THE WAR ON DRUGS                                                                                BACK

 

 

INTRODUCTION

              Four dreaded horsemen are galloping across the ravaged landscape of Latin America, bringing with them disease, hunger, social chaos, political instability, and an impending national security crisis for the United States. These four horsemen are debt, depression, drugs, and terrorism, and they already hold in thrall a vast area of he globe and hundreds of millions of people.

            This paper is about one of these scourges-drugs. The escalating sale and consumption of drugs, especially cocaine and its derivative form as “crack,” in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, New Orleans  and other major consumption centers during the past decade has attracted considerable attention and alarm in the North American mass media, political establishment, and electorate. We are daily remained of the “war on drugs” currently underway at home and abroad 

            This problem has been compounded by the tendency of the nation’s news media to deal only with the most sensational aspects of the drugs crisis . It is impossible to turn on the evenings television news or open a  local or national newspaper without being confronted by drug related stories of  murder, violence, and tragedy. Such news bites offer brief, fleeting glimpses into the painful realities of the drug epidemic, but are too fragmented and narrow to offer any meaningful insight or comprehension.

            Indeed, one of the ironies of the drug war is that we commonly hear the most from those who know the least. Lost have been the voices of the most intimately engaged on the front lines  Drug users, dealers, and addicts, as well as undercover cops, all struggle to maintain an invisible presence.

            The purpose of this study is to examine one of the major problems in American society. The war on drugs has been and still is an issue full of controversy, especially because we still do not know who has won. The government of the United States has fought  this war with everything in its power, but it seems that this war is one of those few wars that United States will never win. This study will focus in four major points: The history of cocaine, a study of the Latin American countries involved in cocaine trade,  some of the events that have caused great alarm in the media in an international level, followed by regulations, policies and measures taken for the governments of United States and Colombia in this war on drugs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HISTORY OF COCAINE.

            The purpose of this first section is to examine the historical roots of cocaine, emphasizing that the cultivation of coca, the plant from which the drug is extracted, forms a traditional and central element of the South American Indian’s world

It has been said that, without coca, there would be no Peru.[1] Although this comment was made by a Spanish conquistador more than 400 years ago, the feeling it represents is still alive today. A coca branch is incorporated into the national emblem of the modern-day Republic of Peru, and the leaf is also displayed on every piece of Peruvian currency. Coca is a physical and spiritual elixir for thousands of Andean Indians, and the cultivation of the leaf in South America has been a significant political and economic factor for the past 5,000 years.

            Despite its renown in Peru, the coca leaf has a history of being confused with such unrelated items as cocoa, coconut, and betel. Besides this, there has traditionally been a great deal of confusion surrounding the effects of coca’s mildly stimulating psychoactive properties, and the history of the leaf’s associations with different cultures at different times.

            Since the time the cocaine alkaloid was separated from the leaf in 1860, the coca plant has grown to become a substance of great international importance affecting the lives of millions of people . In light of this development there is a need to view coca and cocaine from a complete historical perspective. To achieve this, it is necessary to begin with an archaeological reconstruction of ancient Peru as it existed at the time man first arrived.

            The story of man and coca really begins in Peru about 20,000 years ago, when groups of hunting and gathering people first immigrated into the central Andes of South America.[2] During this early collecting period, man must have experimented with literally thousands of plants in search for food. The nomadic existence that characterizes  all hunter and gatherer groups undoubtedly  led these small family bands into a variety of econiches throughout the Andes and exposed them to countless new varieties of plants wherever they went. Of all the areas within this part of the world, the eastern, or  Amazonian slopes  of the Andes, have the greatest diversity of plant life and would, therefore, be the most attractive to fruit and vegetable gatherers. This lush, tropical region is called the montana in Peru, or the yungas in Bolivia, and is most likely the home of the coca plant.

