Cocaine Madness: Counternarcotics and Militarization in the Andes
Youngers, Coletta
The drug war has replaced the Cold War as the United States once again sends "advisors" to Latin America. When the U.S. government first announced its 1989 "Andean Initiative"-a five-year, $2.2...
...When President Bush launched Operation Just Cause, the December 1989 invasion of Panama, he authorized Noriega's arrest based on drug trafficking charges pending in the United States...
...he dramatic escalation of U.S...
...While Latin America was low on the list of potential national security threats, it was fast becoming the primary market for U.S...
...With re questioned strong political backing from licy, but most Washington, SOUTHCOM quickly began winning internal believe they Pentagon battles over allocation of resources and priorities...
...The failure of civilian-elected governments to deliver on promises of economic prosperity and personal security has led to the rise of authoritarian populist leaders such as Alberto Fujimori in Peru and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela...
...Defense Department operatives to train PNC officers...
...The air-bridge strategy was a direct result of President Clinton's decision to shift the emphasis of U.S...
...As such, it necessitates collaboration with military forces of bordering countries...
...military, the yrnarcotics drug war served as a rationale, not only to maintain but to s in Latin expand military-to-military relations across the hemisphere, and n supplanting ensure a U.S...
...Customs Commissioner William Von Rabb, who alleged that Cuba and Nicaragua were using the regional drug trade to finance insurgencies throughout Latin America...
...advisors in El Salvador during the 1992 demobilization of the orious Atlacatl Battalion...
...Andean leaders worried about the potential political and economic fall-out of a large-scale crackdown on the coca and cocaine trade...
...6 Its centerpiece is designed to wrest control of the southern coca-growing region from the FARC, thus destroying the guerrillas and the drug trade simultaneously...
...Nor has drug policy born fruit at home...
...In Peru, growing concern by U.S...
...But the U.S...
...Marines are under the Navy Department, land, sea and air operations will be possible...
...through a variety of counternar- "cotics training programs and joint operations...
...military might in Latin America had dissipated...
...For politicians in Washington, assisting the region's police SU.S...
...And in 1989, Congress mandated a key role for the military in the drug war, in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which designates the Department of Defense (DOD) as the "lead agency" for detecting and monitoring illicit drug shipments into the United States...
...officials who admit, off the record, that international drug control policies are fundamentally flawed, yet who are nonetheless reluctant to fight this deeply entrenched policy...
...Embassy official Greg Phillips told a visiting group that the main purpose of these U.S...
...policymakers and Pentagon strategists to develop a rationale for maintaining U.S...
...Despite clear evidence to the contrary, U.S...
...The party of the former guerrillas, the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), with the largest contingent in the Assembly, voted against the anti-drug base...
...The following week she left El Salvador to become ambassador to Colombia...
...It grants U.S...
...Tensions run high: Conflict in April 1998 left at least 13 people dead and more than 60 wounded, with periodic killings since then...
...Members of the Colombian military have a long history of fostering and collaborating with paramilitary groups, and the military high command has largely turned a blind eye to these relationships...
...military strategy in Colombia...
...The recent Colombia 22 NM2LA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 22REPORT ON U.S...
...At a 1984 Senate hearing, federal officials warned that international terrorists were turning to drug trafficking to finance their operations...
...officials point to Colombia as the center of narcoguerrilla activity...
...The accord permits U.S...
...16NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 16 NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICASREPORT ON U.S...
...military base, preferring to label it a "monitoring center...
...officials are no closer to meeting their counternarcotics objectives today than they were ten years ago, and the obstacles to Drug Czar General Barry McCaffrey's "drug-free hemisphere" are greater than ever...
...More importantly, Washington could hardly hope to maintain superpower status if it lost hegemony in its own backyard...
...ships and aircraft, will last until December 31...
...troop presence I police...
...Last June, Congress finally approved the $1.3 billion Last June's $1.3 billion aid package to Colombia was presented to the U.S...
...military to employ the same low-intensity conflict strategies they had used in fighting Communism...
...One can only imagine the effect on communities in the area that were razed by helicopter attacks and aerial bombardment during the war...
...Operationally, the DOD Coordinator for Drug Enforcement Policy and Support is located in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict...
