US, Israel Can't Be Happy With Terrorist Iran Welcomed In Terrorist Cuba!

[JStone]

Terrorists in love

BBC News - Cuba welcomes Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

 

[waltky]

Cuba's role in the war on drugs...

Cuba and US find common ground in war on drugs
8 September 2012 - Officers patrol Cuba's coastline to deter and detect smugglers

The golden beaches of Cayo Cruz lie at the end of a long path through a nature reserve. It is an idyllic stretch of Cuba's northern coast but this is key territory in the fight against international drug-trafficking. Cuba sits right between the world's major narcotics producers in South America and the biggest market for those drugs, the United States. The island has served as a bridge for traffickers in the past but in recent years it has been a barrier to the illegal trade.

"We used to see a lot of suspicious boats here," Ardoldo Cisneros Pena recalls of the 1990s. He is chief border guard in Cayo Cruz, where we were recently given rare access. "There were almost daily drops into the sea," he says. Small planes would bombard Cuban waters with packets of drugs, for speedboats to whisk to the US. Today, the scene is tranquil. A young border guard scans the horizon from a mint-green watchtower. A stone slab below reads "They shall not pass!" and "Viva Fidel!".

'Mortal venom'

It was Fidel Castro, then president, who acknowledged a surge in the use of Cuban waters by drug-traffickers in 1999. There was a nascent narcotics market too, as smugglers' packages began washing up on the coast. The government was compelled to act against what Mr Castro calls a "mortal venom". "We have more resources now, there is a helicopter for the border guards and more commitment from the interior ministry, the military and the Cuban people too," Lt-Col Cisneros explains. Operation Ache, as the crackdown was known, also installed a new radar and recruited hundreds of unpaid "collaborators", trained to keep their eyes peeled for suspicious parcels along the shore. The drugs planes have now gone and the main threat today is from speed-boat smugglers attempting to traffic marijuana north. "They try to escape us but if they can't, they try to dump the drugs because they know this activity is very heavily penalised here," explains Lt-Col Mago Llanez Fernandez, who heads the team responsible for intercepting the smugglers at sea.

He admits that up to 60% get away. Securing any abandoned narcotics is the priority here. But as the boats flee, Cuba now passes real-time data to the US coastguard so they can pick up the pursuit. It is rare teamwork for two old, ideological enemies. "I think this is important for Cuba, because we're preventing the drugs reaching here, but it's also very important for the US and other countries in the area," Lt-Col Llanez points out. With its very heavily policed society, it is no surprise Communist Cuba is not a big drugs market itself. Scarce supply means even a joint of marijuana can cost up to a week's wage ($5) for a state worker. But some smugglers have begun to see potential here. "We've seen a rise in attempts by Cuban Americans to bring drugs in, especially marijuana, because the prices are high here," says police investigator Yoandrys Gonzalez Garcia. "It's not a huge amount but it concerns us and we're increasing our efforts to fight this."

'Effective'