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St. Croix Map - US Virgin Islands Maps - Aerial views of St. Croix

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St. Croix Map - US Virgin Islands Maps - Aerial views of St. Croix

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Includes characters, summary, and conflict of the book

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Hole in my life is an autobiography by Jack Gantos. It tell how his childhood ended when he was sent to prison for smuggling. He moved from wanting to be a writer to writing and this new found dedication helped him endure the worst experience of his life. Jack Resolution Jack's

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Mule definition, the sterile offspring of a female horse and a male donkey, valued as a work animal, having strong muscles, a body shaped like a horse, and donkeylike long ears, small feet, and sure-footedness. See more.

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The V.I. Department of Justice will provide excellent, independent, and ethical legal services for the U.S. Virgin Islands in order to achieve justice and to assert, protect, and defend the rights of the people.

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For the purposes of IDPC's regional work, the Caribbean includes the following countries: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Bonaire, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, French Guyana, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, Montserrat, Puerto Rico, St. Eustacia and Montserrat, Saint Barts, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Martin, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, and the US Virgin Islands of St. Thomas, St. Croix.

Drug Situation

Production

The Caribbean region produces relatively small amounts of cannabis, notably cannabis herb, which are primarily consumed within the region. Jamaica is the largest cannabis producer and exporter in the region, although production has decreased over the last decade. Read more.

Trafficking

During the 1970s the Caribbean became a major transit area for cocaine trafficking from its then prevailing source, Colombia. Regional links with the United States and Western Europe, coupled with the Caribbean's coastline, which is extensive and sporadically monitored, provided opportunities for cocaine traffickers to expand the market throughout the 1980s. Approximately 10% of US-bound cocaine was estimated to be trafficked through the region mostly on speedboats, cargo containers or privately-owned fishing craft. 'Narcoplanes' (light aircraft carrying drugs) were also often used to traffic cocaine through the region. The Dominican Republic's National Drug Council estimated that in 2007 at least 200 planes flew over the country releasing thousands of pounds of cocaine at a time. Elsewhere in the Caribbean, the Bahamas remains a major transit location for cocaine and Jamaican cannabis.

The Caribbean-South Florida route continues to be active although it is currently less used than the Central America-Mexico route. However, since Honduras stepped up its counter-narcotics pressure in 2013, drug flights to Central America have dropped by a third. With this, the Caribbean-South Florida route has regained popularity with traffickers, with an increase in cocaine imports into the United States from the Caribbean islands from 4% in 2011 to 16% in 2013. The Dominican Republic is a notable nation for drug trafficking. After a decrease at the beginning of the 21st century, the country recorded an increase in cocaine seizures between 2005 and 2010 and retains its importance as a transit route for cocaine from South to Northern America, as well as to European markets. There is also evidence that trafficking routes are shifting to the small island nations of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, including Saint Lucia, Montserrat, Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Saint Lucia is a particular vector for cocaine from South America into Martinique for onward shipment to metropolitan France and then throughout Europe. The Netherland Antilles have also seen an increase in the number of travellers transporting cocaine and heroin to the Netherlands. Read more.

Consumption

Cannabis is the most widely used drug in the Caribbean, with high rates of use across the islands. With the expansion of the cocaine market in the 1980s and the Caribbean's location on the cocaine transhipment route, the region saw a rapid increase in cocaine dependence, particularly in its smokeable form commonly referred to as "crack" cocaine. A recent study of student drug use reported that the highest levels of cocaine use were in Guyana, Jamaica and Haiti. The use of other drugs is estimated to be relatively low and injecting drug use is rare in the region with the exception of the Dominican Republic, Cuba and Puerto Rico, where there are some 15,000 people who inject drugs, primarily using opiates but the injection of "speed balls" (cocaine and heroin) is common in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

Regional Drug Policies

Public health

The Caribbean is second only to Sub-Saharan Africa as the region of the world most affected by HIV/AIDS. Outside of the DR, HIV transmission is primarily sexually transmitted. In a region that is highly homophobic, governments minimise the impact of male on male HIV transmission and continue to erroneously attribute the bulk of the HIV infections to "unprotected heterosexual intercourse". There have been repeated calls to update the official position regarding the disaggregation of infections by behaviours but to date this has not been achieved, largely due to politics and ideology.

Injecting drug use is the most common cause of HIV transmission in Puerto Rico. There is growing evidence that the sexual transmission of HIV in the region is linked with crack cocaine use. In a 2007 study conducted by CDARI in St Lucia, high levels of HIV were found in the crack using population as compared to the non-crack using control group. The HIV epidemic in the non-IDU crack smoking population is fuelled by high numbers of sex partners, unprotected sex and the immuno-depressive impact of cocaine on the system.