...personnel to wear uniforms and carry arms...
...drug control efforts at times exacerbated the political violence raging in Peru and Colombia...
...For SOUTHCOM, the drug war quickly became a rationale for a strong U.S...
...Still others wonder whether a growing U.S...
...But lack of concrete results led the Bush Administration, toward the end of its term, to focus on the "transit" countries of Central America, and on the Caribbean and sea trafficking routes, to interdict illegal drugs bound for the United States...
...military at first were reluctant recruits in the U.S...
...4. Thomas Kahn, "Bolivians Fear a U.S.-led War on Drugs," The Wall Street Journal, June 24, 1991...
...More recently, combating drugs has become the rationale for the first major U.S...
...POLICY Clinton's timing could not have been worse for the Andean countries...
...Shortly before that vote, U.S...
...public as a counternarcotics initiative...
...military help with logistics, equipment and air-and-sea operations as "indispensable" measures for fighting crime...
...But although they oppose terms of the recent agreement, the FMLN has expressed openness to U.S help in combating organized crime and corruption, and in training the PNC...
...military advisors work directly with the Salvadoran military independently of the Embassy and its oversight...
...In helping the military combat guerrillas, the U.S...
...military a blunt instrument for combating crime and argue that recent initiatives violate the Peace Accords by re-militarizing police functions...
...The former have assured the effort not only political support, but substantial resources...
...otes if they A former congressman attuned k militarized to the mood on Capitol Hill, Richard Cheney was the first Sectics programs...
...policymakers with the threat of the Shining Path guerrillas dovetailed conveniently with expanded U.S...
...On March 17 Mauricio Sandoval, head of the Civilian National Police (PNC), called on the National Assembly to request joint patrols and U.S...
...concerns...
...4 Lack of accountability and transparency in the region's armed forces make tackling the inevitable corruption that accompanies antidrug efforts even harder-and controlling potential human rights abuses next to impossible...
...POLICY aid package, for example, includes $61.3 million to build and upgrade the Manta FOL, and $54.2 million for Aruba and Curacao...
...Doctrinally, this approach is justified by the aforementioned narcoguerrilla theory, which blurs the new enemy, drug traffickers, with the old, Communist insurgents...
...interests this way allows the U.S...
...military intervention...
...The implications for U.S...
...El Salvador will now be the third corner of the triangle surrounding Colombia...
...war on drugs is dri- ' ven by a powerful intersec- counternarc tion between domestic politics and the foreign policy considerations of U.S...
...In fact, the U.S...
...military officials with responsibility for U.S...
...pressure to bring the military into BY DEAN BRACKLEY On June 21, U.S...
...military hegemony in Latin America and the Caribbean at a time when old arguments for maintaining U.S...
...Casting the conflict as one against narcoguerrillas conveniently ensures continued political support from Washington...
...arrested two other top generals on drug trafficking charges...
...Naval South will run the installation...
...military establishment as a necessary bulwark against the potential erosion of public order stemming from weak civilian governments, endemic poverty and soaring crime rates...
...government is indirectly supporting the very forces its counterdrug policy is supposed to combat...
...anti-drug-trafficking base at the international airport in Comalapa...
...The people knew immediately they were the types flown during the war," observed Sister Peggy O'Neill, a Sister of Charity who has done social work in El Salvador for many years...
...ronically, it is the paramilitary groups who appear most closely associated with Colombian drug mafias...
...A few brave Congress hav drug war po continue to will lose v r1n nnt hnar T he U.S...
...Strong local security forces were viewed by many in the U.S...
...Yet there is no evidence that the Mexican military is less susceptible to corruption than the police...
...In interviews conducted by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) in 1990 and 1991, U.S...
...Embassy official recently acknowledged that U.S...
...Both measures are part of a growing involvement of the U.S...
...military might in the region, and to protect the status of the United States as sole superpower...
...The FOLs appear to be a central component of U.S...
...military and intelligence experts...
...Among other programs, it launched an effort to rupture the "air bridge" connecting coca growers in Peru with Colombian traffickers...
...Today, U.S...
...The bulk of the funding will train and equip three army counternarcotics battalions charged with "securing" the Caquetd and Putumayo areas so that counternarcotics operations can advance...
