If you build it, they won't come? US bases in Caribbean target drug trafficking.

Drugs in the DR

The $1.5 million base planned for the Dominican Republic drew small protests and cries of Yankee imperialism in a country that was twice occupied by US Marines in the 20^th century.

The Dominican Navy says it requested construction of the base because drug running via its coastal waters has spiked since it cracked down on illicit drug flights from South America last year. 

Considered the center of the Caribbean drug trade, the Dominican Republic is a key transshipment point for smugglers trying toreach US soil via the Mona Passage, which separates the country from Puerto Rico.

The base, planned for a three-mile-long, mostly protected island off the southeast coast – Isla Saona – “will allow the Dominican Navy to have a continual presence in the area,” allowing it  “to monitor illicit activities” in the Mona Passage, according to the Dominican Navy in a statement.

Still, opponents fear the long-term effects. “We know drugs has negatively impacted the Domincan Republic,” says Hector Leon, a student who demonstrated against the base’s construction. “But what happens when we no longer need it? Will it be a base for the US?”

John Lindsay-Poland, director of research and advocacy at the Fellowship of Reconciliation, which documents US military presence in Latin America, says that’s a real danger.

“The thing about capacity in infrastructure is that it can outlive the mission,” he says. “You set up a base like this and maybe the politics change … but the infrastructure is still there. It’s an infrastructure that allows the US to intervene.”

Calls for a new approach

For critics, the failures to stop drug smuggling underscore the shortcomings of a military-led approach to drug interdiction.

Any military assistance in those countries needs to be complemented with aid that will go to reform key institutions, says retired Army Col. Robert Killebrew.

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“Southcom is moving throughout the area to provide assistance to those countries,” Killebrew says. “That’s good. They need it. But my concern is that there has to also be help to the legal organs of those states, the courts, the police, the prosecutors.”

Thanks in part to the effects of the drug trade, countries in Central America and the Caribbean are among the most violent in the world. The scourge of drug-related violence has led many countries to involve their militaries in citizen policing roles, despite sordid histories of human rights violations in some countries.

Many Latin American leaders – including former Army general, recently inaugurated Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina – are now calling for a discussion on the legalization of drugs. During a visit to the region last week, Vice President Joseph Biden said "It's worth discussing [decriminalization], but there is no possibility the Obama/Biden administration will change its policy on legalization," which largely puts an end to any meaningful conversation on the topic, critics say. 

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