            It is reasonable to assume that the coca was first sampled by these early hunting and gathering people of Peru when they reached the montana, perhaps as early as 15,000 years ago. It is always difficult to produce “proof” of the associations between wild plant species and man, especially within the natural range of these plants where the earliest experimentations must have taken place. Nevertheless, a plant with the remarkable properties of coca could hardly be overlooked by collecting bands, even at such an early date. The most rudimentary testing of the plant -that is, introducing the leaves into the mouth -might be enough to numb the sting of a cut lip or deaden the pain of a common toothache. After being alerted to these obvious benefits, these knowledgeable plant experimenters probably learned that coca could be chewed to combat hunger, cold, and fatigue, or infused to remedy stomach disorders. Because such unpleasant physical states were inescapable facts of life for these Andean hunters and gatherers, we may speculate that coca may have been a valuable and well known member of their ever-changing plant world.

            Early man’s relationship with coca changed around 2000 B.C., when he learned to cultivate plants and domesticate animals. A welcomed by product of these developments was surplus, something unknown to the hunter-gatherer. Surplus was stored goods and stored goods meant that more time could be spent on pursuits other than food production. By 2500 B.C., man began to convert this time into variety of creative cultural pursuits, resulting in a number of technological and artistic advances. Massive ceremonial structures were constructed  for public worship, burials began to be accompanied by elaborate grave gifts, and great care was accorded to the location and position of the body.

The first direct archaeological evidence of coca-leaf use actually predates this early agricultural epoch. Ceramic lime pots and figurines of coca chewers  appear associated with the Valdivia culture on the coast of Ecuador and date back to 3000 B.C. There are also reports of coca use and even cultivation in some sites in the upper river valleys of Peru about 2000 B.C.[3] Another site on the south-central coast, however, provide us with an even more interesting look at early coca use.

            Later on, there was nothing pleasant about the Spanish conquest of the New World. It was generally a short, brutish series of invasions conducted by expeditions of driven and ruthless men in search of wealth.[4] The native peoples of the Western Hemisphere, the Arawks, Chibchas, Mayas, and Aztecs, were militarily defeated  and their civilizations destroyed by the combined pressures of internal byzantine politics, disasters in the battlefield, and widespread epidemics caused by diseases introduced by the newcomers.[5]

            One of the last major Indian civilizations to fall was that of the Incas, who presided over a sizeable empire that stretched throughout the Andes with present day Peru at the center. In 1532, Francisco Pizarro set out to conquer the Incas, lured by the fabled golden treasures of the Indian empire. By 1533, the Spanish had conquered the core of Inca lands, decimated the population and put many of the survivors to work in the mines. The Incas, however, were not entirely overcome until 1537 when a significant Indian revolt was crushed and a neo-Inca state survived until 1572 in the mountain refuge of Vilcabamba. The Spanish had come to stay, forever changing the Inca’s world: in the very lands where they have been the masters, they became the conquered race. Although a few other Indian revolts occurred, the Incas had lost their world, becoming a subclass in a European-dominated Latin America society.

            In the twentieth century, well over 400 years since the Spanish conquest, it appears that the Incas may at long last be extracting their revenge on Western civilization through the Latin America  drug trade, largely dominated by cocaine, but including marijuana and heroin. Paradoxically, the same technological superiority that allowed the Europeans to subjugate the peoples of the New World, are now helping to facilitate both the production and transportation of illegal drugs, that have growing addict populations in North and South America as well in the Caribbean. At long last, a weapon has emerged to tear at the core of the European’s world (North Americans are included in this term), to unravel their society and to apply pressure to their political systems.

            During the colonial period, therefore, coca production and use continued. Its prosperity as a commodity, however, was linked to the major exports of what were later to become the nation-states of Peru and Bolivia. These commodities were silver, tin and other ores, mined under usually difficult and physically demanding conditions. As these exports were influenced by price fluctuations in the international marketplace. The cycles of boom and bust that afflicted the mining industries, also afflicted the coca industry, legal and illegal, determining expansion and contraction of cultivation, capital invested and employment.