...As former Bolivian president Gonzalo Sdnchez de Lozado once said: "When you have a corrupt chief of police, you fire him...
...5. Brian Sheridan, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict, interview with WOLA consultant Peter Zirnite, Washington, D.C., April 1997...
...The Salvadoran Constitution, amended as required by the 1992 Peace Accords, restricts the Salvadoran military to the defense of national sovereignty and excludes it from internal security functions...
...The Colombian conflict is localized, but threatens to spill into neighboring countries, thus directly threatening U.S...
...By 1998, up to 250 U.S...
...In Peru, the U.S...
...In October 1995, a classified mission dubbed Operation Green Clover took place as 300 U.S...
...The Amsterdam-based Transnational Institute charges that the ultimate objective of the two original FOLs is to back U.S...
...war on drugs in Colombia and throughout the region is generating serious negative consequences...
...military officers and their families will live on the base...
...governments had signed the agreement on the base on March 31 without informing the National Assembly or the press...
...Later, maintaining that it is not a "treaty" and cedes no Salvadoran territory, both governments argued that a simple majority was sufficient for ratification...
...Further, by posing the problem as a threat to American youth, Washington is guaranteed public support at a time when sympathy for foreign intervention is dwindling...
...After Bill Clinton assumed the Presidency and was apprised of an extensive interagency review, he refocused interdiction efforts on the socalled source countries by beefing up the region's security forces...
...Washington's strategy relies on local military and police forces to play the lead role in combating the illicit trade, and those forces receive significant U.S...
...financial support, the Bolivian military plans to build three army bases to house some 1,500 permanent troops in the Chapare...
...Washington may in fact have had an ulterior motive in encouraging the use of miltiary forces for policing...
...SOUTHCOM's Director of Operations, Brigadier General George Close, said that Operation Green Clover marked "the first time that we have had this level of multilateral cooperation between allied nations...
...The Andean Initiative had spotlighted Peru, Bolivia and Colombia...
...On occasion, it has allocated more funding to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) than the DEA itself asked for...
...While links between drug traffickers and guerrillas clearly exist, the on-the-ground reality is more complex...
...Two months after the vote, on September 4, the FMLN presented a formal complaint to the Salvadoran Supreme Court...
...withdrawal from the Panama Canal zone is giving the DOD a chance to reach into new areas of Latin America and the Caribbean...
...The program, involving U.S...
...6. Adam Isacson, "Plan Colombia: Military Response Fails to Address Social Problems," Colombia Update (Summer/Fall 2000), p. 5. 7. Adam Isacson, "U.S...
...Ensuring economic and political stability in the region is viewed in Washington as essential to U.S...
...Congress approved the $1.3 billion aid package strictly for counternarcotics activity, and the State Department continually denies accusations that it has become directly involved in Colombia's counterinsurgency effort...
...Most significantly, Washington helped expand the military's role in combating the international drug trade...
...At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the war on drugs has thus become the perfect smokescreen for ensuring U.S...
...On the same day it authorized the FOL, the Assembly approved the "Healthy Youth" program, established to fight drug-related crime, which will permit 20 U.S...
...counterdrug strategy in Latin America back to the Andean region...
...material support as a primary justification for agreeing to a long-term U.S...
...Through its drug policy, the United States has forged unholy alliances with Latin American security forces that have deplorable human rights records...
...The aid package will provide nearly $2 million a day for Colombian security forces over the next two years...
...It places no limits on the amount or type of weapons, planes or military equipment...
...hegemony in "our own backyard...
...economic prosperity...
...Massive protests in September led to the suspension of the base construction plans, but the area remains militarized, and many fear that as the conflict continues, the government will eventually resume the initiative...
...Colombia is thus one of the "rogue states" that have replaced the Soviet Union as a destabilizing and dangerous factor in world politics...
...5 Washington has also encouraged Andean militaries to become directly involved in the war on drugs...
...Moreover, in the eyes of U.S...
...military and civilian personnel access to airport and government installations as well as exclusive entry into designated base areas...
...intervention...
...Yet it is far from clear that bringing in the military will circumvent the very real problem of corruption...
...There are bureaucrats and even some high-level U.S...
