"The Only War We've Got". Drug Enforcement in Latin America
ColettaYoungers
To date, U.S. taxpayers have provided nearly $290 billion for the war on drugs, yet cocaine and heroin are more readily available, and at cheaper prices, than ever before. Aoove, uenerai...
...Only 35% of the drug-contrc budget goes toward treatment and education at home...
...David Obey (D-WI) and Sen...
...According to the U.S...
...However, former Rand economist Peter Reuter calculates that doubling the cocaine export price would raise the street price by no more than 5%hardly enough to have an impact on cocaine use...
...Congress, at that time controlled by the Democrats, was not convinced by the NSC study advocating the shift in resources...
...Clinton's first Drug Czar, Lee Brown, liked to compare drug-control programs to bees...
...with P Perhaps of greatest significance, was Clinton's appointment of a general at the Alberto helm of the drug war...
...presidential and congressional elections heated up, Congress for failing to put its money where its mouth is...
...8 In other words, the supply-side approach to controlling drug abuse defies all economic logic...
...9 When the Republicans took control of the U.S...
...In short, the U.S...
...street vendor in La Paz displays his legal coca-derived wares...
...with most of the Cali cartel leadership now behind bars, the Mexican druglords have gained prominence...
...War on Drugs Yields Few Victories," The Washington Post, June 8, 1997, p. Al...
...From the early 1990s until recently, drug warriors on the Hill talked a tough line, but failed to fund the international drug-control programs they talked about...
...Supply-siders assume that through eradication and interdiction abroad, cocaine prices in the United States will rise sufficiently to discourage drug consumption...
...By late 1995 the Republican leadership perceived that the drug issue could be used to the party's advantage in its efforts to portray Clinton as a weak leader...
...President Clinton appeared to understand the failure of the war on drugs when he was on the campaign trail in 1992 and argued for a focus on education and treatment for drug users at home...
...The Administration also made use of the annual sented by the U.S...
...ho in a Not to be outdone, the Clinton alliance Administration then presented a package of $112 million worth of military resident equipment and training for anti-narcotics efforts in Colombia, Venezuela, ujimori, Peru, Mexico and the Caribbean...
...In fact, less was allocated for supply-side efforts for fiscal year 1996 than in previous years...
...5.Frankel, "U.S...
...War on Drugs," p. A18...
...POLICY More often than not, it is convenient to blame foreign countries and Noriega-style villains rather than face the fundamental problems of poverty, inequality and racism that underlie the very real problem of drug abuse and drug-related violence in the United States...
...Yet Washington continues to pour money into drug eradication and interdiction programs proven to be a dismal failure...
...Republicans began pointing to the lack of presidential leadership as the key fac- used the bully pulpit provided by the ONDCP to obtain tor explaining the drug-use survey results...
...But those programs resulted in no obvious successes either, prompting the shift back to the Andes proposed by the NSC...
...The war on Andean drug cartels has replaced the struggles against Central American insurgencies, and the center of operations has shifted accordingly...
...With the crackdown on Colombia's Medellin cartel, the Cali cartel quickly replaced it...
...In the Andean region, the United States is forging ever closer ties with abusive police and military forces...
...That same month, President Clinton agreed to sell the Colombian army 12 Blackhawk helicopters equipped with mini-machine guns and worth $169 million...
...According to the Administration's own statistics, coca production decreased a mere 2% between 1995 and 1996, following years of steady increases...
...Aoove, uenerai Barry mvicLarrey, uvirecror or mne ivaIuonal urug rouCy utre--he ruy Zd...
...It is easier to go to the beehive," he told WOLA in February, 1994, "than it is to get the bees as they fly across the U.S...
...Powerful committee and subcommittee chairs expressed their skepticism about international drug-control efforts and expensive border interdiction programs...
...Congress in January 1995, the drug warriors went on the offensive again...
...Department of State, 1997 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report...
...NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICASREPORT ON U.S...
...A year's cocaine supply can be stashed in 13 truck trailers...
...As bluntly stated by the local Bishop, Belarmino Correa, "the people fear that if they stop growing coca, they will die of hunger...
...military and law enforcement agencies operating overseas, it is an economic necessity...
...military presence in the hemisphere, and for a continued engagement with Latin American and Caribbean militaries via training, assistance and joint operation programs...
...A number of particularly zealous members took control of key committees and subcommittees, perhaps best exemplified by Rep...
...When coca supplies decrease, prices rise, creating more incentives for coca producers to enter the market...
...Congress' failure to fund successive process by which it must "certify" to Congress countries international drug-control budgets presented by the which are effectively combatting the drug trade...
...All evidence points to a glut of coca, cocaine and heroin on the market...
