U.S. rails Venezuela on drug trafficking, warns Dominican Republic

Miami.- The United States has seen an “explosive” drug transit from Venezuela in the last few years stemming from Caracas’ limited collaboration in the war on drug trafficking, said a senior American official Tuesday, quoted by EFE.

“I admit that in the last five, six years, we’ve seen an explosion, I repeat an explosion, of illicit drug transit from Venezuela towards the outer market,” said Assistant Secretary of State for Narcotics and Security, William Brownfield.

The official spoke in a round table with journalists in Miami, where he also affirmed that the death of the top leader of Colombia’s FARC guerrilla, Guillermo Leon Sáenz “Alfoso Cano,” will make it easier to combat drugs, but noted that if Dominican Republic fails to adopt measures, it could confront problems with drug trafficking in around two years. “I am absolutely convinced that in two or three years Dominican Republic is going to confront this problem in a massive manner.”

Brownfield said to avoid it, it added, mechanisms of collaboration need to be established, to create infrastructure and to use “these two years to create a coalition of Caribbean countries with the rest of the international community to collaborate to confront this in the most effective way possible,” and again reiterated Venezuela’s “lack of collaboration.”

The former American ambassador in that country and in Colombia called Venezuela-U.S. relations “complicated” and “limited,” with “some exceptions.”

“In terms of collaboration against narcotics, I acknowledged that some exceptions have taken place, when the Venezuelan Government has agreed to collaborate in some cases; it has agreed to expel (people) to other countries for trial and has offered information or intelligence of some movement