
She pointed out that during the past few years the U.S. Government had been entering into maritime counter-narcotics co-operation agreements with countries in and around the Caribbean. "The concept underlying this initiative," she explained, is to provide effective, efficient, seamless maritime law-enforcement capability throughout the region, leaving drug traffickers no safe haven. We are pleased to have entered into co-operative agreements with most nations and territories of this region."
Then Ms. Hall threw her punch:
"We urge the Government of Jamaica, which has not yet signed a maritime co-operation agreement with the U.S.," she said, "to seriously consider the ramifications of remaining outside this co-operative effort especially the possibility of becoming a safe haven to traffickers. We further urge Jamaica to enter into similar agreements with other Caribbean states and our Canadian and European partners."
Prime Minister P.J. Patterson who delivered the opening address at the ceremony, and spoke before Ms. Hall, called for "a successful anti-narcotics strategy for the entire Hemisphere". He proposed a hemispheric conference to deal with illicit trafficking in narcotic drugs and firearms, noting the grave threats posed by the twin evils.
Referring to the proposed Shiprider Agreement, Mr. Patterson was adamant. "For purposes of law enforcement." he said, "Jamaica draws a clear distinction between the rules which govern entry into our territorial waters (i.e. the 12-mile limit) and the exercise of criminal jurisdiction within the broader area of the Exclusive Economic Zone spanning a further 188 miles."
The Jamaican Government saw Ms. Hall's statement as a not-too-veiled threat by the U.S. Government to decertify the island as not adhering to international counter-narcotics agreements and not taking certain counter-narcotic measures set forth in U.S. law.
Nine Caribbean nations, including Trinidad and Tobago, had signed the Shiprider Agreement in its original form, giving the U.S. blanket authority in drug enforcement operations in their jurisdiction, plus powers of interdiction.
However, Jamaica, Barbados and Suriname rejected the agreement as proposed by the U.S., arguing that it did not give enough consideration or respect to their sovereignty. Of particular concern, too, was the fear that the U.S. would be able to exercise unconditional power within Jamaica's territorial waters, especially its Exclusive Economic Zone. They refused to sign the standard agreement, on the dotted line.
Ms. Hall made matters worse on December 2, 1996 when, in a satellite link-up discussion, she said that an elected official in Jamaica had been maintaining contacts with drug dealers and that the Government had refused to prosecute the person, despite having knowledge of the situation.
UNEQUIVOCAL RETRACTION
That didn't go down well with Prime Minister Patterson. He declared in Parliament: "We regard any such accusation as entirely unfounded and extremely damaging. If the allegation cannot be substantiated, then the only honourable course would be unequivocal retraction."
But he said Jamaica's traditional relationship with the U.S. would continue, as long as it was based on mutual respect and sovereign equality.
"We intend to maintain our self-respect. We will not grovel," he told the House of Represent-atives on December 4, 1996, to a standing ovation from party colleagues.
There was a stand-off for a while, but on February 28, 1997 just ahead of the March 1 deadline the U.S. Government certified Jamaica as one of the countries deemed to be in full co-operation with the United States in the fight against the narcotics trade. That weekend, Jamaica's negotiating team went to Washington, D.C., to continue negotiating the Shiprider Agreement. After three months of intensive negotiations, it was finally hammered out. It was signed and on May 6, 1997.
Announcing the agreement in the House of Representatives on May 27, 1997, Mr. Patterson said it reflected mutual respect and recognised the provisions of the Jamaican Constitution. Also, it removed blanket immunity in respect of U.S. personnel taking action against a suspected vessel.
On Friday, Dr. Peter Phillips, Minister of National Security, and Sue Cobb, U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica, signed the latest protocol to the 1997 U.S.-Jamaica Maritime Counter Narcotics Co-operation Agreement (the Shiprider Agreement).
SHIPBOARDING
It enables U.S. and Jamaican law enforcement teams to continue to work together in Jamaica's territorial waters to beat drug traffickers' attempts to move cocaine from South America to the United States through Jamaica and its waters. The agreement allows them to co-operate in shipboarding, shipriding, and overflight.
Jamaican and U.S. negotiators agreed on the enhanced provisions last summer and both governments have approved the additional provisions. The protocol allows U.S. Coast Guard law enforcement detachments operating from certain foreign government ships to board suspected ships in Jamaican waters. This provision will allow the teams from Jamaica and the United States to be even more effective in fighting narcotics traffickers smuggling drugs through the region.
Also, the protocol speeds up the provision of technical assistance including drug detection technology to Jamaica; puts a framework in place for the exercise of jurisdiction in each nation's contiguous zone and ensures greater protection for civil aircraft, including an agreement that neither the U.S. nor Jamaica will use force against civil aircraft in flight.
The Shiprider Agreement is an essential component of the fight against illicit drugs, because much of the trafficking of cocaine, heroin, ganja (marijuana) and other drugs takes place at sea. Essential to the success of any maritime drug interdiction campaign is co-operation among nations because the trafficking of drugs cuts against national borders and territorial waters and threatens the security of every country.
So six years on, what's the state of the maritime drug trade in the Caribbean? Drug smugglers are still running 55-foot, three-engine go-fast boats capable of carrying three tons of cocaine 13,000 nautical miles without refuelling. According to U.S. Admiral James M. Loy in a speech sometime ago to the U.S. Naval Institute, Annapolis, Maryland, they use the go-fast boats to make the in-shore run from mother ships that they routinely operate a thousand miles from shore. "The bad guys are so well-financed that they treat these US$250,000 boats as consumable items that they are willing to scuttle at the drop of a hat to avoid arrest. In addition, the smugglers are actually investing in counter-intelligence vessels equipped with sophisticated radars and manned by skilled operators whose mission is to detect the presence of law enforcement assets and clear smuggling ships from the area."
In Jamaica the law enforcement authorities are fighting back against international cocaine smugglers who have established command and control centres here to direct the smuggling every year of more than 100 tons of cocaine from Colombia and elsewhere in South and Central America via Jamaica and the Bahamas to the U.S. and Europe.
PATROL BOATS
On March 4, 2003, the American Embassy presented the Jamaica Defence Force Coast Guard with three 44-foot fast patrol boats, costing some US$500,000 apiece, for use in Jamaican waters to counter the go-fast boats. More have been promised by the U.S. and the United Kingdom.
The Narcotics Police Division and the JDF Coast Guard, with its increased capability, seem to be achieving a measure of success, against the maritime smugglers. Of late, the traffickers have been reported to be turning increasingly to smuggling drugs aboard commercial flights and from clandestine airstrips.
According to the International Narcotics Control Strategy Report 2003, the JDF Coast Guard engages in co-operative operational planning with the U.S. Coast Guard intermittently, associated with joint military operations in or near Jamaica's territorial waters.
"During 2002", INCSR states, "Jamaica participated in three deployments of 'Operation Rip Tide', a continuing US/Jamaica/Cayman Islands (UK) effort to deny smugglers the use of maritime smuggling routes into Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. The bilateral maritime counter-narcotics agreement was successfully exercised on several occasions during 2002, and the JDF CG for the first time, requested and received U.S. operational support under the agreement."
The U.S. protocol which was signed on Friday came about because of an incident in late 2001 in which the Jamaican Government refused to permit pursuit and entry by a Dutch vessel with an embarked U.S. Coast Guard law enforcement detachment. The U.S. then proposed a protocol to the bilateral agreement that would improve it by adding provisions for operations from third-party platforms, enhancement of safety for civil aircraft in flight, contiguous zone jurisdiction, and technical assistance.
