Threat Against Americans Chills Caribbean Nation’s Commerce

It was hell week in paradise--not just for the 280 veterinary students from California and throughout the U.S. who faced their finals here under an accused drug lord’s reported death threat, but also for many of the 35,000 people who depend on those Americans for the money they pour into this island nation’s economy.

Parents panicked. Several dozen students at the Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine simply fled St. Kitts after the State Department announced late last month that local businessman Charles “Little Nut” Miller had threatened to have them killed if the U.S. government succeeds in its effort to extradite him to Miami.

Miller has denied to local police that he made the threats and insists he is a legitimate businessman in charge of a chicken distributorship, a hotel, a disco and several other businesses here. But some students reportedly feared that he had secretly videotaped them at the disco in the weeks before the threats were revealed. Others just weren’t taking any chances.

Region’s Cocaine Trade Destabilizes Countries

Leases were broken. Bars and restaurants were nearly empty. Soft-drink and gasoline sales were slumping. And the government here launched an all-out damage control campaign this month to restore the image of an otherwise peaceful twin-island nation that U.S. and Caribbean law enforcement officials say has become a case study in how the region’s increased cocaine trade can destabilize the island states.

“Charles Miller cannot bring down my government,” Prime Minister Denzil Douglas found himself insisting to a small group of U.S. journalists.

Douglas said his government is working closely with U.S. authorities to protect the Ross University students and to pursue the extradition case against Miller and two other Kittsians. A St. Kitts magistrate ruled against extradition for Miller, who is under indictment on cocaine-trafficking charges in south Florida; the decision is on appeal.

“We continue to view [Miller’s] threat very, very seriously,” Douglas said.

But the prime minister also used the news conference to deny persistent opposition charges here that Miller and his two associates are key supporters of Douglas’ ruling Labor Party and that they have become a law unto themselves on the island.

Finally, Douglas stressed, and U.S. authorities confirmed, that Miller’s extradition does not appear imminent. “The tension, anxiety and stress” on the Ross campus, he said, “is now more from their [final] exams than the threat from Miller.”

But repercussions from the State Department’s report have continued to rip through St. Kitts’ fragile economy this month. And much of the anger here has appeared to be not at Washington, as it has been in the past, but at Miller himself.

Local businesspeople and average Kittsians on the street say the U.S. students are merely Miller’s latest target. They tell of a man who has terrorized the island in the years since he slipped away from the United States’ witness protection program and came home--a man described in court records in the United States as a charismatic drug dealer turned U.S. informant turned accused drug dealer.

The Times first reported last December that court documents and civil records show, and U.S. officials confirm, that Miller is Cecil Connor, a St. Kitts-born drug dealer and gang member who worked as a political enforcer in the slums of Jamaica; who smuggled cocaine and marijuana into Florida, New York and California; and who attended assassinations in the U.S. by a brutal Jamaican drug gang known as the Shower Posse. The gang sprayed its victims with machine-gun fire, often maiming or killing bystanders.

Court records obtained by The Times in Florida, New York and St. Kitts show that Miller, as Connor, testified as a star witness for U.S. federal prosecutors in Florida in January 1989, helping to win the conviction of two Shower Posse leaders--and winning himself a new identity in the witness protection program.

U.S. officials confirmed that Miller dropped out of the program soon after. He returned to the island, and records on file at the St. Kitts public registry show that he legally changed his name from Cecil Connor to Charles Miller in July 1991.

Four years later, Miller was indicted by a federal grand jury in Miami for allegedly conspiring to use an air cargo service to import hundreds of pounds of Colombian cocaine through St. Kitts into the United States. And U.S. officials dubbed him their worst nightmare: an ingenious criminal with intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the U.S. criminal justice system who had become a fugitive from U.S. law.

Aside from the official name-change document he signed seven years ago, Miller has not publicly acknowledged his previous identity. But he boasted of a close working relationship with U.S. law enforcement agencies in the past during interviews with several other publications last year.

In the months since The Times report, which was widely circulated in St. Kitts, many Kittsians say public opinion has begun to turn against Miller, who has insisted that the Miami drug charges were “trumped up” by his political enemies in the opposition People’s Action Party.

“I think popular opinion has kicked in against him. People are now finally convinced that it’s not a political thing, that Miller is what the police and the Americans say he is,” said William Liburd, general manager of the opposition party’s weekly newspaper, the Democrat.

Liburd conceded that Miller and his fate are a major political issue on the island. The Aug. 8 edition of his newspaper was headlined “A Drug-Infested Government Defends Position of Drug Lord,” and a recent opposition press release asserted: “Our country is being held to ransom by drug traffickers who enjoy the protection of the Douglas government and who are financial supporters of [his] Labor Party.”

Douglas repeatedly denied those allegations, defended his record in pursuing drug trafficking throughout the islands and instead accused the opposition of drug corruption. But most Kittsians interviewed in the capital this month agreed with the opposition’s statement that “this latest threat against Ross University students . . . is the last straw.”

“Miller and his people have been threatening people here for years now,” said one prominent St. Kitts businessman who asked not to be identified. “They threatened me. The problem is fear--fear of reprisals--and that’s still very strong.”

Firm Denies Credit to Alleged Drug Boss

One major company on the island has openly shunned Miller. The TDC Group, the island’s largest company, openly denied Miller credit last year, citing the drug charges pending against him and local charges of murder and jury tampering that later were dropped.

Miller responded with a three-page letter attacking TDC and defending his reputation.

“We give out thousands of dollars to charities and give more to local groups than most local organizations,” Miller said in the letter. “We help the poor people to pay their bills.”

Such philanthropy has won Miller and the two others being sought by the U.S. some support at the grass roots in St. Kitts, which remains an underdeveloped land that is heavily dependent upon U.S. tourism and institutions such as Ross University.

“If this remains unresolved when the tourist season starts around October,” Liburd warned, “it’s going to have an economic impact on this whole country, and everyone will feel it.”

Douglas insisted this month that there have been few tourist cancellations in the aftermath of the State Department report.

In an eight-page statement issued immediately after the threat report, he added: “I want the entire world to know that ordinary, decent, law-abiding [citizens] are upset and angry that threats attributed to a single individual are ascribed to all.”

Local business and religious leaders agree that the twin islands remain far safer than most U.S. cities and still rank among the safest in the Caribbean.

But they and government officials acknowledge that, in tourism, perception often is more significant than reality. What is more, the target of the threats--a university that opened its doors here 15 years ago--has been one of the most important engines for the local economy.

Loss of Students Jolts Economy

Local business leaders and school officials estimate that Ross University students and its 50 faculty members provide at least 15% of the nation’s gross domestic product, with each student spending an average of $1,000 a month in the local economy.

“Many of the students have left; their parents panicked and told them to come home,” said one Kittsian woman who rents houses to Ross students. “It’s caused a drain on the economy. It already has caused a serious financial problem for many here.

“The future is very uncertain. Some will come back, and others will not.”

Warren Ross, the university’s New York City-based vice president, said in a telephone interview that fewer than a quarter of the 280 students enrolled this summer elected to leave early. The remainder, he said, dug in and took their finals this month before a two-week summer break.

“We feel that security on the campus is much better now,” Ross said. “There’s all kinds of wild rumors going on down there. But when this type of thing happens, you get that sort of thing. The general feeling we’re getting now is that this is not an immediate threat.”