...In fact, the guerrillas are one of many actors-including elements of the armed forces and rightwing paramilitary groupsinvolved in the lucrative drug trade...
...bridge denial program has brought security forces from units across the Andes together for both training and operations...
...Both Panama and Costa Rica recently rejected a U.S...
...products and services...
...Despite the lack of progress in stemming illicit drug production and consumption, Congress continues to reward the narcoenforcement complex generously...
...personnel, and are key to Washington's strategic interests...
...Some critics consider the U.S...
...Drug war politics has created a sprawling, generously funded "narcoenforcement complex" of more than 50 federal agencies and bureaus...
...security policy toward Latin America underscored this need...
...presidential campaigns, fueling a dramatic funding increase for international drug control programs, a trend which continues today...
...While the measure passed by a simple majority, the Salvadoran Constitution requires a three-fourths vote for agreements affecting national sovereignty...
...As Rep...
...The Salvadoran military is learning from this collaboration...
...the Dutch islands of Aruba and Curacao...
...before the end of the Cold War, combating drugs was seen as a diversion of resources from its traditional mission.' But absent the Soviet threat, the U.S...
...policy is not totally to blame for these crises...
...W hile Washington says it wants to interdict drugs along the Pan-American highway and in Pacific coastal waters, the Salvadoran government defends the Comalapa base as necessary to combat drug-related local crime...
...Nonetheless, the narcoguerrilla concept gave the U.S...
...POLICY turbingly, through its involvement in the Colombian counterinsurgency campaign, Washington is giving millions of dollars in aid to abusive forces who are in bed with the right-wing paramilitary groups responsible for the vast majority of human rights abuses being committed in that country today...
...Military and the War on Drugs in the Andes (Washington, D.C.: The Washington Office on Latin America, 1991), p. 41...
...Yet the Colombian aid package ignores the paramilitary problem...
...The Salvadoran and U.S...
...The people of Arcatao met them with a bullhorn and demanded they turn back...
...Drugs have become the natural ally of those that would choose to destroy democratic societies in our hemisphere through violent means," cautioned then-U.S...
...20 NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICASREPORT ON U.S...
...Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) latched onto the drug war as the most effective way of ensuring continued U.S...
...AWACs and other sophisticated aircraft flew out of Howard, providing daily reports to U.S...
...government first announced its 1989 "Andean Initiative"-a five-year, $2.2 billion plan targeting coca and cocaine pro- duction-the Andes region was largely viewed as emerging from the "lost" economic decade of the 1980s and moving towards democracy...
...The deafening sound of A-37 bombers flying over Suchitoto is symptomatic of the growing militarization of peacetime El Salvador, which includes cooperation with U.S...
...retary of Defense to embrace the new role...
...helicopters transport the Salvadoran police around the countryside, for example in the Suchitoto region...
...military forces should diminish significantly, the Pentagon launched several initiatives that maintained or strengthened the power of its Latin American partners...
...POLICY have deeply enmeshed the Peruvian army in drug trafficking-related corruption...
...Colombia, meanwhile, has plunged even deeper into a brutal civil war...
...Driven by fear of being labeled "soft on drugs," Washington policymakers compete to stake out the hardest line, particularly at election time...
...military strategists, it has become a regional threat, with the potential to spill over into neighboring countries...
...Yet these issues are not directly or clearly talked about in Washington...
...Since the U.S...
...The FOLs maintain the espionage capacity previously supplied by Howard, as they provide key points where aircraft can land and refuel while monitoring the region...
...military presence in the region as well as its meal ticket-at a time when defense budgets and troop levels elsewhere in the world were higher than those for Latin America on the Pentagon's agenda...
...forces...
...A few brave members of Congress have questioned the policy, but most continue to believe they will lose votes if they do not back militarized counternarcotics programs...
...Both local and U.S...
...Both local anc forces have b into county operation America, ofter the local Mexico by itself is now the United States' thirdlargest trade partner, eclipsed only by Canada and Japan...
...Toward that end, Washington provided the training, resources and doctrinal justification for militaries to move into a variety of new areas, such as building roads and schools, providing veterinary and health services, and protecting the environment...
...The idea of building military-to-military relations [in Mexico] is very important...
