US Military Assistance Policies and the War on Drugs
From WolfWikis
Contents |
Introduction
The United States' use of military assistance programs in the 1980's was nothing new. They had been used in a myriad of ways, from advising during the initial stages of the Vietnam War to arming Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
However, in 1989, President Bush announced his National Drug Control Strategy, which indicated a new implementation of the Department of Defense as the lead agency in the War on Drugs. According to Section 124 to Title 10, U.S. Code, the U.S. military was now the 'lead U.S. agency for detecting and monitoring illegal drugs entering the United States by air or sea.' This directive also extended to U.S. bases in Latin America, which could now use radar stations, surveillance flights, and vessel interception in the fight against drug trafficking. In this directive, President Bush specifically pinpointed drug-producing areas in South America as places where military assistance programs could help in stemming the flow of illegal drugs in the United States. This signaled a departure from the idea that the War on Drugs would be handled primarily by law enforcement agencies.
The Invasion of Panama
If military assistance programs ascribe to the idea that one country helps another, then the invasion of Panama hardly qualifies. However, the invasion itself served as an important indicator of the lengths America was willing to use its military in order to halt the flow of drugs across its border.
On December 20th, 1989, the invasion of Panama officially began. An estimated 13,000 U.S. servicemen stormed outward from their military bases and, aided by 9,500 reinforcements, fought their way to Panama City. Supported by aircraft, helicopters, tanks and artillery, the soldiers beat back the FDP(Fuerzas de Defensa de Panamá)and took control of key installations, including the Panama Canal.[1] The conflict assumed a rapid pace and lasted a mere fourteen days, ending when General Manuel Noriega walked out of the papal nunciature in which he had been hiding and turned himself over to U.S. forces.
Noriega, Escobar and the Medillin Cartels
In George Bush's speech to the nation on the morning following the invasion, he gave four reasons for the invasion of Panama. One of the reasons was the attempt to control drug trafficking through Panama.
The United States knew of Noriega's friendliness with drug traffickers, especially Pablo Escobar, whom he had met while overseeing negotiations for the release of Martin Ochoa of the Medillin Cartel. Ochoa had been kidnapped by a Columbian guerilla organization, which eventually freed him under threat of death from Pablo Escobar and others in the Medillin Cartel. Soon after that, in 1982, General Noriega and Pablo Escobar hammered out a deal which allowed Escobar to ship cocaine through Panama for $100,000 per planeload.
For the United States, the case against Noriega was open-and-shut. General Noriega had allowed the Medellin drug cartel of Colombia to ship enormous amounts of cocaine through his country to the United States, in exchange for millions of dollars in bribes.[2] In 1988 a federal grand jury in Miami handed down an indictment against Noriega for drug trafficking. The indictment contended that Noriega had allowed the Medellin cartel to launder money, provide logistical assistance to drug traffickers, and enabled them build cocaine laboratories in Panama. Noriega's complicity in drug trafficking gave the United States reason to invade Panama and capture the General. But the jubilation of "Operation Just Cause" proved to be short-lived among America's drug-enforcement community. For while the invasion stopped a major waypoint for drug traffickers, it also exposed a far deeper and more complex drug trafficking problem than they had originally seen, a problem that a simple invasion could not fix.
The Columbian Exchange
When Reagan coined the term 'narco-terrorist' to describe drug traffickers, he most certainly had the Medillin Cartel in mind. They thrived on ruthless tactics, killing hundreds of government officials, police officers, journalists, Supreme Court justices, and even a presidential candidate, Luis Carlos Galan. In one of their most daring acts, Pablo Escobar, the cartel's most recognizable name, planned to have a bomb hidden on a commercial airplane bound for Bogotá. The plane exploded over the Columbian capitol, killing everyone aboard.
But soon the Medillin Cartel squandered their status as the leader of the global cocaine trade due to ineptitude, arrogance, and a penchant for violence. Soon, the cartel heads were either killed or imprisoned by Columbian and American police forces. However the cocaine trade did not die with them. A new cartel rose to take their place. This new group, known as the Cali Cartel, favored business acumen to sheer brawn, technology to weapons, and legal challenges to bombing campaigns. With annual earnings between $2 billion and $5 billion, the cartels of Columbia had no problems infiltrating ang bribing their way into every facet of the Columbian government and judicial system.
Adding to Columbia's complications, the leftist guerrilla organization, FARC operates in the south of the country and actively seeks to overthrow the government in Bogotá. Originally a communist organization, FARC in recent years has expanded into the drug trade, with 65% of the group's income coming from the sale of cocaine.