Despite the disruptive period during the Latin American wars of independence against Spain, the symbiotic relationship between coca production and mineral exportation remained constant, existing primarily in Bolivia and, to a lesser extent, in Peru. In Bolivia coca production initially flourished or slumped in relation to the fortunes in the silver industry. During the colonial era, coca production probably never exceeded 4,000 tons a year and a least a third of it was consumed in the major mining center of Potosi.[6] Primary cultivation areas were in the Yungas region around what became the Bolivian capital of La Paz. Two major townships dominated, being Coripata and Chulumani. The latter was dominated by indigenous communities, who were oriented towards small-scale cultivation. Much of their produce went to local use. In Coripata, however, large haciendas predominated and were oriented towards commercial production.

While legal production continued in a long and somewhat unbroken pattern in Bolivia, there was resistance to it elsewhere in post-Imperial Latin America. Once again a cultural element must be considered: in the region’s societies, European cultural mores were held above all others. The cultural emphasis was white, Catholic, and Western. For non-Europeans, assimilation of those values was crucial for any upward social mobility. This situation was most pronounced in Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia, nations with sizeable  Indian populations. It was far less a concern in Argentina and Chile which had a small or non-existent Indian populations. Along these lines, coca chewing was frowned upon as something which was a distinctively Indian tradition.

For many Latin American, especially Andean Indians, coca continues to have a central role in culture and  society and henceforth, there has remained through several centuries, deep-rooted opposition to its disuse. An effecting banning of coca, would threaten to disrupt the Indian’s spiritual balance, as a core element would be removed, but nothing new would be substituted.[7]

            While coca has been around for several centuries, cocaine is relatively new substance. It was only in the 1860s that European scientists succeeded in extracting the cocaine alkaloid from the coca plant. The drug soon became available in pure form and was in heavy demand in the medical world as a painkiller and anesthetic. As cocaine was experimented  upon in Europe and the United States in the late 1800s, it gradually created a need for greater supply. In time, a legal pharmaceutical industry developed  in a number of Latin American countries to meet the demand. By 1920s, cocaine was being produced in large quantities for the first time. As this occurred, more research on the narcotic revealed a number of side-effects, such as addiction, and controls were implemented. While cocaine or the coca plant continued to have a now limited role in the medical world, the substance existed for the illegal side of smuggling and use in Europe and the United States.

            What exactly is cocaine? Cocaine is in the same chemical family as nicotine, caffeine, and morphine. It is extracted from the coca plant, which is cultivated chiefly in South America. The extract is heated with hydrochloric acid and the result is cocaine hydrochloride, a form of salt often mixed with various adulterants. This byproduct is the mainstay of the trade, as it is water-soluble making it easy to take in several different ways.[8]

               Federal, state and local governments have not always spent billion of dollars every year prosecuting people who use or sell drugs. In fact throughout the nineteenth century, opiates  (the category of drugs that includes heroin and morphine) and cocaine were widely available in America. They were recommended remedies for ailments as varied as hay fever, sinusitis and depression. For a brief time cocaine was an active ingredient in Coca Cola Co.’s flagship cola beverage. Such widespread use created anywhere from one quarter to one half  a million cocaine and opiate addicts in America by the beginning of the twentieth century, according to the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, and concern began to rise. As a result, Congress in 1906 passed the Pure Food and Drug Act, which required manufactures to list certain drugs as ingredients on labels.

            In 1914, Congress passed the Harrison Act, requiring anyone distributing or possessing certain drugs to register with the federal government and pay taxes on the products. Shortly thereafter, several states started outlawing narcotics. In 1919, the Supreme Court,  in Webb v. U.S., interpreted the Harrison Act in such a way that it became illegal for doctors to prescribe narcotics to addicts to maintain their addictions. Marijuana remain legal through the mid-1930s, until the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 was passed by Congress. That law made it illegal to sell marijuana without paying an occupational tax and a special tax on each sale of the product. Because few of the required marijuana “tax stamps” were issued, the Act effectively made marijuana illegal.

            Except for the period between 1970 and 1984, when Congress rescinded laws requiring so-called mandatory minimum sentences for drugs offenses, the federal government has been toughening its laws against drug sales and possession for the last 80 years. Laws vary in each state; a total of 32 now have mandatory -minimum laws similar to federal guidelines. Selling more than a few ounces of cocaine or a dozen ounces of marijuana in New York City can bring 15-year prison sentences, while second and third offenses can lead to life imprisonment. (Rapists and murderers are often let out of prison after serving far shorter sentences than non-violent drug offenders.