...military and police assistance to the region tiatives were introduced, including mandatory drug test- has escalated at an alarming rate...
...A small but influential group of Democrats, such as Rep...
...In other words, domestic politics drives the drug war waged abroad...
...Moreover, General McCaffrey was the first U.S...
...Unfortunately, their voices were quickly silenced as the Republican majority stormed into Congress in 1995...
...taxpayers have provided nearly $290 billion for the "war on drugs," yet cocaine and heroin are more readily available, and at cheaper prices, than ever before.' Analysts of the industry point out that interna- tional drug-control efforts are based on fundamentally flawed assumptions about the coca and cocaine markets-an argument that does not go over well in Washington where politicians of all ideological stripes seek political advantage by being "tough on drugs...
...The results of coca eradication efforts to date, how- A young ever, show otherwise...
...He is also close to General Harold Bedoya, the recently relieved Commander in Chief of Colombia's armed forces who is considered by Colombian human rights groups to be one of the key individuals responsible for that country's brutal paramilitary network...
...During his entire tenure in office, Brown never even named a deputy for international narcotics programs, abdicating responsibility for international programs to other government agencies...
...A similar trend can be seen in cocaine production and trafficking...
...The Clinton Administration has basically maintained the ratio of government spending on supply and demand-side efforts, with approximately 65% of the $16 billion dollar federal drug-control budget allocated for supply-side efforts, at home and 15 15 VOL XXXI, No 2 SEPT/OCT 1997REPORT ON U.S...
...The Only War We've Got" 1. U.S...
...war on drugs undermines efforts to promote human rights and democracy in Latin America and other regions of the world...
...his friend Although key members of Clinton's for- Genera eign policy team advised against a full decertification, for Clinton's top cam- de Bari paign advisors the choice was clear...
...As the Cold War waned, the drug war emerged as a convenient rationale for U.S...
...Initially, the Clinton Administration sought to scale back funding for interdiction efforts in the transit countries and along the U.S...
...On a good day with no rain, the coca will be dead within four hours...
...public that he was worthy of reelection...
...Of the $213 million, Nicolas 66.5% is allocated to law-enforcement and military-support programs, in conlermoza trast to only 15.5% for economic development...
...A hero of the Gulf has ruled War, General Barry McCaffrey, now retired, replaced Lee Brown in early an ir 1996 as the head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), the agency tasked with coordinating the complex narcobureaucracy...
...With the elections looming in November, ffrey Congress approved the Administration's full request in legislation passed in Sstically September 1996...
...Department of State, 1997 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report...
...To its credit, the Clinton Administration did adopt a different rhetoric...
...As those efforts bore little fruit following President Bush's launching of the Andean Initiative in 1989, Bush put more and more emphasis on interdicting drugs en route to the United States through the "transit countries" of Central America and the Caribbean...
...Coca is presently cultivated on less than one percent of the land where it could be grown in Bolivia and Peru...
...In Peru and Colombia, Washington is providing assistance to militaries and intelligence services that are among the worst human rights violators in the hemisphere...
...General McCaffrey has a Ia d I H C r F million, as it had the previous year...
...For politicians, being tough on drugs is viewed as a political necessity, but for the U.S...
...Such assistance has skyrocketed over the last year, with devastating consequences for the countries where the drug war is being waged...
...presidents, Clinton being no exception, have ignored the profit paradox: The more effective control efforts are in the short-run, the greater the incentives for increased production in the long-run...
...ing for all individuals arrested on federal criminal Taking advantage of the political opportunity precharges...
...teenagers, a trend reconfirmed by survey data released in 1996...
...In the coca-growing Guaviare region of Colombia, U.S.-supplied turbo-thrush spray aircraft take off on a daily basis to drop a potent herbicide on fields of illicit coca...
...State Department, coca production in that country increased by a staggering 32% over the course of 1996.' Even a quick visit to the region illustrates why...
...At the same time, Congress lifted a ban on direct military assistance to the Peruvian armed forces, in effect since 1992, and placed no restrictions on aid to the Colombian army as it had in previous years...
...For several months in 1994, a Senate subcommittee withheld all U.S...
...In Colombia, cocaine mafias have verticalized the industry by obtaining direct control over all the stages of production, instead of importing the raw materials-coca leaves and cocaine base-and the chemicals and other products needed to refine it into pure cocaine...
...He criticized thenPresident Bush for confusing "being tough with being smart," because Bush advocated "locking up addicts instead of treating them before they commit crimes...
...VOL XXXI, No 2 SEPT/OCT 1997 13 4 C 0 C C 0 0 0 O < oREPORT ON U.S...
...4. Peter Andreas and Coletta Youngers, "Busting the Andean Cocaine industry," World Policy Journal, Summer 1989, p. 546...
