WESTERN BUREAU:
National Security Mini-ster, Dr. Peter Phillips has described Montego Bay as an organising centre for the illegal drug trade during a meeting held yesterday with the St. James Parish Council in Montego Bay to discuss issues of crime and violence.
"Montego Bay is an organising centre for the illegal trade in drugs and constitutes the tap root for violent crimes, although not every crime is from a drug deal gone bad," said Dr. Phillips.
Citing a direct relationship with the illegal drug trade and the parish's burgeoning crime problem, Dr. Phillips said that his ministry was set on reducing the incidence of violent crimes through a series of related strategies. These include the establishment of a permanent branch of the Special Anti Crime Task Force (SACTF) in the parish as well as the intensification of cooperation between the police and the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF).
He said St. James has been identified as one of the seven police divisions, which accounts for 70 per cent of violent crimes occurring in Jamaica. "It is a distinction I know you would like to erase as quickly as possible," said the minister.
Dr. Phillips said that there is a new generation, which is growing up in a violent environment, and that the drug trade is the main conduit facilitating criminality. A fact he said that his administration intends to address vehemently.
Determined action
"Leaving the druggists in charge will definitely kill Jamaica," he said. "With determined action we have penetrated the heart of this drug trade and made some arrests. There has been a decided and absolute decline in the amount of cocaine transiting Jamaica."
According to the minister in 2000 the estimate of the cocaine passing through Jamaica stood at 200 to 120 metric tonnes with a value exceeding the value of exports and earnings from the tourism sector combined.
The meeting was in response to a letter written in June last year by Montego Bay Mayor Noel Donaldson, seeking the intervention of Prime Minster PJ Patterson in containing the parish's escalating crime problem, which was described as "serious and grave." M.H.