            Some states, such Alaska, Michigan and California, have decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana. In those states, minor possession charges are accompanied by only a nominal fine, and law-enforcement officials are less zealous in prosecuting such offenders than if they had committed more serious crimes.

            In 1996, the federal government spent about $14.5 billion fighting the drug war, according to estimated federal budget figures, while state and local governments spent hundreds of millions more. No one can estimate how much drug use has been prevented by government-run law enforcement, education and treatment programs. But one fact remains incontrovertible-for he last 80 years, overall drug use in America has failed to fall considerably, and has even risen in recent years.

            The fact, more than any personal or political opinion, has driven the movement for the legalization, of drugs, especially marijuana. Several recent studies have shown that use of marijuana among teenagers has risen over the past three years, while the percentage of teenagers who disapprove of drug use was 56% in 1995, down from 70% in 1992, according to the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

COUNTRIES INVOLVED.

COLOMBIA

                        It is the purpose of this section to examine Colombia’s role in the Latin American drug trade. This South American nation is the single most important country in Latin America in terms of exporting cocaine and marijuana to North America. The Colombian drug dealers best known as the “Medellin Cartel,” and their guerrilla allies in the drug-insurgency nexus have accomplished more than many nation-states throughout history. They have created transnational trade networks, established trading posts, such as Miami and New York City, and when challenged have demonstrated that they are capable of assassinations, bribery of international officials, and full-scale military style assaults. Colombia has evolved as the core in the Latin American drug trade because of its high level of involvement in the production, processing, and marketing of cocaine, marijuana, and other narcotics. Anthony Senneca of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration has said “ The Colombians are pretty much just dope peddlers and they have become the world’s experts at it. [9]

            Colombia’s involvement in the United States cocaine trafficking originated with the influx of Cubans to South Florida in the wake of the Castro Revolution  in the early 1960’s.[10] Elements within the newly transplanted refugee community were part of an organized crime network, referred to as “Cuban Mafia.” North American organized crime groups were active in Cuba during the 1940’s  and 1950’s and it was only natural that domestic “criminal” entrepreneurs would arise. When Fidel Castro and the July 26^th Movement came to power in Cuba in 1959, the Cuban Mafia, with its North and South Americans connections, fled to the United States.

            The initial Cuban involvement in narcotics arose from the demand generated by members of the transplanted community that used cocaine as “luxury” drug. The ties to cocaine trafficking organizations in South America, already established in pre-Castro Cuba, were easily tapped. What commenced as a servicing of a social luxury to Florida’s Cuban community, expanded rapidly in the mid-1960’s as demand in the United States grew and the market’s lucrativeness became apparent. The major source of for the Cubans were the Colombians. One United States government study noted: “By 1965 Colombians supplied nearly 100 percent of the cocaine moving through the Cuban networks. Colombians refined the drug and Cubans trafficked and distributed it in the United States.[11]

            The Cuban-Colombian alliance was highly successful and it quickly became a powerful force in the Latin American drug trade. However, the Colombians desired a larger role. The South Americans were, after all, the producers, who worked through Cuban middlemen. The Colombians realized that the profits would be greater without the services and costs of the Cubans, especially if they could develop their own networks. In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, the Colombians expanded their operations from production to trafficking. By 1978 the Colombians drug barons had served all ties with the Cubans and assumed the dominant role they have continued to play in supplying cocaine to the North American Market.[12]

            With those previous historical events, we enter to analyze the empowerment in the 1980’s of the drug cartels centered in Medellin and Cali cities. 

 The largest proportion of overall profits for Colombian residents comes from transporting and smuggling cocaine to the United States. This is part of the industry that clearly have economies of scale, and in which coordinated efforts by several manufacturers can reduce risk. For instance, every exporter knows there is a probability that a single shipment will be seized. However, every business unit can lower its risk if it joins other exporters and several shipments in which all partners have a share. This way, everybody makes profits even if some of the cocaine is seized. Higher profits at this stage cause the industry to devote more resources to it than to other stages of the business.