Although the region has HIV and drug policies, these continue to be administered separately rather than following an integrated approach. While National AIDS programmes are relatively progressive in their work with key populations, national drug councils are abstinence based, high threshold, 'just say no' programmes that reject harm reduction as encouraging drug use. Few countries have given attention and support to the development of harm reduction measures within national policies. Puerto Rico is the only Caribbean territory to have functioning Needle and Syringe Programmes (NSPs) with 13 sites based in the capital city San Juan. It is also the only country in the region to provide OST, with 6 OST sites, 1 of which is situated in a prison. Non-Injecting Drug users are not seen as a vulnerable population for targeted HIV prevention measures.

Criminal justice system

The illicit use of controlled drugs in the Caribbean region is treated exclusively as a criminal justice issue and use often leads to incarceration; the term 'zero tolerance' is a commonly used expression in the region's political rhetoric. Fuelled in part by the expansion in crack cocaine consumption since the mid-1980s, criminal justice systems across the Caribbean have, according to St. Lucia's Caribbean Drug and Alcohol Treatment Institute, seen a great increase in drug cases. Policies heavily focused on the criminalisation of people who use drugs, small-time dealers or petty drug-related crimes have produced a strain on a criminal justice system lacking a robust alternative to incarceration and has led to massive prison overcrowding which strains the capacity of national authorities.

The harms associated with drug trafficking are often exacerbated when countries have low GDP per capita or poor social infrastructure. Haiti, which ranks as one of the top ten most fragile states globally, and the poorest in the Americas, has suffered devastating effects due corruption and poor governance which has allowed it to be used as a cocaine trafficking route further contributing to the increase in crime and police corruption. The Caribbean region also suffers from high murder rates, and research by the World Bank and UNODC indicates that the growth of the international drug trade in the region is associated with rising rates of homicide, firearm proliferation, violence, kidnapping and property-related crime.

Although on a smaller scale than the drug cartels of Mexico and Colombia, the Caribbean's illicit drug trade can still create violent criminal groups that bring high levels of insecurity. In Jamaica in 2010, attempts by the security forces to arrest a powerful local drug dealer Christopher 'dudus' Coke led to the deaths of 73 people, some believed to be civilians. Due to an increase in cocaine being trafficked through the Dominican Republic the drug trade has become more volatile and has been associated with increasing levels of homicide. The inefficient and poorly resourced criminal justice systems must be reformed in order to enhance law enforcement initiatives, abolish corruption and instil public confidence in the law. This is now occurring in some countries in the Caribbean region.

The Dominican Republic is in the process of reforming its prison system and has recently established the Centre of Excellence on Prison Reform and Drug Demand Reduction in Santo Domingo. The centre works with UNODC in an attempt to strengthen the country's criminal justice system through more effective policies and training programmes. It focuses on exploring alternatives to imprisonment, modernising the system in line with international standards. Despite this progress, the Dominican Republic remains the most repressive of regimes in terms of its policies toward the use of drugs.

The Organisation of American States (OAS) through the Inter-American Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) has encouraged Caribbean countries to adopt drug courts as part of a campaign to provide alternatives to imprisonment in the region. Although alternatives to incarceration should be welcome and encouraged, evidence has shown that drug courts often pose major problems and can sometimes be counterproductive. This is particularly the case with the CICAD programme which is strongly influence by the US model of drug courts. For more information, please click here.

Another more positive development, however, is the recent move by CARICOM to open a serious debate on the decriminalisation of cannabis use across the region.

Supply reduction

Caribbean countries are known for their expansive coastlines, but many do not have the necessary law enforcement capacity required to patrol their vast territorial waters, which are often used for drug trafficking. Smuggling through high-speed boats has been a major issue in the region as they are often difficult to detect and intercept. The use of small planes throwing bundles of cocaine onto the islands has also been a predominant trafficking method for many years. In an attempt to counter these 'narcoplanes', in 2009 the Dominican Republic purchased eight Brazilian-made "Super Tucanos"- fast, agile, single-engine turboprop aircraft. Reports from the Air Force contend that drug flights from South America to the area have significantly decreased with many no longer even entering the island's air space.

The USA has promised financial and technical assistance to the Caribbean region in an effort to stem trafficking of controlled drugs in the region. The Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI) was launched by President Obama in 2009, designed to arm and train local law enforcement officials, improve their infrastructure and increase local community awareness of drug trafficking in the region. Promises of direct grants and financial aid have not met the expectations of the recipient countries.