Amidst all this, the foundering government in Bogotá petitioned the United States for help. In 1999, The United States obliged, and Plan Columbia was born.
Plan Columbia
In early 2000, U.S. officials implemented Plan Columbia, a 4.7 billion dollar economic and military incentive package aimed at eradicating Columbia's coca fields through military and counter-narcotics measures. Plan Columbia lists ten strategies of implementation. They are:
1. Economic Strategy
2. Fiscal Strategy
3. Military Strategy
4. Judicial and Human Rights Strategy
5. Counternarcotics Strategy
6. Alternative Development Strategy
7. Social Participation Strategy
8. Human Development Strategy
9. Peace Strategy
10. International Strategy
Although the plan is comprehensive in scope, many critics argue against the fact that 80% of the financing has gone into military training and other expenditures such as Blackhawk helicopters and Hueys. Other controversial aspects of the plan involve plans to fight leftist guerillas in the south of Columbia, many of whom participate in the cocaine trade. Plan Columbia also call for social, economic, and institutional reform, all with neo-liberal policies that are supposed to assuage strong Communist sentiment in much of the population. Policymakers believe a strong economy is vital in the push for peace between Communist rebels and the Columbian government.
Because of the United States' commitment to Columbia, the U.S. embassy in Bogotá is the second-largest in the world, with 350 US military personnel and 750 contractors attached to the normal operating staff. From the embassy and the surrounding military installations, U.S. advisers monitor their number-one priority in Plan Columbia: the eradication of coca leaves. The process is fairly simple. Twenty or more planes take off and fly in low holding patterns while spraying pesticides. At the same time, army and special police units assist these efforts. They clear the area of coca farmers and guerrillas, and also provide cover fire for the pilots overhead. The spray pilots also have added protection above them in the form of 71 U.S. provided helicopters, which monitor their safety as they carry out their missions.
Success in Plan Columbia comes by way of numbers and statistics. As the State Department points out, since 2000, nearly 3 million acres of coca fields have been eradicated. Drug seizures have also increased. 225 tons of cocaine hydrochloride and cocaine base were seized in joint operations by U.S. advisers and the the Columbian military in 2005, up from 125 tons in 2002. The number of hidden drugs labs destroyed stands at 2,000 in 2006, up from a mere 317 in 2000. Extradition of drug traffickers has also increased, with the number of men extradited tot he U.S. numbering over 400.
Murder rates and other crimes have also fallen in Columbia, in some cases more than 35%. Tourism is also up in the country, with more and more foreign firms looking for business opportunities in the new free-market economy.
However, Plan Columbia is not without its critics. Even Columbian President Uribe says that, "in comparison to our efforts, we should be seeing better results."
Critics also point to the eradication efforts themselves as dangerous to the peasant population. They claim that the insecticides used to spray coca farms pollute the water supply of indigenous populations and harm the environment. The crux of their argument stems from the fact that the herbicide used is mycoherbicide, a strain of which is classified as a biological warfare agent.
Pais Libre, a non-profit organization that fights kidnapping, points out another flaw in Plan Columbia: the fact that kidnappings have "increased". As director David Buitrago says, 'In ten years we have gone from 100 kidnappings a year to 3,706 during the year 2000.'
Another recent controversy involves American advisers and their traffic in illegal arms and munitions. With echoes of the Contra scandal, American contractors and advisers alike secretly funneled arms to rebel groups such as FARC and ELN.
The Oil Controversy
Unbeknownst to much of North America, oil is in fact Columbia's leading legal export. Empresa Colombiana de Petroleos (ECOPETROL), the state-owned company, handles all areas related to oil production, such as exploration, extraction, production, transportation, and marketing oil for export. However, ECOPETROL in recent years, has entered into agreements with foreign oil companies in an effort to initiate more production. ECOPETROL in essence changed their royalty payment structures, so that foreign companies could invest without entering into exclusive agreements. Now, Amoco, BP and Occidental Petrolium, and Harken Energy count themselves as investors in Columbia's burgeoning oil markets.