...s the Cold War wound down and the drug war took off, the Andes quickly replaced Central America as the focus of U.S...
...Except in the eyes of drug policymakers, the area was low on the list of U.S...
...They also feared that the enhanced military role in combating drug traffickers would lead to increased corruption within those forces...
...In Colombia, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) inarguably gain significant resources from taxing and protecting coca growers and facilitating shipments of coca and cocaine...
...As it was in El Salvador, the Pentagon is now charged with turning the Colombian military into an effective fighting force against Latin America's most longstanding insurgents, who are nowadays conveniently dubbed "narcoguerrillas...
...The agreement on the base entered into effect on August 23 with construction beginning soon after...
...Local militaries cite gains in U.S...
...Meanwhile, the U.S...
...Thus, at a time when many analysts argued that the role of both local and U.S...
...Popular outrage toppled the Ecuadorian government earlier this year and now threatens to do the same in Bolivia...
...Ambassador Anne Patterson personally lobbied the FMLN prior to the July 6 vote...
...military to expand its presence and influence in Colombia-and throughout the regionwith little scrutiny, transparency or accountability...
...While this was a smart counterinsurgency tactic, it nevertheless appears to NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 18REPORT ON U.S...
...aid package, which was presented to the U.S...
...role in Colombia: "The frightening possibilities of a 'narco-state' just three hours by plane from Miami can no longer be dismissed...
...Dramatically stepped-up coca eradication is in fact leading to a net decrease in coca production for the first time, but at a high social cost...
...armed forces began carrying out periodic joint humanitarian, and later military exercises with their Salvadoran counterparts...
...3 The Clinton Administration stepped up this approach...
...The United States plans to spend $10.4 million dollars to build at Comalapa, and 60 U.S...
...Defense Department with the Salvadoran military and police...
...In fact, they refuse to call it a traffickers and bypass rampant corruption in police forces...
...Since the dismantling of its bases in Panama, the United States has been seeking alternative sites for 20 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS Dean Brackley is a U.S.-born Jesuit who has been teaching theology and ethics at the Universidad Centroamericana Jos6 Sime6n Caas (UCA4) since 1990...
...For U.S...
...The armed forces of both countries have historically enjoyed close ties...
...Military and the War on Drugs, (Washington, D.C.: The Washington Office on Latin America,1997...
...Deep economic crises extend from Venezuela to Coletta Youngers is Senior Associate at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) in Washington, D.C...
...There are similar U.S.-run operations in Costa Rica, Guatemala and Honduras...
...policymakers' insistence on bringing in the military despite these obvious dangers suggests that other motives were at play...
...As former SOUTHCOM ComO 18NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS mander, General Maxwell Thurmembers of man, once declared, the drug war is "the only war we've got...
...he declared in 1989 that "detecting and countering" drug production and trafficking was a "high priority national security mission...
...military the ideal "opportunity to apply the low-intensity conflict skills honed during 30 years of fighting guerrilla insurgencies in Central America...
...economic interests-primarily its access to oil in Venezuela...
...military planners, Colombia is the worst Latin American national security threat facing the United States in the post-Cold War era...
...And though SOUTHCOM headquarters were transferred to Miami, many troops previously stationed in Panama were moved to the Roosevelt Roads base in Puerto Rico, and to Soto Cano in Honduras...
...As one DOD official noted, "Currently, in SOUTHCOM's view, the U.S...
...war on drugs...
...Yet just over ten years later, the region has become the basket-case of Latin America...
...But even the DEA admits that neither the FARC nor the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN) are engaged in international drug trafficking...
...In exchange for allocating funds, Congress is insisting that ten-year agreements be signed with the host countries...
...They wanted health services, they said, but they wanted them from the Salvadoran Health Ministry...
...Both policies continue today...
...Pentagon officials bristle when the FOLs are referred to as military bases, but they are run and operated by U.S...
...A U.S...
...POLICY he escalation of the U.S...
...war on drugs coincided with the end of the Cold War and with the struggle by U.S...
...insistence that scarce local resources be spent on anti-drug initiatives diverted funding from more pressing economic priorities...
...military forces were brought into counternarcotics operations, often supplanting the local police...
...When you have a corrupt chief of the army, he fires you...
