Suriname: 2009-2010 International Narcotics Control Strategy

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 06 PARAMARIBO 000356

SIPDIS

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TAGS: SNAR NS
SUBJECT: Suriname: 2009-2010 International Narcotics Control Strategy
Report (INCSR) Part 1, Drugs and Chemical Control

REF: STATE 97230


1. (U) Post presents its 2009-2010 International Narcotics Control
Strategy Report (INCSR) Part I, Drugs and Chemical Control.

Suriname


I. Summary

Suriname is a transit zone for South American cocaine en route to
Europe, Africa and, to a lesser extent, the United States. The
Government of Suriname (GOS) does not have the capacity to
adequately control its borders. Inadequate resources, limited law
enforcement training, the absence of a law enforcement presence in
the interior of the country, and lack of aircraft or sufficient
numbers of patrol boats, permit traffickers to move drug shipments
via land, water, and air with little resistance. In 2009, the GOS
undertook law enforcement and legal measures to prevent,
investigate, prosecute, and punish narcotics trafficking and
related corruption, yielding success in several high profile cases.
The GOS conducted Operation Koetai, an unprecedented anti-narcotics
trafficking operation focused on the western border with Guyana.
The GOS also cracked down on internal corruption after cocaine went
missing from a police vault. The international press reported on
Suriname after Italian law enforcement dismantled a drug ring
transshipping heroin and cocaine via Suriname and other South
American countries to Italy. Suriname is a party to the 1988 UN
Drug Convention, but has not implemented legislation regarding
precursor chemical control provisions to bring itself into full
conformity with the Convention.

II. Status of Country

The GOS ability to identify, apprehend, and prosecute narcotics
traffickers is inhibited by its chronic lack of resources, limited
law enforcement capabilities, inadequate legislation, drug-related
corruption of the police and military, a complicated and
time-consuming bureaucracy, and overburdened and under-resourced
courts. Cocaine from South America, primarily destined for Europe,
is transshipped through Suriname (sometimes via Africa or other
South American countries). Cocaine bound for the Caribbean, and
ultimately the United States, is also transshipped through
Suriname. Long-standing allegations that a drugs-for-weapons trade
takes place on Surinamese soil re-surfaced in the press when the
Guyanese Anti-Narcotics Division (CANU) was quoted as stating that
one kilo of cocaine trades for two Chinese AK-47s in Suriname.
There is local production of marijuana, as well as marijuana
smuggled into Suriname from Guyana.

The GOS has no legislation controlling precursor chemicals and no
tracking system to monitor them. This leaves the GOS unable to
detect the diversion of precursor chemicals for drug production.
However, in 2008, Suriname participated in a training seminar with
Colombian counterparts and experts to learn how to identify
precursor chemicals. A follow-up training, with Dutch technical
support, is planned for 2010.

III. Country Actions against Drugs in 2009

Policy Initiatives. The National Anti-Drug Council (NAR) and its
Executive Office renewed its mandate from the Ministry of Health in
June 2008 to continue to coordinate implementation of the National
Drug Master Plan (2006-2010) that covers both supply and demand
reduction and includes calls for new legislation to control
precursor chemicals. The National Drug Master Plan is supported by
both the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Justice and Police.
Since 2007, the GOS has broadened support by involving
Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) and civil society in the
implementation of the plan, and incorporating business
associations, religious groups, and the NAR's regional sites. The
GOS has made progress in the implementation of the Master Plan,
which has four main pillars. The first, national coordination and
monitoring of the implementation of the National Drug Master Plan,
showed significant progress with the strengthening of the NAR and
its Executive Office. The NAR receives its operational budget from
the Ministry of Health's central budget and does not have an annual
programmatic budget. The Master Plan's second pillar is the
development and implementation of relevant legislation with regard
to the fight against drugs and drug-related crime. The GOS has not
yet started to draft the legislation on precursor chemicals, but
its request to the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission
(CICAD) of the Organization of American States (OAS) for technical
assistance and training for drafting the precursor chemicals
legislation was approved in 2009 and will commence in 2010. Draft
legislation on terrorist financing, which is required for Suriname

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to join the Egmont Group, remains pending. Pillar three is the
fight against drug trafficking and maintenance of law and order.
Progress was made in this area in 2009 when the Unusual
Transactions Reporting Center (MOT/FIU) resolved its staffing
shortage and the government created a Financial Investigation Team
(FOT). The fourth pillar is drug demand reduction and
strengthening of addiction care. The NAR reported significant
progress in this area, especially through a European Union-funded
demand reduction program which was completed in 2007. In 2009, the
NAR conducted its first evaluation of treatment centers after the
2007 adoption by the Ministry of Health of minimum standards. In
2010, the NAR will draft the National Drug Master Plan (2011-2015)
using data from a 2005 Rapid Situation Assessment (RSA),a 2004
school survey, and a 2007 household survey to inform the process.