...The popular perception on Capitol Hill is that there is a lot to lose and little to gain by proposing alternatives...
...Similar trends are found in the industrial production of cocaine...
...a steady supply of weapons and equipment for his Put on the defensive, the Clinton Administration friends in the Andes...
...For President Clinton, standing tough on Colombia was one McC way to show the U.S...
...As a result, coca production has exploded in Colombia, which has replaced Bolivia as the second-largest producer in the world, following Peru...
...Clinton also downplayed the issue, focusing on other domestic political concerns-a tactic which later was used against him when his Republican opponents accused him of failing to show leadership and being AWOL from the drug war...
...Below, Mexican Federal Judicial Police cross a river on a marijuana eradication mission...
...The most recent National Drug Control Strategy Report, the Administration's annual blueprint for anti-drug efforts, once again recognizes that decreased demand through treatment and education should be the centerpiece of the government's efforts...
...Privately, the General enthusiastically proclaims his friendship with General Nicolis de Bari Hermoza Rios, who in a strategic alliance with President Alberto Fujimori, has ruled Peru with an iron fist...
...Through foreign aid-including military equipment and training-and arms sales, support for Latin American military and police forces more than quadrupled from fiscal year 1996 to fiscal year 1997, not including direct expenditures by the Pentagon and intelligence agencies...
...That U.S...
...government insists on the involvement of local armies in yet another law enforcement realm...
...V But even the Republican Congress did not at that time match its rhetoric with action...
...3. Glen Frankel, "U.S...
...In fact, President Clinton rarely referred to the drug issue in his public presentations, in stark contrast to the "Just Say No" campaign of the Reagan years and President Bush's constant hammering on the subject...
...agencies tasked to fight the drug war-appear willing to proclaim that in fact, the emperor has no clothes...
...to go deeper into the jungle to grow more coca or to join the growing ranks of Colombia's largest insurgency, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC...
...In addition to its increased emphasis on demand-side issues, such as treatment and education, administration officials largely dropped the drug-war rhetoric when speaking of international drug-control programs and the promotion of democratic institutions and economic development in drug-producing countries...
...7. U.S...
...Dan Burton (R-IN) who took over the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee of the Foreign Relations Committee in the House of Representatives...
...Southern Command in Panama, "it is the only war we've got," as one former commander put it...
...sanctions...
...A number of "get tough" ini- post, U.S...
...Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), most heroin found on the streets of New York City now comes from Colombia...
...Moreover, when the drug war was launched, Latin America was free of heroin production, but by the early 1990s, poppy cultivation for heroin production began to proliferate throughout the Andes, particularly in Peru and Colombia...
...Congress is as guilty as the Administration for failing to match its words with action...
...Besides, Senator enthus Jesse Helms, also up for reelection, was proc prepared to introduce legislation to decertify Colombia if Clinton did not...
...2.Author's Interview, May 6, 1997...
...Then, in November 1995, important survey data was released indicating upswings in drug use by U.S...
...Neither Congress nor the Clinton Administration-nor any of the 57 departments and A heroin user and friend in California...
...6. Quoted in Eva Bertram and Ken Sharpe, "Can't Kick the Habit," In These Times, November 11, 1996, p. 23...
...7 Coca production can be compared to a balloon: squeezing it in one area merely causes it to flourish somewhere else...
...6 Once in office, however, clever politics took precedence...
...The U.S...
...As the Administration, Clinton lambasted the Republican U.S...
...In Peru for example, coca plants that were once confined to the Upper Huallaga Valley can now be found throughout the Huallaga Valleys, the Ucayali valleys in the central jungle, La Convenci6n in the department of Cuzco, and beyond...
...foreign assistance for antinarcotics efforts insisting that the Administration present a new drug strategy for the Andes that would prove to be more cost-effective...
...border...
...The NSC again adopted a strategy of prioritizing "source country efforts" in the Andes...
...Actions, however, did not match the rhetoric...
...Moreover, while countries such as Bolivia struggle to confine restless militaries to the barracks, the U.S...
...In the name of the drug war, a coherent human rights policy is thus disappearing from the Administration's approach to Latin America...
...In Congressional hearings on March 29, 1995, Burton lambasted Administration officials for inaction, and proposed placing a U.S...
...The Clinton Administration appears bent on fueling failure...
...POLICY abroad, and only 35% for the latter...
...official to meet publicly with President Fujimori's sinister right-hand man, Vladimiro Montesinos, considered to be behind recent death squad activity in Peru...
...Clinton could decertify Colombia him- Rios, v self and gain some political points or he strategi could let Senator Helms reap the political benefits...
...demand for cocaine can be met with just 14% of the world's coca crop...
...military officials, the U.S...