The 10 th European Development Fund (EDF) has earmarked almost 10million Euro in direct cash support to the CARICOM (the Carribean Community) Secretariat to support both demand reduction and supply reduction. This earmark has been available since the inception of the 10 th EDF (2008) but the CARICOM Secretariat has not yet been able to produce a suitable "PIF" in which to access the funds.

In its new strategic plan, CARICOM IMPACS (Implementation Agency for Crime and Security) called for a review of Caribbean drug policy to bring it more in line with current evidence and international trends.

Rights of indigenous people

Cannabis was introduced to the Caribbean in the mid-19 th century by Indian labourers whose customs supported its use as a medicine and as a religious sacrament. These beliefs were adopted by members of the Rastafarian religious community. In Jamaica, which has the largest number of members of the Rastafarian religion, cannabis use is widely smoked and tolerated but remains illegal despite the findings of the " Ganja Commission " which recommended its decriminalization. The island government claims that legalising even small amounts of cannabis for personal use would violate the international drug control treaties Jamaica and bring sanctions from its US neighbour.

Key Resources

For more information regarding drug policy in the Caribbean, please click here.

IDPC Members in the Caribbean

For a full list of IDPC members in the Caribbean, please click here:

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For the purposes of IDPC's regional work, the Caribbean includes the following countries: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Bonaire, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, French Guyana, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, Montserrat, Puerto Rico, St. Eustacia and Montserrat, Saint Barts, St.

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Credit... The New York Times Archives

This is a digitized version of an article from The Times's print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.

Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions.

WASHINGTON-The war in Vietnam produced what is widely recognized as the greatest blunder in Government economic policy since World War II - a blunder whose effects have still not been entirely eliminated.

Yet in economic terms the war leaves with a whisper, not a bang. The big money and the big strain are long since past. There is no present prospect of a massive postwar aid and reconstruction program in Indochina that will even equal the last, reduced cost of the war, even though there will be a significant program. On the other side of the ledger, there is almost no "peace dividend."

Finally, the war - or more precisely the aftermath of its poor economic handling - has left a major legacy: a new and probably lasting, though intermit??, willingness of the United States Government to use in essentially nonwar conditions direct controls over wages and prices. The war, and its economic handling, also played a part in the eventual collapse of the world monetary system established at Bretton Woods, N.H., a quarter of a century ago, though this might have happened anyway.

These points stand out in the process of reflecting on the economic aspects of the long agony. As in foreign and military policy, something has been learned.

First, a brief recall of the Great Botch of 1966. The blame was mainly that of President Johnson, and he finally realized it.

The war had "begun," in the sense of the introduction of American combat troops in force, in Suly, 1965. By coincidence, the economy at that time was approaching "full employment" after a long period of steady and noninflationary expansion, with idle resources of men and machines gradually decreasing.

The beginning of the Botch came in December, 1965, with a gross underestimate of the cost of the war for the fiscal year 1967 (from mid‐1966 to mid‐1967) by the Defense Department under Robert S. McNamara. The new budget for fiscal 1967 included $10‐billion for the war, though the final figure turned out to be $20‐billion, an error of 100 per cent.

The President's economic advisers, then headed by Gardner Ackley, were increasingly suspicious of the Defense estimates. But, even before they knew the worst, they had recommended a tax increase. They knew that the economy was about to bump up against its full‐employment ceiling, that inflation threatened and that a big budget deficit was the worst possible medicine. In December and January President Johnson declined their advice.

The President began to get a more accurate picture of the cost of the war by March. But, in polling people like key members of Congress and businessmen on whether they would support higher taxes, he never really told them how much the war was costing and would cost. And they, partly as a result, expressed no enthusiasm for a tax increase.

Besides, the President that year had a lot of Great Society legislation pending in Congress. If he had asked for taxes to pay for the war, the response in Congress might have been to scuttle the domestic legislation instead. In any case, that was the great blunder -the failure to recommend higher taxes in early 1966.

The President finally proposed a tax increase in January, 1967, asking that Congress not consider it until after mid‐year. And Congress did not enact it until July, 1968.

The agonizing story is familiar. With the economy operating at full steam, the budget deficit began to zoom at exactly the wrong time, finally reaching $23‐billion in fiscal 1968. Inflation followed as the night the day.

We shall never know for certain whether, had President Johnson proposed and Congress enacted a payfor‐the‐war tax increase of some $10‐billion in mid‐1966, the ensuing distress of the American economy could have been largely avoided. Mighthave‐beens are the bane of history.