In January 2009, the media reported a new policy that all parole
requests for offenders in serious drug cases would be denied. A
former top military official convicted of MDMA (Ecstasy) production
and export filed suit against the GOS after being turned down for
parole in 2009 after serving five years of his sentence.

The NAR is working within the CICAD and European Union and Latin
America and the Caribbean (EU-LAC) collaboration framework to set
up a Drug Treatment Court, which would specialize in hearing
defendants charged with drug use and drug-related criminal
offenses. The judge would have the authority to have addicts
undergo mandatory rehabilitation rather than enter the regular
prison system. In October 2009, The Ministry of Justice and Police
launched a two-day exchange workshop with Paramaribo's partner city
(Ghent, Belgium) to engage in the planning. The pilot program for
the Drug Treatment Court is slated to begin in 2010 after
government amends the existing legal structure.



Law Enforcement Efforts. Through October 30, 2009, the GOS seized
238.2 kg of cocaine, 158.5 kg of cannabis, 4,711.2 grams of hash,
and 5.8 grams of heroin. This was an increase in seizures for all
drug types, compared to 2008 numbers. In 2009, no MDMA tablets
were seized, in comparison to 785 tablets in 2008. As of October
30, 454 people were arrested for drug-related offenses of which 323
cases were sent to the Office of the Attorney General for
prosecution. As of November 5, 293 people had been prosecuted for
drug-related offenses. The GOS Ministry of Justice and Police
and law enforcement institutions' continued targeting of large
trafficking rings (with direct links to South American, African,
and European rings) and its expanding cooperation with regional and
international partners could yield improved results. The
continuing GOS crackdown against clandestine airstrips within
Suriname has continued to force traffickers to develop new routes
and methods for transiting drugs. The drug trafficking
organizations (DTOs) have moved their landing strips further into
the interior and changed trafficking tactics, such as using one
landing strip for a very short period of time and then moving to
another strip. In October 2009, police arrested seven suspects at
an illegal landing strip that were allegedly preparing for the
landing of an aircraft bearing illicit drugs. The Johan Adolf
Pengel International (JAP) Airport has plans in place to introduce
radar capabilities in the near future. There is an increased
prevalence in the use of go-fast boats to transport narcotics from
Venezuela and Guyana. The GOS performed Operation Koetai in the
second half of 2009, which focused on narcotics interdiction on
Suriname's western border with Guyana. This operation has resulted
in 16.6 kilos of cocaine seized and 1 arrest as of October 30,

2009. Narcotics traffickers attempting to bypass Operation Koetai
landed their boats in Saramacca, but were also apprehended by the
police. The police arrested seven individuals and seized 77.5
kilos of cocaine in this bust. Operation Koetai also resulted in
an increase in the cost per kilo of cocaine from $3500 to $7000
kilo on the Surinamese market. On the other hand, the inability of
traffickers to transship cocaine out of Suriname in 2009 led to
three-year lows in the cost of cocaine per 5/gram unit, and there
was increased public concern about an anecdotal increase in local
cocaine use, especially among youth.

The bulk of the cocaine movement out of Suriname to Europe and
Africa is via commercial sea cargo. At present the government has
no operating Coast Guard and has limited maritime capability to
interdict drug traffickers at sea; however, the Minister of Defense
remained committed to the formation of a new Coast Guard. The
Joint Operations Center, a precursor to the Coast Guard, is
operational. The Joint Operations Center includes the stakeholders
that collaborate on joint maritime activities: Ministry of
Defense; Ministry of Justice and Police; Ministry of
Transportation, Communication, and Tourism (Maritime Authority of

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Suriname); Attorney General's Office; Ministry of Finance
(Customs); and Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, and
Fisheries. The GOS purchased two new boats for maritime
operations, one of which was delivered and became operational in

