News
26 July 2004
Schiphol drugs crackdown hailed as 'success'
AMSTERDAM -- Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner has claimed the reduced amount of drugs seized at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam is proof that the crackdown against drug smuggling is working. Donner said that thorough, total inspections imposed on "risk flights" were responsible for the decline,revealing that authorities seized just 80kg of cocaine in May compared with 500kg in January.
A total inspection means that a plane from a designated "risk nation" is thoroughly searched for drugs, including passengers and their luggage. The crackdown is designed to scare off would-be drugs couriers. Previously, Donner admitted a policy of toleration was applied to flights coming from the Netherlands Antilles and Suriname. This was because customs and military police officers only had capacity to check about 50 passengers on each plane. It was believed that some smugglers were passing through customs undetected.
But the minister resolved in the Autumn of 2003 to impose tighter checks on risk flights or so-called "100 percent inspections", newspaper De Volkskrant reported on Monday. Due to the expected increase in arrests, it was also decided that smugglers caught with less than 3kg of drugs would not have to appear in court to prevent the overburdening of the judicial system.
Instead, these smugglers would be placed on a blacklist, excluding them for several years from boarding flights with the airlines they originally travelled with. The idea originated from main opposition party Labour PvdA and Donner agreed to the proposal, but not without political risk. Coalition government party Liberal VVD and the opposition populist LPF opposed it, while Donner's Christian Democrat CDA backed the move. The LPF claimed that allowing smugglers with less than 3kg to go free would become a huge incentive to criminals and result in the Netherlands being swamped by cocaine.
But Donner responded on Friday 23 July to LPF questions about the initial results of the scheme and said the decline in the amount of drugs seized indicated the approach worked. LPF MP Joost Eerdmans said he has heard from anonymous sources that due to the fact inspections on non-risk flights were so light, drug smugglers could easily pass through customs undetected.
Donner rejected this concern, claiming that the 100-percent inspections meant that couriers were increasingly trying to pass customs by swallowing the drugs. Due to the fact that these so-called bolletjesslikkers can only smuggle about 1.3kg of drugs hidden in their stomach, the amount of seized drugs has thus declined, the minister said. But the intensified inspections have led to complaints from several hundred passengers claiming they were incorrectly detained on drug smuggling suspicions. An expensive x-ray machine has thus been installed at Schiphol to allow passengers to quickly prove their innocence.
If the number of drug couriers sufficiently declines, the minister can then decide to also prosecute the ones that only smuggle less than 3kg of drugs, but the situation has not improved thus far. Despite this, Donner believes the approach is working and is keen for it to become a permanent feature at Schiphol.
Copyright Expatica News 2004
President lauds New Horizons missionPRESIDENT Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday afternoon toured projects being undertaken here by the United States military and the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) under the New Horizons 2004 mission and lauded the programme.
New Horizons 2004 Guyana is a joint overseas training exercise co-sponsored by the U.S. Southern Command in Miami, Florida and the GDF.
The exercise includes three construction projects and two Medical Readiness Training Exercises.
Accompanying the President on the visits were U.S. Ambassador to Guyana Roland Bullen, Minister of Housing and Water, Shaik Baksh, Public Service Minister, Jennifer Westford and GDF Chief of Staff, Brigadier General Edward Collins.
They flew by a U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter from the Ogle airstrip to the GDF Camp Stephenson at Timehri, where they were briefed by the Joint Task Force Commander, the Government Information Agency (GINA) said.
Following a camp tour, they visited the site where the New Horizons team is building a new nursery school and were briefed by the Commander, the agency said. President Jagdeo expressed satisfaction at the exemplary cooperation between the U.S. and Guyana military through the work being done by New Horizons, GINA said. “I am happy that the U.S. Government has decided to send this mission to Guyana”, he said, adding that over the years the teams have been doing “great work”.
GINA said he noted that the work of the New Horizons mission would “help to alleviate some of the concerns of our people, improve infrastructure, and tackle issues that would improve the lives of Guyanese.” “I think their presence here will help forge a stronger relationship between our military and theirs which is very important,” he said. The President acknowledged that while the exercise may be costly to the U.S. Government, activities such as these are always welcome in Guyana.
Concurring, Mr Bullen said that while Guyana and the U.S. endure strong relationships, these activities help to further cement the ties. The team then returned to Ogle and visited Sophia, Georgetown where the soldiers are building a health centre and a rehabilitation clinic. At Sophia, residents raised road and water concerns with the President who promised to look into these.
General James T. Hill, Commander U.S. Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM), and his wife, Mrs. Toni Hill, toured the project sites on a two-day visit earlier this month. The General also called on President Jagdeo.
Brazil Carries the War on Drugs to the AirBy LARRY ROHTER
Silvia Izquierdo / Associated PressBRASÍLIA, July 23 - After hesitating for six years, in large part because of pressure from the United States, Brazil has announced that it will begin shooting down aircraft used in trafficking illegal drugs in its airspace.