Critics of Plan Columbia have in fact stated that oil, and not the War on Drugs, is the real reason for the U.S. push in Columbia. They point to the fact that before Plan Columbia, state-owned companies reaped the profits from oil fields. However, since Plan Columbia, in which the 4.7 billion aid package hinged on compulsory privatization of state-owned companies, oil companies have been able to bid on contracts and pay almost no royalties. Now, instead of Columbia keeping its money from oil exports, companies such as Harken Energy reap 92% of what they can extract. Even though they may not own their oil anymore, Columbia remains among the ten largest suppliers of foreign crude oil to the United States, making it a higher oil producer than countries such as Kuwait
The question of oil pipelines also arises. Before Plan Columbia, attacks on pipelines by groups such as FARC or ELM were common, However, Plan Columbia has provided training for Columbian troops that secure the largest pipeline in the country, the Caño Limon-Coveñas. Attacks have since dropped and in some areas ceased altogether. Further bolstering critics' claims, U.S. Special Forces Sergeant Stan Goof, who helped train Colombian troops recently said that 'Plan Colombia's main objective was to defend the operations of Occidental, British Petroleum, and Texas Petroleum' as well as to secure 'control of future Colombian oil fields.'[3] President Bush's adviser, Brent Snowcroft, seemed to echo this sentiment when he stated that, Columbia's oil reserves are 'only slightly less than OPEC members Qatar, Indonesia, and Algeria." He also noted that Colombia's oil production would not advance 'unless stability is restored.'[4]
Military Assistance in Other Countries
Peru
Behind Columbia, Peru is the second largest exporter of cocaine in the world. In the last two years, Peru has received $100 million in U.S. aid, nearly all of it earmarked for military programs to stop the flow of drugs out of the country. The United States offers military assistance in training police, military and port officers, as well as radar station operatives, who can track drug planes as they fly in and out of the country. The U.S. also has officers and soldiers to aid in ground interdiction in tandem with successful law enforcement operations.
As in Columbia, the U.S. also supports efforts to establish alternative programs in which coca farmers will voluntarily reduce and eliminate coca cultivation in exchange for a cash settlement anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000. This effort is funded by the Department of State's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
Ecuador
Ecuador received nearly $50 million in U.S. aid for the fiscal year 2007. This is far less than Columbia received in the same period, but this is because Ecuador poses much less of a drug problem than Columbia. Most of Ecuador's problems stem from a flow of traffickers through the country. The U.S. has military advisers operating in a similar capacity as Peru. The United States trains military units in ground interdiction. Also, the U.S. has established four new so-called Forward Operating Locations--US military intelligence outposts--in Ecuador, Aruba, Curaçao and El Salvador. These radar outposts help track traffickers as they make their way south out of Columbia in an effort to ship cocaine out of the country.
Bolivia
Bolivia received nearly $100 million in aid from the United States in 2007. Although the U.S. does not actively participate in enforcement or eradication efforts in Bolivia, they pay for everything from 'helicopters to boots'[5]
However, U.S. efforts in Bolivia may come to an end after recent democratic elections in which Evo Morales, a former head of the coca-growers union, was elected President. Morales has said that he would end criminalization of coca growing, instead focusing on those who would turn the coca leaf into cocaine.
With recent elections, the U.S. recently stated it will cut military funding to Bolivia by a massive 96%.
Conclusion
Drug czar John Walter recently surprised many when he stated that Plan Columbia so far has failed to stifle drug production in that country. Despite U.S. trained military and police units, despite U.S. Blackhawk helicopters and attack Hueys, the cocaine industry is thriving. If anything, eradication efforts have forced drug traffickers to become more enterprising in that they can now grow more coca in less land.
Recently, however, the Columbian military (aided by U.S. military personnel) made several key arrests, including a high-ranking FARC rebel leader as well as the leader of a paramilitary group who protected large coca fields.
Ironically, a country without U.S. military assistance programs may be doing the most to stop cocaine trafficking. Mexico's recent actions have curtailed much of the cocaine that flows north into the U.S. President Felipe Calderón recently sent 3,000 troops to areas such as Guadalajara to stop local drug cartels engaged in a violent turf war.
Even small gains such as these take on a victorious ring for the U.S. government, especially in the face of such a large and complicated war.
References
- ↑ "U.S. Troops Move in Panama in Effort to Seize Noriega," by Michael Gordon, The New York Times, December 20, 1989
- ↑ "The Noriega Verdict," by Larry Rohter, The New York Times, April 10, 1992
- ↑ Ignacio Gómez G. "El Objetivo de los E.U. es el Petróleo." El Espectador. October 8, 2000.
- ↑ Brent Scowcroft and Bob Graham. "Quick Aid to Colombia - For Our Sake." Los Angeles Times, April 26, 2000.
- ↑ Monte Reel. "In Boliva, a $100 Million Question." The Washington Post, January 21, 2006.
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