2009. There is no GOS radar for tracking movements at sea.

The use of foodstuffs to move narcotics out of Suriname through the
JAP Airport continued, with cocaine discovered in chocolates,
cassava bread, chili peppers, beer and coconut milk cans, among
other food items. The trend of Surinamese performance groups
trafficking narcotics to the Netherlands also continued in 2009,
and reaction by the Dutch government led to the banning of members
of one performance group from entry to the Netherlands for three
years. Cocaine was hidden in parts of planes bound for the
Netherlands, although sometimes the cocaine was not offloaded and
was confiscated upon the aircraft's return to Suriname. The media
reported that this practice could, in some cases, have resulted in
life-threatening situations for passengers and crew. The 2008
trend of African nationals arrested in Suriname continued in 2009,
carrying narcotics intended for Africa (transported via the
Netherlands). The Philippines Drug Council announced that Nigerian
drug organizations were using Filipinos to traffick drugs out of
Suriname. Nationalities arrested in Suriname in 2009 for
drug-related offenses included Filipinos, Spaniards, Dutch,
Belgians, British, Brazilians, Ghanaians, Colombians, Venezuelans,
and Nigerians.

As of October 2009, GOS law enforcement agencies arrested 49 drug
couriers who had ingested cocaine pellets. In 2009, law enforcement
officials noted a continued decrease in the number of drug mules
arrested from 99 in 2007, to 66 in 2008, to 49 in 2009. One
Surinamese drug mule was arrested at the airport in the Netherlands
after having swallowed 182 cocaine capsules, weighing nearly 2.2
kilograms. In June 2008, the GOS stepped up its enforcement
efforts at the JAP airport by installing luggage scanning
equipment. In 2009, the GOS installed a urine testing machine at
the airport to more easily identify suspected drug mules. In 2009,
three dogs were trained by the Dutch to identify narcotics at the
airport. Drug mules who evaded detection in Suriname were
subsequently arrested at the airport in Amsterdam, which, in 2004,
implemented a 100 percent inspection of all passengers and baggage
arriving on all inbound flights from Suriname. Although the
majority of the narcotics trafficking out of Suriname via the
airport occurs mainly on the Netherlands-bound flights, drugs were
also intercepted on U.S.-bound flights in Trinidad and Tobago,
Jamaica, and the United States. For example, drugs were discovered
on a U.S.-bound Surinam Airways flight during U.S. customs
procedures in Aruba.

Corruption. As a matter of policy, no senior GOS official, nor the
GOS, encourages or facilitates illicit drug production or
distribution, nor is it involved in laundering the proceeds of the
sale of illicit drugs, and does not discourage the investigation or
prosecution of such acts. Public corruption by military and police
who were possibly influenced and infiltrated by narcotraffickers is
believed to have played some role in limiting the number of
seizures made compared to the amount of illegal narcotics that is
reportedly flowing through Suriname. Public corruption also appears
to affect the prison system, where there are continued claims by
non-governmental organizations of drug use and drug sales. Two
family members of a government official were arrested in 2009 for
smuggling drugs into a prison. Media reports and rumors of money
laundering, drug trafficking, and associated criminal activity
involving current and former government and military officials
continue to circulate. There were ten arrests of government
officials in drug-related cases as of October 30, 2009. Several
police officers were prosecuted for drug-related offenses. Public
officials arrested for narcotics-related corruption are prosecuted
under corruption laws; there is no specialized legislation for
narcotics-related corruption.

The GOS demonstrated a willingness in 2009 to undertake law
enforcement and legal measures to prevent, investigate, prosecute,
and punish public corruption. In the highest profile case of the
year, 93 kilos of cocaine went missing from the vault at the Arrest
Team's headquarters. Several GOS senior officials, including the
Vice President and the Minister of Justice and Police, made
immediate public statements on the case, characterizing the matter
as serious. Members of the special units of the police were
subjected to polygraph tests. The Personnel Investigation
Department (OPZ) suspended members of the Arrest Team and conducted
an investigation of the case. Members of the Arrest Team put on
mandatory leave following the investigation threatened to sue the
government for not following proper procedures, and the officers
were transferred to other departments within the police corps. The

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Minister announced the command of the Arrest Team would be
replaced. The OPZ concluded the internal investigation and
submitted the report to the Attorney General's Office. The
decision of that office on whether or not to prosecute was pending
as of October 30, 2009. The Ministry of Justice and Police formally
requested United States assistance in investigating the
disappearance of the drugs and re-establishing the integrity of the
Suriname Police Force.

In 2009, members of the anti-narcotics brigade arrested one of
their colleagues in a drug raid. The OPZ completed the
investigation into the 2008 killing by a police officer of another
(off-duty) police officer, who had 51 kilos of cocaine in his
vehicle. The case was forwarded to the Attorney General's Office,
which decided to prosecute the police shooter. As of October 30,
the police shooter had been released from custody pending the
results of the ongoing trial.