Only Colombia, the source of much of the cocaine and heroin sold in the United States, has such a policy in effect. But Brazil's northern Amazon corridor has become an increasingly busy and essential route in the global drug trade and is used for smuggling arms, gold and diamonds.
The law to permit such an action was originally approved in 1998, but Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who was president from 1995 to 2003, never signed the decree to put the policy into effect. His reluctance was attributed to concern in the United States about the accidental downing of civilian planes, which could expose the American government and companies to lawsuits.
"This is a good measure, and a bold and courageous step by the government," said Gen. Mauro José Miranda Gandra, a former chief of the air force who is now director of the Air Institute at Estácio de Sá University in Rio de Janeiro. But he said he worried that its impact would be "more political than practical" because of restrictions Brazil was imposing on itself.
The Brazilian government's decision to act now seems driven mostly by the deteriorating public security situation in cities like São Paulo and, especially, Rio de Janeiro. Drug gangs there are increasingly powerful and violent, with more firepower than the police, and they have demonstrated an ability to attack police stations and to force businesses and schools to close.
In April 2001, the most notorious of Rio's drug bosses, Fernandinho Beira-Mar, was captured in Colombia in what the authorities described as a guns-for-drugs pipeline involving left-wing guerrillas. Another drug- and gun-smuggling route, said to be one of the most important in supplying Europe with cocaine, runs from Colombia across the northern tier of the Amazon to Suriname.
"Our perception is that we needed to have at our disposal a more powerful means of dissuasion," Brazil's defense minister, José Viegas, said in an interview here. "The drug dealers, knowing that the Brazilian Air Force could not take extreme measures, have felt excessively free at times to come and go over our airspace."
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has referred to the policy as a matter of national sovereignty and security. In an interview with foreign correspondents last year, he expressed annoyance that some pilots of drug-running aircraft were so confident of their immunity from retribution that they would make obscene gestures at the Brazilian Air Force pilots tracking them.
The United States had been cooperating with operations to shoot down drug-running planes in Latin America, but it began to back away from its support in April 2001 when a Peruvian jet shot down a small plane, mistakenly identified as a drug carrier, and killed an American missionary and her child. Because the United States had provided intelligence and technical support to the operation, relatives of the victims sued the United States government and won a settlement.
"U.S. law may forbid assistance to countries that implement shootdown laws under certain conditions," a State Department official said when asked to comment on Brazil's move. The official said, however, that the United States, which is scheduled to provide Brazil with $10.2 million in drug and law enforcement aid this year, "agrees with the Brazilian assessment that the threat posed by drug traffickers is both very serious and increasing," and added, "we have been in consultation with the government of Brazil about the provisions of U.S. law."
Mr. Viegas acknowledged that there had been "difficulties" winning American support for his government's plan, which requires eight precautionary steps before an order to shoot down a plane may be issued. But he said that recent bilateral talks had led to "perfect clarity that the decree will be well received by the American government" and that Brazil would be able to act "without being exposed to commercial sanctions."
Two years ago, Brazil inaugurated the $1.4 billion Sivam radar system, which uses American technology and for the first time allows the government to monitor air activity in the whole of the vast Amazon region. But after an initial decline of 30 percent, which Brazil attributed to traffickers' concerns about the improved tracking capabilities, illegal flights began rising again.
Just last year, Brazil recorded 4,128 "unauthorized flights," some of which were innocent violations like those made by ranchers in the Amazon flying from one plantation to another. Mr. Viegas said, however, that there had been a "real increase" of deliberate violations of Brazilian airspace, apparently by drug smugglers who realized that the government's hands were tied.
The new policy will go into effect in late October, and will be preceded by a publicity campaign to warn ranchers and others of the need to file flight plans. Brazilian officials have also expressed hope that during the interim period the United States will formally endorse the new policy here.
Brazilian officials made it clear that the new policy would not be applied against any aircraft with children on board. Though Mr. Viegas said that was "a necessary limitation" and "an incidental question," some other prominent supporters of the law were skeptical.
"This really left me perplexed, because it practically undermines the very purpose of the decree," General Gandra said. "What you're doing is creating a safe-conduct pass for drug-smuggling aircraft carrying kids and creating the possibility that children will be kidnapped and used as human shields."
Even with the caveat for children, the constitutionality of the law is being questioned. Brazil forbids the death penalty as punishment for criminal acts, and though the government argues otherwise, some legal experts and other commentators maintain that the statute amounts to a de facto execution of drug traffickers.
"The ethical and juridical problems raised by the regulation of the shoot down law are much greater than the benefits this extreme measure can bring," the daily O Estado de São Paulo said in an editorial this week. "This penalty will be applied beyond the reach of justice, by administrative decision of the commander of the air force, who will have life and death power over crew members and passengers of irregular flights."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company