PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - As in all areas of crime-fighting and, indeed, law and order, successive T&T administrations have fallen short in combating, let alone suppressing, the traffic in illicit drugs. As the United States State Department's latest Narcotics Report reminds T&T, this country has been less than a fully fledged ally in the US-led war on drugs. As T&T officials have responded, however, the US itself has been far from stalwart in its support of Caribbean efforts against an international trade in cocaine, marijuana and other narcotics for which America provides the biggest market.
T&T Ambassador to the UN, Rodney Charles, also highlighted the sorest point in the counter-productive US policy and practice of deporting criminals to an already stressed law-enforcement system. Insistence on shipping back "home" convicts who have no supportive contacts in T&T and elsewhere has resulted, as Ambassador Charles put it, in the dumping here of "criminals with essentially PhDs in crime". As long as it persists with this policy, the US can hardly pretend to have clean hands while criticising the efforts of Caribbean countries, including Trinidad and Tobago, in fighting drug trafficking and other crimes.