Agreements and Treaties. Suriname is party to the 1961 UN Single
Convention as amended by the 1972 Protocol, and the 1971 UN
Convention on Psychotropic Substances. Suriname is also a party to
the 1988 UN Drug Convention and has accordingly passed legislation
that conforms to a majority of the Convention's articles, but it
has failed to pass legislation complying with precursor chemical
control provisions.

Suriname is a party to the UN Convention against Transnational
Organized Crime and its protocols against Trafficking in Persons
and Migrant Smuggling. Suriname is party to the Inter-American
Convention against Corruption and Migrant Smuggling and the
Inter-American Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters
but not the Optional Protocol thereto. Since 1976, the GOS has been
sharing narcotics information with the Netherlands pursuant to a
Mutual Legal Assistance Agreement. The two countries intensified
their cooperation to fight drug trafficking with agreements between
their police forces and their offices of the Attorney General. In
August 1999, a comprehensive six-part, bilateral, maritime
counternarcotics enforcement agreement was entered into with the
U.S. The U.S.-Netherlands Extradition Treaty of 1904 is applicable
to Suriname, but current Suriname law prohibits the extradition of
its nationals. Suriname did, however, deport foreign national
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) members to Colombia
in 2008 and is cooperating with regional counterparts on ongoing
Drugs-for-Arms network investigations. In 2009, the Council of
Ministers approved the draft legislation for Suriname to join the
CARICOM Arrest Warrant Treaty and forwarded it to the State Council
for review. During 2009, the U.S. made formal requests for
assistance to Suriname. Suriname has worked with the in-country
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) office and has provided
information and evidence to assist U.S. investigations and trials.

Officials from Suriname, the Netherlands Antilles, and Aruba met in
June 2008. The three countries share intelligence on judicial and
criminal matters and evaluated and expanded this cooperation. In
May 2008, Suriname and Guyana made the "Nieuw Nickerie
Declaration," to combat transnational crime between the countries.
The declaration said they had agreed to advance cooperation
regarding narcotics, money laundering, trafficking in persons and
weapons. Suriname has also signed bilateral agreements to combat
drug trafficking with neighboring countries Brazil, Venezuela and
Colombia. Brazil and Colombia have cooperated with Suriname on
specific drug-related cases. Suriname is an active member of CICAD,
to which it reports regularly. Suriname publicly announced its
candidacy for the CICAD vice chair position in 2009-2010 in late

2008. Suriname has signed agreements with the United States,
Netherlands, Brazil, and France that permit law enforcement
attach????s to work with local police.

Cultivation and Production. There is local cultivation of cannabis
in Suriname but there is little data on the amount under
cultivation or evidence that marijuana is exported in significant
quantities. There has been MDMA production in Suriname in past
years.

Drug Flow/Transit. Suriname's sparsely populated coastal region and
isolated jungle interior, together with weak border controls and
infrastructure, make narcotics detection and interdiction efforts
difficult. USG analysis indicates that drug traffickers use very
remote locations for delivery and temporary storage of narcotics.
There are also indications that the illicit drug flights are
increasingly moving to Guyana. Narcotics shipments are then
transported by go-fast boat to Nickerie District, Suriname. Cocaine
shipments that enter Suriname via small aircraft land on
clandestine airstrips that are cut into the dense jungle interior
and/or sparsely populated coastal districts. The GOS has worked to

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combat this flow by monitoring the illegal cross-border traffic
near the city of Nieuw Nickerie and by destroying several
clandestine airstrips in 2007 and 2008. European-produced MDMA is
transported via commercial airline flights from the Netherlands to
Suriname. There have been reports of marijuana smuggled into
Suriname from Guyana, and heroin transshipped through Suriname en
route to Europe.

Cocaine from South America, primarily destined for Europe, is
transshipped through Suriname (sometimes via Africa or other South
American countries). Cocaine bound for the Caribbean, and
ultimately the United States, is also transshipped through
Suriname. Drugs exit Suriname via numerous means including
commercial air flights, drug couriers, and concealed in small
private planes. In 2009, Italian law enforcement dismantled a drug
ring transshipping heroin and cocaine via Suriname and other South
American countries to Italy. The majority of cocaine on commercial
air flights is bound for Europe, but there have also been several
cases of cocaine identified on U.S.-bound flights. The bulk of the
cocaine movement out of Suriname to Europe and Africa is via
commercial sea cargo. Traffickers move hundreds of kilograms,
concealing it either in cargo, containers, or in the vessels. Small
fishing vessels also carry drugs out to sea and transfer them to
large freight vessels in international waters. Well-concealed
cocaine is off-loaded at the destination port as legitimate cargo,
while kilograms in block form, packaged in bundles of 50 to 100
kilograms, are off-loaded in international waters to smaller boats
prior to entering port. The government has no operating Coast Guard
or limited maritime capability to interdict drug traffickers at
sea.