But insofar as economic analysis can judge and has judged, the answer is yes, the worst could have been easily avoided. The war was never big enough to clobber this nation's economy if properly financed. We could not have had zero inflation, but we need not have had anything like the 6 per cent inflation we final ly got.

Enough of the Botch.

Next the whisper of the end of the war.

Everything is relative. Even the massive recent bombing of North Vietnam was costing "only" about $2‐billion at an annual rate. And the war as a whole at its end, measured by the Defense Department's definition of "incremental cost," was costing about $6‐billion.

These numbers are small relative to the peak cost of the war, to the defense budget, to the total budget and above all to the total economy.

But they are very large relative to some of the recent domestic budget cuts-for example, about $200‐million for rural electrification loans-which have caused great Congressional protest.

What can be said safely is that the end of the war will have very little direct dollar effect on the economy as a whole, now, but that it will make a bit easier the Administration's very serious effort to check the largely domestic‐caused juggernaut of Federal spending.

As for the "peace dividend," as war spending has declined the dividend has almost entirely bee?? spent within the militar?? budget itself-but not main ly for expensive weapons. I has been spent on muc?? larger pay for smaller tots forces, partly to attain th?? goal of a volunteer army.

While the "peace dividend" concept has always been a little ambiguous, it is clea?? that total defense spending has remained remarkably stable in dollar terms for five years as the war woun?? down, to the range of $75 billion to $77‐billion. Without the winding down of the war it would have risen sharply for reasons of inflation alone.

Then there is postwar aid in Indochina. The Government is silent pending consultation with other countries that may want to help. But officials continue to say that the "ball park" figure is $7.5‐billion, spread over five years, for all of Indochina, including contributions by others than the United States. President Nixon first disclosed this figure in a message to Congress last February.

*

Depending still on details, the annual United States aid contribution - including our share of the roughly $2.5‐billion five‐year amount for North Vietnam contained within the over‐all figure of $7.5‐billion - is not likely to be a great deal larger than the amount of foreign aid that was being spent annually in South Vietnam anyway.

The best present estimate is that the relatively small military savings from the ending of the war will be greater than the even smaller incremental aid costs to follow the end of the war.

And, last, the legacy.

On the international side, the war had a direct role in creating the massive deficit in the United States balance of payments. This in turn ultimately led to the devaluation of the dollar and the end of the Bretton Woods system.

Just as important, inflation permitted to happen in the United States when the war was not paid for was important in eventually swinging the American trade balance - exports and imports - into massive deficit after years of regular surplus. This had an even worse impact on the balance of payments.

But, more than that, the war tended to sour the climate of international monetary negotiation, and it certainly did not help financial psychology. While it is probably too much to say that Vietnam wrecked the old monetary system, it was one of the wreckers. Of course, a better system may emerge from the wreckage.

But the main legacy is probably domestic.

In good Dart because of its failure to finance the war, the United States Government let the economy run away in the late nineteen‐sixties. That has happened at other times and in other places. Still, a lasting lesson is likely to have been learned.

*

A Republican Administration took office in early 1969 at the peak of the inflationary boom. It began winding down the war rather soon. Independently of that, however, it put classic fiscal and monetary clamps on the economy. The winding down was simply an aid in fiscal restraint and was not the "cause" of the subsequent recession, as some Republican politicians (including President Nixon) occasionally implied.

The lesson, of course, is now commonplace. The classic restraint produced a recession and unemployment-a fairly mild recession but still deeper than anybody had planned - and yet inflation continued. The result was the experiment in controls: an experiment sufficiently successful, or certainly not unsuccessful, to give a similar venture a far higher probability in the future than would ever have seemed likely five or 10 or 15 years ago.

If the economy runs away again, for whatever reason, controls will be a lively possibility for any Government in power in the United States. It is to be hoped that, as in the current experiment, they would be imposed after and not before the more fundamental restraints have been applied.

But, whetter applied at the wrong time or the right time, controls are now part of our heritage and are not automatically viewed as an ogre. Depending on one's philosophy, and the evolution of that philosophy over these trying years, it could even be a happy legacy from the long trauma of Vietnam.