...In Peru and Colombia, U.S...
...troops to "take out" Colombian drug traffickers...
...The vast majority of resources allocated for international drug-control programs continues to be channeled to law enforcement and military efforts, while economic assistance has steadily declined as foreign aid has dried up...
...Successive U.S...
...In fact, annual U.S...
...users can be made from poppies grown on just 20 square miles of farmland...
...aircraft carrier off the coasts (sic) of Bolivia and Peru and forcibly spraying coca fields with herbicides, regardless of the opposition of those countries' governments...
...assistance, the Administration's request was cut in half...
...Yet for the U.S...
...No new programs or initiatives related to international drug control are in the offing as Clinton's second term gets underway...
...Since McCaffrey assumed this began a counteroffensive...
...The drug war is considered a success by the drug warriors as far as ensuring reelection or maintaining ties with Latin American militaries are concerned...
...No longer confined to Colombia, drug mafias proliferate in Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela, Brazil and Mexico...
...Yet the drug war has completely failed to stem the flow of illicit drugs into the United States...
...Overruling the objections of key U.S...
...8. Andreas and Youngers, "Busting the Andean Cocaine Industry," p. 547...
...According to the supply-side logic, it is easier to eliminate a stationary crop than hit a moving target...
...5 Under these circumstances, it is improbable that supply can be reduced sufficiently to affect drug use in the United States...
...He also suggested putting concerns about national sovereignty aside and sending in U.S...
...2 Having no other economic alternative, small coca farmers whose fields wither up and die have just Coletta Youngers is Senior Associate at the Washington Office on Latin America in Washington, D.C two options...
...Colombia became the first "friendly" country to face For fiscal year 1996, the Administration requested $213 decertification, and thus a wide range of U.S...
...Patrick Leahy (D-VT), did begin to question the supply-side logic...
...4 The Washington Post claims that "a year's heroin supply for U.S...
...Prior to this appointment, General McCaffrey served as head of the U.S...
...Southern Command in Panama, where he coordinated anti-narcotics efforts by the U.S...
...Human rights groups objected vociferously to the sale, as Blackhawk helicopters purchased previously by the Colombian government have been used to strafe local hamlets during counterinsurgency operations...
...POLICY Upon taking office, President Clinton ordered a review of international drug-control programs by the National Security Council (NSC...
...helicopters to Mexico despite confirmed reports that helicopters provided previously were used in counterinsurgency operations against the Zapatista guerrillas...
...insistence on military involvement in countemarcotics operations empowers forces that have already amassed significant resources and control in the name of combating insurgencies-and which themselves present the greatest threat to democratization in those countries...
...spy plane over Peruvian territory in April of that year...
...drug policy is pitting coca farmers against Bolivian police, generating conflict, violence and systematic abuses...
...In Bolivia, U.S...
...9. The ban on direct military assistance to the Peruvian armed forces first went into effect in 1992, following the presidential coup and the shooting down of a U.S...
...However, the U.S...
...Congress mandated the Pentagon's role in anti-narcotics operations abroad and vastly increased its budget for such purposes...
...Cuts to domestic demand-reduction programs were even steeper...
...One Peru with of the more controversial components of the package was the donation of n fist...
...Clinton's first drug czar, Lee Brown, took a low profile and was virtually absent from debate on international drug-control policy...
...To do so, $50 million aims was transferred from accounts for development assistance and international ;hip with organizations...
...military and became intimately familiar-and friendly-with the militaries of the Andean countries...
...However, its action plan prescribes the same old programs with the same allocation of resources...
...international drug policy actually perpetuates coca production should come as no surprise...
...General McCaffrey announced last February that the Administration would eliminate worldwide illicit coca production within the next decade-a laughable proposition at best, and a justification for military intervention at worst...
...That may be clever politics," Clinton told voters, "but it certainly isn't sound policy...
...Although the international drug budget fared better than other forms of U.S...
...This dynamic of tough talk but reduced funding continued through 1995, but took a dramatic turn as the November 1996 presidential elections neared...
...Clinton's second Drug Czar, General Barry McCaffrey, has gone even further, announcing last February that the Administration would eliminate world-wide illicit coca production within the next decade-a laughable proposition at best, and a justification for direct military intervention at worst...
...Colombia is the only country in the Andean region that presently engages in aerial fumigation to eradicate coca, but according to the U.S...
...Although the funds were eventually released, Congressional appropriators steadily cut back funding for these programs and banned direct military assistance to the Colombian army and Peruvian armed forces because of their abysmal human rights records...
...border, and additional funding was sought for coca-eradication and cocaine-interdiction programs in the Andean countries of Bolivia, Colombia and Peru...
Vol. 31 • September 1997 • No. 2