Domestic Programs/Demand Reduction. The NAR conducts annual
activities surrounding the International Day of Drugs, with a
specific focus on youth and at-risk groups. In 2009, this outreach
included a film festival and other activities for youth. Special
outreach was made to musical groups and brass bands after several
cases of youth in performance groups being caught trafficking
narcotics to the Netherlands. In 2008 the NAR established one new
regional site in Saramacca for anti-drug activities, bringing the
number of its active sites to three across the country. These sites
were used as a base for data collection, analysis and
recommendations based on trends, and drug awareness activities for
the local communities. In 2006-2007, the NAR established a youth
commission that conducts peer advising at fairs. In 2010, the NAR
plans to continue to focus its efforts on raising drug awareness,
creating self-help groups, and partnering with local stakeholders
on youth and community outreach initiatives. The NAR is active
with planning for a 2010 pilot program for a Drug Treatment Court,
which would hear defendants with drug-use related crimes. There is
one government detoxification center which is free; other treatment
centers are run by non-governmental organizations.

The Bureau of Alcohol and Drugs (BAD) reported in mid-2009 an
increase in cocaine use in Suriname but based this on anecdotal
evidence. A 2007 CICAD-funded general population (household)
survey's results were published in February 2009, and the data will
be used to formulate new demand reduction policies. The survey,
which measured alcohol, cigarette, and drug use in the general
public , showed that the drugs of choice are alcohol and
cigarettes, and that less than one percent of respondents had used
cocaine in the month prior to the survey (except in the Districts
of Commewijne and Marowijne, where the percentage was 1.3 percent).


IV. U.S. Policy Initiatives and Programs

Policy Initiatives. The United States' focus is on strengthening
the GOS law enforcement and judicial institutions and their
capabilities to detect, interdict, and prosecute narcotics
trafficking activities.

Bilateral Cooperation. In 2008, the GOS and Guyana made the "Nieuw
Nickerie Declaration" to advance cooperation on transnational crime
as a follow-on to the 2006 "Paramaribo Declaration," which provided
a framework to establish an intelligence-sharing network,
coordinate, and execute sting operations, destroy clandestine
airstrips and tackle money laundering. In December 2008, the
Ministry of Justice and Police co-hosted (with the Embassy of the
Republic of France in Suriname) a regional counternarcotics and
money laundering seminar for law enforcement and police attaches.

In 2009, the United States provided training and material support
to several elements of the national police to strengthen their
counternarcotics capabilities. The DEA office in Suriname provided
counternarcotics training to several units of the Korps Politie

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Suriname (KPS),Suriname's national police force. DEA also
arranged for some KPS officers to take part in a larger U.S.
military provided training course on interdiction, and provided
operational assistance for the course. In 2009, DEA also provided
technical assistance to the KPS in narcotics and money laundering
and investigations. The "Paramaribo Declaration" set forth several
tenants of understanding among the participating countries, and in
2009 the DEA took actions to enhance the cooperative actions
between the participating countries. A DOD Tactical Analysis Team
(TAT) became operational in Suriname in November 2008, providing
additional technical support.

The Road Ahead. The United States encourages the GOS efforts to
continue to pursue major narcotics traffickers and to dismantle
their organizations, and to build on and strengthen its regional
and international cooperation to date. The GOS should continue to
strengthen its focus on port security, specifically seaports, which
are seen as the primary conduits for large shipments of narcotics
exiting Suriname. A concerted effort by the GOS to increase the
number of police and military boats, and to create an operational
Coast Guard, capable of patrolling the border rivers and coastal
areas would also likely enhance counternarcotics efforts.
Similarly, in order to achieve greater results, the USG encourages
the GOS to continue to engage in capacity-building measures of its
counternarcotics-focused units as well as to monitor and protect
its porous borders and vast interior with a radar detection system
and adequate air support. With regard to enhancing its interdiction
at the principal airport and border crossings, the GOS should
invest in a passport scanning/electronic database system.
BELL