PNP claims US cable released by Wikileaks confirms suspicions
THE Opposition People’s National Party is calling on the Bruce Golding Administration to respond to claims made by Cuban officials about a lack of cooperation from the Jamaican government in tackling the international drug trade during 2008 and 2009.Related story:WikiLeaks reports Cuba/Ja drug rowRead the US cable about Jamaica and drugs…
The allegations were revealed by WikiLeaks’ disclosure of United States diplomatic cables, which quotes from correspondence between Cuban and United States drug enforcement officials.
“Once again the commitment of this administration to fight the drug trade is being called into question. This report must be viewed within the context of the efforts made by the Jamaica Labour Party at around the same time to frustrate the extradition request of Christopher Coke,” said Peter Bunting, Opposition spokesman on national security.
Bunting said that under the previous PNP administration there was ‘full and complete’ sharing of information between the two governments in the fight against international drug trafficking, prior to the JLP winning the election in 2007.
“The claims in this cable give credence to the many reports of the close links between the JLP administration and the criminal underworld,” he said.
By contrast, he claimed that during the years 2000 to 2006 cocaine trafficked through Jamaica to the US had fallen from 20 per cent to less than 2 per cent of the total quantity of cocaine imported into that country.
