Dr Kris Rampersad
TT Guardian
An international publication has stated the stage is set in Trinidad and Tobago to have a drug trafficker as political leader of a party, and be elected to the post of Prime Minister in the next five years.
The report also alleged there are businesssmen who are associated with senior public officials linked to political parties who are involved in various front businesses used to cover their illicit drug business.
The report was produced by a France-based organisation that specialises in research on geopolitical drugs. The organisation is partly funded by a group which conducts research that informs drug treaty policies of the United Nations.
Its newsletter, published in March 2002, alleged this country's political system has now been totally subverted and co-opted by various cartels in the country. It identified ethnic-based cartels - defining "cartel" as a word it states is used in Trinidad to describe criminal groups according to their communities of origin.
This, it stated, was in keeping with what it called the Colombian model, as it stated this country's drug-trafficking groups do not produce what they transship.
It identified the supply of illicit drugs across the Gulf of Paria from Venezuela as the weakness of the transshipping organisation and their allies/partners in the political institutions.
The US Drug Enforcement Administration office in Caracas recently estimated that up to 13 metric tons of cocaine a month is transshipped through Venezuela to the Caribbean.
The publication alleged the relative of a politician was said to be involved in the trafficking of cocaine and heroin from Venezuela, via such areas as Guiria, Carupano and Maturin, which it described as staging grounds for illicit drugs such as cocaine and heroin to be transshipped through the Caribbean to Europe and the USA.
It also claimed some persons who were associated with the 1995 to 2001 regime was involved in the trade.
The report alleged the businessman relative of a politician is associated with a recent cocaine haul at Guiria harbour by the Venezuelan Guardia Nacional. That haul was to be consigned to a Trinidad cartel after being picked up by the politician's organisation, it stated.
Sunday Guardian checks revealed a haul, believed to be destined for the Caribbean, did take place on the date mentioned, but could not ascertain any Trinidadian link.
The report further stated a politician and his close relative are involved in the illicit drug trade, concentrating on retailing crack cocaine.
It alleged another politician is the minion and serves the interests of prominent members of one of the cartels in various capacities, including against the criminal justice system and money-laundering charges.
It further alleged a functionary has been given a position which allows him and his business partners to further their illicit activities.
The publication claimed there was also an official who served the Venezuelan crime families in Trinidad.
The newsletter further stated the drug-politics connection in Trinidad has weakened the country's political institution, which has been rendered powerless to protect itself from being subverted and co-opted by the illicit drug transshipping cartels. It stated such subversions are aimed at provoking crisis in the functioning and legitimacy of the political institutions.
More on the report
http://www.geodrugs.net/gb/minilettre.php3
Former National Security Minister and UNC leader Basdeo Panday has said allegations contained in the report should be investigated.
Presented with a copy and asked to comment, he admitted he was confused by the report. He said it clearly identifies "two people".
"They must be damned bold to write that sort of thing," he said.
He said as Minister of National Security, he was never asked to investigate involvement by officials of any party in the drug trade.
"We have the Drug Enforcement Agency down here, and they never reported any such thing to me or the police. I would like to know if my people are involved in this. No such information came to me when I was Minister of National Security," he said.
Panday said his Government "executed the Indian connection" so he "couldn't understand the reference to an Indian Cartel. This should be investigated. If people are committing that kind of offence someone will have to do something about it."
Panday also said he has had "no dealings with the drug trade.
"We were hounding them, remember. The Americans have always commended us for the hard line we took in the pursuit of drug traffickers," he added.
When asked to comment on the contents of the publication Minister of National Security Howard Chin Lee said he had no knowledge of the report nor the organisation that produced it.
Told briefly about the contents, he said "from the sound" of it, it was libellous.
Although the Sunday Guardian offered several times to show him the report so he could make a more studied comment, he said: "I don't want to deal with that story. It sounds like propaganda."
Chin Lee, who has been a Minister for almost five months, instead questioned why only the Sunday Guardian had a copy of the report, stating "no other media house knows about it; I was not approached by no other reporter about this."
In May 5 news reports, Chin Lee is quoted as saying Venezuela has clearly been identified as the primary staging and transshipment area for drugs into the eastern Caribbean and Trinidad.
He identified a simultaneous escalation of arms trafficking and called for co-operation between the armed forces of Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela.
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