...Political grandstanding reached new heights during the 1996 U.S...
...This was dramatically illustrated by the February 1997 arrest of Mexico's "drug czar" General Jesdis Gutidrrez Rebollo on charges that he collaborated with the very cartels he was supposed to be combating...
...military involvement in the hemisphere...
...POLICY FARC Commanders review their troops in southern Colombia earlie, the drug war...
...antidrug efforts is to defend Salvadoran sovereignty...
...The air op in the department of Caqueti, Colombia...
...It combines the threat of an old enemy, Marxist guerrillas, with a new one, transnational criminal organizations...
...Between fiscal years 1988 and 1992, Congress quadrupled the DOD's counterdrug budget and provided millions of dollars to bolster Andean security forces...
...Ironically, U.S...
...SOUTHCOM officials also argue that the drug war dovetails with another important Cold War objective: maintaining and enhancing relations with militaries throughout the region-one of the key goals of DOD's post-Cold War hemispheric strategy...
...policy are formidable...
...Even before the aid package met final approval, the U.S...
...While the agreement is for ten years, the United States hopes to extend it to 20...
...public as a counternarcotics initiative...
...military has its own base expansion program underway...
...Millions of dollars are slated for intelligence gathering along the Andean ridge...
...troop presence...
...The alleged link between drug traffickers and insurgents became an implicit component of the Andean Initiative...
...2. Zirnite, Reluctant Recruits, p. 1. 3. Charles Call, Clear and Present Dangers: The U.S...
...And in May 1998, he transferred the Armed Forces High Command to the city of Cochabamba, because of its proximity to the Chapare...
...Military officials and troops ended up commanding police forces in two-thirds of Mexico's states as well as in Mexico City, patrolling streets, directing traffic and combating petty crime and drug trafficking...
...The current U.S...
...The Banzer plan pits inexperienced army recruits against local peasants struggling to maintain a survival income for their families...
...Around the same time, U.S...
...To fill in the gaps left by the Howard shutdown, the Pentagon is establishing "Forward Operating Locations" (FOLs) in four locations: Manta, Ecuador...
...military intervention in Colombia...
...Drug War and Military Aid to Colombia: An Overview," Colombia Update (Spring/Summer 1998), p. 15...
...Rather, the U.S...
...POLICY A case in point is the training provided to the Mexican army, which was called in to fill the void created in 1996 by the dismissal of some 800 federal police officers for corruption...
...Pentagon officials to this day discuss drug policy within the framework of a low-intensity conflict mission...
...The Puerto Rico-based U.S...
...Bolivia, and every country in the region faces serious unrest...
...The drug war also became the principal justification for U.S...
...soldiers and other military personnel worked with forces from Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica and Venezuela...
...military training and assistance...
...military intervention since the 1980s in a counterinsurgency conflict-in this case, in Colombia...
...In Peru in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the military effectively replaced the Shining Path as intermediaries between local coca growers and drug traffickers...
...Their role will be to ensure control of the region as coca is further eliminated...
...Moreover, U.S...
...But it looks like a counterinsurgency program, with the bulk of the money going to the Colombian military to fight the guerrillas...
...policymakers often claim that local militaries are the only option to confront the firepower of drug Yanquis Return to El Salvador Early morning on September 15, El Salvador's Independence Day, the community of Suchitoto was awakened by the roar of planes flying low and fast...
...According to the Colombian newspaper El Espectador, a State Department source stated that the FOLs are being used to monitor activities of the Colombian guerrillas...
...military's part in promoting democracy...is neither to work for a reduction in Latin American military forces nor to attempt to delimit the role of armed forces in Latin American societies...
...After participating in joint exercises last spring, a contingent of soldiers showed up at the entrance to the town of Arcatao, an FMLN stronghold, offering to provide health services...
...However, the United States has already set up FOLs in Manta, Ecuador and in the Dutch dependencies Aruba and Curacao off the coast of Venezuela...
...military and military forces showed voters a willingness to be "tough" on een brought drugs...
...government has provided counterdrug aid to the National Intelligence Service (SIN), which has been responsible for death squad activity and which functioned for years as Peru's political police...
...military helicopters began trans- U.S porting El Salvador's police on their rounds in the not countryside...
