The Bahamas is one of 23 countries identified by United States President George Bush as a major illicit drug transit or drug producing country.
President Bush recently made his findings known during his annual report to Congress, where he assesses foreign counter narcotics cooperation of major drug producing and transiting nations.
This is not the first time The Bahamas has been placed on the list. In 2000, former U.S President Bill Clinton, during his report to Congress, identified The Bahamas as a major transiting nation.
He, however, noted that a country’s presence on the list of major drug transit countries is not an adverse reflection on its government’s counter narcotics efforts, or on the level of its co-operation with the United States.
Among the reasons that major drug transit countries are placed on the list, the former president said, is the combination of geographical, commercial and economic factors, that allow drugs to transit, despite the most diligent enforcement measures of the government concerned.
On Friday, President Bush identified three countries on the list, as ones that have failed noticeably to make substantial efforts during the previous 12 months, to adhere to international counter narcotics agreements. Those countries were Guatemala, Haiti and Myanmar.
President Bush considers each country’s performance in areas such as stemming illicit cultivation, extraditing drug traffickers, and taking legal steps and law enforcement measures to prevent and punish public corruption that facilitates drug trafficking or impedes prosecution of drug related crimes.
Mr Bush also takes into consideration efforts taken by these countries to stop the production and exportation of illegal drugs.
The overall objective is to reduce the capabilities of the major drug trafficking organizations and distribution networks throughout the region, and thereby stem the flow of drugs through the Caribbean trafficking corridor, to the continental United States.
Other countries named on the list were Afghanistan, Bolivia, Brazil, China, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Thailand, Venezuela and Vietnam.
By Rogan M. Smith, The Bahama Journal
