Jamaica Using Former U.S. Coast Guard Ships to Fight Illicit Drugs

(U.S. transfers vessels under security assistance program)  (360)
By Eric Green
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- Two more decommissioned U.S. Coast Guard vessels have
been transferred to Jamaica in the last several months for use by that
country in counter-drug activities, the Coast Guard has announced.

The two 82-foot-long vessels transferred to the Jamaican Defense
Forces/Coast Guard were the Point Nowell and the Point Barnes,
according to Coast Guard official Gary Connor.

The Point Nowell was transferred to Jamaica last October and the Point
Barnes was transferred in January, Connor said. The vessels will be
based at Port Royal, Jamaica, but since they are ocean-going patrol
cutters, the Jamaican government can send them anywhere in the
Caribbean it chooses. The vessels' sole mission, Connor emphasized, is
to fight the trafficking of illegal narcotics.

Over the last several years, 16 decommissioned U.S. Coast Guard ships
have been transferred to Caribbean nations, Connor indicated. Besides
Jamaica, decommissioned ships have been transferred to St. Lucia,
Antigua, Trinidad and Tobago, Panama, and the Dominican Republic.

The transfer of U.S. decommissioned ships to cooperating nations is an
ongoing federal program to provide security against illicit drug
activity in the Caribbean. The U.S. Department of State has often
granted excess defense equipment to partner countries in support of
mutual foreign policy goals. Because the State Department's Bureau of
International Narcotics and Law Enforcement paid for the transfer of
the vessels, their use by Jamaica is restricted to counter-narcotics
efforts, Connor said.

The Coast Guard describes itself as the lead federal agency for
maritime drug interdiction, and as such is a key player in combating
the flow of illegal drugs to the United States. The Coast Guard's
mission is to reduce the supply of drugs by denying smugglers the use
of air and maritime routes in the Transit Zone, a six
million-square-mile area, which includes the Caribbean, Gulf of
Mexico, and the Eastern Pacific.

(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International
Information Programs, U.S. Department of State.)