...We're trying to help them decide what role the military should have in anti-crime or anti-narcotic activities," said Phillips...
...budget assigns $2.2 million for combating drug trafficking through El Salvador...
...Some of those funds support the new "Central Skies" program, in which U.S...
...Expressing U.S...
...military strategists...
...anti-narcotics base on their soil...
...2 As in the Central American counterinsurgency cam- Coca farmers with their cr paigns, SOUTHCOM's drug plan calls for the U.S...
...Soon after the war ended, however, the army began to patrol the countryside on the grounds that crime constituted a national emergency...
...On taking office, Banzer announced a plan to eliminate all illicit coca production in Bolivia by the end of his five-year term...
...VOL XXXIV, No 3 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2000 0 0 19REPORT ON U.S...
...Until Howard Air Force base was shut down in May 1999, it was the operating base for some 2,000 anti-drug missions a year, according to Pentagon officials...
...Given the 182 coups carried out in Bolivia since it gained independence, the Bolivian government for years resisted U.S...
...Benjamin Gilman (R-NY) said in April 1998, during debates over the "proper" U.S...
...Defining the problem as a narcoguerrilla threat (described in greater detail below), allowed the U.S...
...On July 6 the Salvadoran National Assembly approved the establishment of a U.S...
...But the electoral return to power of former dictator General Hugo Banzer paved the way for a dramatically expanded Bolivian military presence in the Chapare coca growing region...
...The roots of the narcoguerilla theory go back to the early 1980s...
...Despite Colombian government assurances to the contrary, military-paramilitary collaboration has not declined significantly in recent years...
...7 For Wilhelm and his colleagues, the Colombian conflict presents an opportunity to fulfill what the Pentagon considers a much more central mission: counterinsurgency...
...Cocaine Madness 1. See Peter Zirnite, Reluctant Recruits: The U.S...
...In fact, it looks more like a thinly-veiled counterinsurgency program, since the bulk of the money is geared toward shoring up the Colombian armed forces in their war against the FARC...
...military was increasingly entrenched in Colombia's civil war...
...Former Pentagon "drug czar" Brian Sheridan has noted that before the Pentagon started giving counterdrug training to Mexico's military, "essentially we had no relationship with them...
...With U.S...
...military personnel were operating on the ground in Colombia on any given day, and recent SOUTHCOM Commander Charles E. Wilhelm claimed to have become a "crucial advisor" to the Colombian high command, assisting in an ambitious reorganization of the Colombian Armed Forces...
...policymakers' myriad concerns are conveniently packaged as exclusively linked to the war on drugs...
...In Bolivia, the United States supports police and military forces that are pitted against coca farmers, generating conflict, violence and systematic abuses...
...SOUTHCOM officials viewed the anti-drug mission as converging with their previous mission to counter Marxist insurgencies...
...military presence is tied to significant advances by the FMLN in last March's elections...
...and most recently, El Salvador (see "Yanquis Return to El Salvador," p. 20...
...involvement in Colombia's long-running civil war clearly illustrates the ways in which counterdrug policy has become a cover for U.S...
...Opponents of the FMLN accuse them of protesting the Comalapa base because they have links to drug traffickers and Colombian guerrillas...
...Most disVol XXXIV, No 3 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2000 17 VOLXXXIV, No3 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2000 17REPORT ON U.S...
...security-assistance programs in the very areas where guerrillas exerted significant influence...
...military role is to continue to strengthen military capabilities on the assumption that democratic values will be transmitted...
...Yet the dominance assigned to local security forces threatens to undermine the region's fragile transitions toward more democratic societies, following decades of often brutal military rule...
...And late this year, the Mexican military what it calls "Forward Operating Locations" (FOLs...
...For the U.S...
...military to provide the intelligence, strategic planning, resources and training that the region's security forces need for anti-narcotics efforts...
...0 VOL XXXIV, No 3 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2000 21REPORT ON U.S...
...But a myopic focus on drug policy has clearly exacerbated existing problems and has emboldened the most dangerous elements of Andean society-military, police and intelligence services, often acting independently of civilian forces-to continue to serve as forces of repression...
Vol. 34 • November 2000 • No. 3
