30219: (news) Chamberlain: Drugs in Haiti in DR (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By JONATHAN M. KATZ

   SANTO DOMINGO, March 16 (AP) -- Hispaniola, the Caribbean island shared
by Haiti and the Dominican Republic, has become a growing transit point for
drugs headed from South America to the United States and Europe, U.S.
officials said Friday.
   Government leaders from around the region met during the drug summit in
the Dominican capital and signed an agreement pledging to stop the flow of
cocaine, heroin and other drugs that pass through the island.
   Under Friday's agreement, Colombia, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and
other Caribbean islands pledged to coordinate operations aimed at
disrupting drug cultivation and stopping trafficking networks.
   Dominican President Leonel Fernandez was critical of past U.S. efforts
to fight trafficking in the Caribbean.
   "I have seen an abandonment in the region on the part of the United
States in the matter of combating drugs," Fernandez said.
   The summit was also attended by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe,
Haitian President Rene Preval and officials from Europe and Venezuela,
among others.
   Nine percent of the more than 500 tons of cocaine smuggled to the U.S.
from South America now moves through Hispaniola, the U.S. State Department
said in a report earlier this month.
   The number of flights carrying the drugs to Hispaniola -- departing
largely from Venezuela -- increased by 167 percent in 2006, the report
said.
   "The increase in these suspect flights almost certainly correlates
directly to the increased quantity of drugs passing through Hispaniola,"
Deputy Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Patrick Duddy told the summit.
   Venezuelan officials called politically motivated the assertion that
most of the flights originated in their nation.
   U.S. authorities say the reported increase in air traffic from Venezuela
was because of crackdowns in Colombia and the closure of illicit air strips
in Jamaica.