Cuba touts decrease in illegal drugs

[Judi Lynn]

Cuba touts decrease in illegal drugs

March 3, 2007

The Associated Press
The Associated Press
McClatchy Newspapers

HAVANA, Cuba —Seizures of illegal drugs in Cuba dropped to 1.7 tons last year, the lowest amount in 11 years and proof, the government there says, that its tough stance on drug traffickers has largely kept them off the island.

Last year's drug seizures were almost four times lower than 2003, when 6.5 tons of cocaine and marijuana were seized and an interagency antinarcotics effort dubbed "Operation Hatchet III" was launched, the Granma newspaper reported Friday.

Last year, Cuban authorities spotted 24 boats and nine flights carrying drugs, the paper said, adding that 564 kilos of marijuana and 102 kilos of cocaine were found in 97 different cases.

Eleven flights have been spotted so far this year.

The figures were published just a day after the U.S. State Department released its 2007 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, which acknowledged that Cuban law enforcement tipped U.S. anti-drug patrols off to more than 30 drug shipments last year.
(snip/)

http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070303/NEWS/703030343/1024/NEWS04

On one hand, the _Bush administration accepted and acknowedged helpful information from Cuba on drug traffickers, but on the other hand, it conspires to overthrow the Cuban people's government.

[Vogon_Glory]

1. The Issue That Miami Doesn't Want To Deal With

The issue that the Miami exiles remain silent about is that the well-organized and well-financed drug smuggling cartels are a threat to the stability and the safety of most of the governments around the Caribbean and Central America. I suspect that the Cuban government is well aware of the threat, even if the Gomez-Mena interests, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and the Diaz-Balart brothers probably aren't.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Are the Gomez-Mena interests connected to the Fanjuls, who also have a powerful voice

in U.S. politics, on both sides of the aisle?

Yikes!

[Vogon_Glory]

3. Probably

I think that they are. There was a very interesting article about them several years ago in Vanity Fair and both the Gomez-Menas and the Fanjuls were linked.

I'm not sure that their ties to any Democrats are going to prove enough to stop at least a partial repeal of the travel restrictions. While I understand that some liberal Democrats DO support keeping Gee Dubya's tightened restrictions in place, a lot of Democrats oppose the travel restrictions, and even some Republicans outside of Florida probably think it's time for the restrictions to go.

The former head honcho of Arbusto Oil may have had the "political capital" and Tom DeLay's assistance to keep the travel restrictions in place back in 2005, but he's run through an awful lot of it since then.

Whatever strongly-differing opinions many of us have concerning Cuba and the current Havana government, one of the unpleasant facts of life we all face is that repealing the idiotic and ineffectual travel restrictions is not a front-burner issue in either the House of Representatives or in the US Senate.