Arms Diversion to Colombia Clouds Antigua Ruling Family : Caribbean: Israel accuses the island prime minister’s son of ordering weapons that ended up in the hands of the cocaine cartel.

A scandal over the shipment of Israeli arms to a Colombian drug lord has become a political bombshell in this tourist haven, where the ruling family has weathered previous scandals.

The island gained international notoriety in the late 1970s for allowing the testing of weapons for South Africa. It was in the news again in the early 1980s for harboring fugitive American financier Robert Vesco.

Now, Israel has accused Prime Minister Vere Bird’s eldest son, Vere Jr., 54, of ordering weapons for Antigua’s 80-man army that mysteriously ended up in the hands of Colombia’s Medellin drug cartel.

Vere Jr., a Cabinet minister, has denied wrongdoing but resigned his Cabinet post pending the outcome of a judicial inquiry, the equivalent of a U.S. grand jury investigation.

Another son of the prime minister, Lester, 52, deputy prime minister and sometime rival of his older brother, is spearheading the local investigation, shrugging off any possible conflict of interest.

The Bird family, which has dominated the island’s politics for more than three decades and grown wealthy while doing it, has long been accused of corruption in connection with developing the island’s booming tourist industry. But this affair, with its suggestion of a government link with the sinister world of international drug trafficking and gunrunning, is a bombshell by comparison.

“This latest one shocked us to the core,” said Anglican Archbishop Orland Lindsay.

Tim Hector, a leftist opposition leader, said he thought the nation could be in danger of a coup if the prime minister’s son were charged.

“I believe we are teetering on the brink . . . of a possible military seizure of power and control by Vere Bird (Jr.),” he said. Vere Jr. is said to command the army’s loyalty.

In April, Israel said it had shipped weapons to the Caribbean island in April, 1989, on the understanding they would be used exclusively by the Antigua Defense Force.

Israel said the arms were ordered by Vere Jr., who identified himself as the minister of national security. No such ministry exists, but Vere Jr. acts informally as his father’s national security adviser.

The Antiguan investigation determined that the weapons arrived here on April 24, 1989, and were shipped the same day to Santa Marta, Colombia.

Colombian officials say soldiers found 232 Israeli-made weapons in February during a search of ranches seized from Gonzalo Rodrigues Gacha, a reputed kingpin of the Medellin cartel who was killed in a December gun battle with police.

The weapons included machine guns, submachine guns, assault rifles, pistols, shoulder-fired rockets and infrared night scopes.

The Outlet, a weekly newspaper published by Hector’s Antigua Caribbean Liberation Movement, said the weapons deal was arranged by two Israelis, Maurice Sarfati and Col. Yair Klein.

Sarfati, a former Israeli army officer, once operated a melon farm in Antigua but went bankrupt and reportedly is being sought by U.S. authorities for defaulting on $1.3 million in loans.

Colombian officials have accused Klein, a reserve officer in the Israeli army, of organizing, training and equipping paramilitary groups, and declared him a fugitive from justice.

Klein said in Israel that the arms shipment was originally intended for a training school he wanted to set up in Antigua for Panamanian rebels opposed to Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, who was ousted by U.S. forces last December.

When plans for the school fell through, Klein said, the Panamanians wanted the weapons shipped to Panama, but somehow they were diverted to Colombia.

Many questions remain, among them whether anyone in the Antiguan government was aware the arms shipment was headed for Colombia.

In Antigua, a former British colony of 80,000 only nine miles wide and 12 miles long, the government is largely a function of one family, the Birds.

Vere Bird Sr., the 80-year-old prime minister, rose to prominence in the 1930s as a union organizer in the days of colonial sugar plantations and has led the nation all but five of the last 34 years. His Antigua Labor Party controls 15 of the 17 seats in Parliament.

Vere Jr. is minister of public works and communication. Lester, the deputy prime minister, is leader of the ruling party and minister of foreign affairs, economic development, tourism and energy.

Antiguans take it for granted that either Lester or Vere Jr. will succeed their father, who is in declining health, and many believe the outcome of this scandal could help settle the matter.

The brothers, both British-trained lawyers, have weathered previous scandals.

In 1987, Vere Jr. was implicated, but never charged, in an investigation of a government project to repave the runway of the island’s airport. He had formed a private company to carry out the project, which was supposed to cost no more than $3.5 million but ended up costing $11.5 million.

It was Lester who helped Vesco when the fugitive surfaced in Antigua in 1982 with a bizarre plan to buy half of Barbuda, Antigua’s small sister island, and establish a principality called the Sovereign Order of New Aragon.

Vere Jr. is widely regarded as his father’s favorite. Lester, who was an All-American long jumper at the University of Michigan in 1960, is seen as the brighter of the two.

In separate interviews, the brothers played down their rivalry and the possible impact of the scandal on their political futures.

“I clearly had no intention of . . . reducing (this matter) to a question of a fight for power within the domestic situation,” Lester said. “After all, he is still my brother.”

Vere Jr. would not discuss specifics of the case, but said: “I’ve never been associated with anything of the kind and would never be.”

About his relationship with his brother, he said: “Whenever I meet him, it’s a most amicable . . . relationship. When we leave, I don’t know what transpires.”

The Antigua government has hired a Washington attorney, E. Lawrence Barcella Jr., to head a team that has flown to Israel to get evidence. A British jurist, Louis Blom-Cooper, has been named to conduct a judicial inquiry, which is expected to open hearings in June.