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What Vietnam Did to the American Economy (Published 1973)

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Article on effects of Vietnam war on US econ; war produced what is widely considered greatest blunder in Govt econ policy since World War II, effects of which have still not been entirely eliminated; blunder, called Great Botch of '66, was Pres Johnson's failure to ask Cong for tax increase

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TORONTO - One of the most colorful and stylized political stories at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) this year is a documentary entitled The Skyjacker's Tale. This totally absorbing and entertaining film, full of creative reenactments, spins a narrative about the murder of eight people at the Fountain Valley Golf Club in St Croix, Virgin Islands, in 1972. Pressured to find the murderers, the state apparatus rounds up several "guilty" suspects, puts them through torture, a sham trial with forced confessions - even though they were represented by the famed progressive attorney William Kunstler - and sends them off to eight life sentences. One of these unfortunate souls is Ishmael Labeet, the main subject of the film, who claims he never even went to the country club because it wasn't his kind of people - meaning white.

Labeet's life prior to the conviction involved a dishonorable discharge from the military during the Vietnam era for "refusing to kill people that looked like me and never did anything against me." He went on to New York and joined the Black Panthers, where he developed his revolutionary credentials. After returning to his home in St. Croix he hung with revolutionary groups that committed petty crimes - robbing to fund their work - and was eventually arrested for the murders.

After serving 14 years in American prisons - they are described with great clarity in the film - he applies for habeas corpus. He goes back to St Croix, loses the case and is headed back to the U.S. handcuffed between two special agents to finish his eight life sentences when he chooses a much better option: He skyjacks the plane to Havana! Upon landing he is arrested and willingly serves seven more years in a prison that "looks like a vacation compared to the ones in the U.S!"

The movie actually starts at this point with him in Cuba, and the previous activities are shown in clever, vivid flashbacks. The 1984 skyjacking is artfully recreated using testimony from interviews with passengers who were on the plane back then, along with many others who are relevant to the trial, his life in St. Croix, the military, the Black Panthers, and most everywhere along his lifespan. He apologized to passengers who at first were frightened, offers them all "drinks on the house," and was eventually described as "the most polite hijacker."

The film explains how he got the gun on the plane, and how the hijacking took place. Labeet is walking free in the streets of Cuba (location not revealed) and is interviewed at several locations, with many friends and family who know his remarkable story. He claims to be a revolutionary, not a criminal, and much better off than the other guys who are still in prison for the rest of their lives.

The deftly crafted tale is directed by Canadian auteur Jamie Kastner (Kike Like Me, Secret Disco Revolution), who traveled to Cuba to learn more about this story. "I went down to meet him after I looked him up online. Murderer! Hijacker! Revolutionary! I was curious how these work together. I thought I was going to meet a mass murderer. I met him and he claims his innocence and begins to tell me this amazing story. I am shocked and intrigued by each new revelation he made. He's a compelling lead character, a star in Cuba, funny, bright, sexy, a charismatic guy, and you believe him." Kastner continues, "But as a journalist I had to check the facts. So to have the cops and investigators in St Croix confirming the details that he was indeed involved with revolutionary gangs" added credibility to his story.

I was curious about a "screenplay" credit in a documentary and Kastner's creative use of re-enactments. He responds, "There is no narration per se, although some scenes are reenacted over dialog from real interviews. Recreations can be challenging. But any aesthetic tool you can do well or badly. Thin Blue Line is an example of it being well done." He defines docudramas as "creative non-fiction," adding, "The curse of a documentary is always what are you going to look at other than talking heads. Archived footage is always an asset but in my film - and since the trial in St. Croix happened back when recordings and smartphones were not available - there is very little footage to utilize."

When asked if he felt Labeet was innocent or guilty, Kastner responds, "in the end...the murder mystery is really about something else - the justice system, whether or not it works. It's about a guy who took the laws into his own hands, rather than a story about his guilt or innocence. One of Labeet's defense attorneys says, "We can speculate all day whether these guys did it or not, but what we know for sure is they did not get a fair trial or anything else. There was a grave miscarriage of justice that was committed" and confirmed in this film.

When reminded that Assata Shakur is the best known American fugitive in Cuba, Kastner noted that, "just last month there was a list of about 80 American fugitives given asylum there over the years. But let's say if Assata is #1 on the list - Labeet is in the top 5."
The Skyjacker's Tale Director: Jamie Kastner Producer: Jamie Kastner, Laura Baron Kastner Cinematographer: Derek Rogers Cast: Ishmael Muslim Ali, Margaret Ratner Kunstler, Michael Ratner 75 Minutes

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"The Skyjacker's Tale": Miscarriage of justice in 1970s St. Croix

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TORONTO - One of the most colorful and stylized political stories at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) this year is a documentary entitled The Skyjacker's Tale . This totally absorbing and entertaining film, full of creative reenactments, spins a narrative about the murder of eight people at the Fountain Valley Golf Club in St Croix, Virgin Islands, in 1972.