            There are four major reasons for Colombia’s preeminent position in the Latin American drug trade. First  and foremost, the South American country benefits from its geopolitical position. It is strategically located between the coca producing nations of Peru and Bolivia and the routes through the Caribbean and Central America that lead to the lucrative North American and European markets. The Colombians purchase the raw material, process it, and market it. Though  the Colombian government applied considerable pressure on Colombian production centers, the narcotraficantes moved some of their processing out of the country to neighboring nations in eastern Ecuador, and western Brazil.

            Secondly, South America’s vast central forests effectively conceal clandestine processing laboratories and airstrips that facilitate the traffic. The geographical attributes are complemented by reason number three, the strong entrepreneurial skills of the Colombian people and the early involvement in the trade. One study observed: “They have evolved from small, disassociated groups into compartmentalized organizations and are sophisticated and systematized in their approach to trafficking cocaine in the United States.”[13] Colombia success  in the drug of trade is due to the business ability and refining and distribution expertise. The four and final factor has been the willingness of certain elements of the Colombian community in the United States to provide access to markets and function as distributor network for Colombian cocaine.

            The involvement of Colombians living in the United States was made evident in January 1982 when Orlando Galvez, his wife, and two small children were ruthlessly murdered in a hail of gunfire in New York City. Galvez had established a cocaine-dealing business in the borough of Queens and his suppliers in Colombia suspected that he was dealing with another supplier. The Galvez family’s liquidation reflected particularly ruthless dimension about Colombian involvement in the drug trade. While the Cosa Nostra in the United States has usually pursued its vendettas against a single individual, the Colombian have sought to strike at all members of the family and, at times, friends. This was underscored in April 1984 when a Puerto Rican mother Virginia Lopez, then pregnant, her four children, her cousin and her two children and two other young members of the family were shot to death with shotguns. The police felt that this was a Colombian “message” to the Puerto Ricans who were thought to be involved in drug dealing.

            The combination of this factors has made Colombia one of the world’s major drug producing and exporting nations. Other nations have some of these factors, but not all, the most important being the lack of geopolitical location. Only Mexico in Latin America may come close.

The guiding force behind Colombian’s preeminence in the Latin American drug trade has been the so-called Medellin cartel. The cartel allegedly accounts for 80 percent of the cocaine exported to North America, is based in the mountainous city of Medellin, and is dominated by a small core of billionaires. These billionaires include Carlos Lehder Rivas, Jorge Luis Ochoa, and Pablo Escobar. Backed by the capital of the drug trade, the Medellin cartel has, and continues to exert, considerable influence in Colombia. Moreover, the cartel has been one of the major forces in fighting against the 1979 extradition treaty with the United States. In Addition, it is highly probable that much of the narcotraficante side of the drug-insurgency nexus has been with the Medellin cartel.

The case is that the marijuana and coca did not became a problem until they were  stimulated by the demand of developed countries such as the United States. “The fundamental source of the drug problem, of narcotrafico in the Americas was the presence and power of consumer demand. Demand…, in advance industrial countries, in Europe and especially important for Latin America in the United States.”[14]

The impact of the drug trade on the nation’s political and socioeconomic system has been considerable as it is founded upon an alliance between the drug barons and leftist guerrilla groups. This seemingly strange alliance has been referred to as the drug-insurgency nexus. Why is it that leftist guerrillas, who usually espouse a Marxist-Leninist or Maoist revolution, work hand-in-hand with drug dealers, many of whom are politically conservative? Though difficult to prove, it appears that both groups have found working together mutually beneficial. However, before examining these shared benefits, it is important to have some background to Colombia’s somewhat violent political tradition that helped shape the drug-insurgency nexus. Of Colombia’s political development in the past century, Paul Oquist wrote: Between 1946 and 1966, the Republic of Colombia was the escene of one of the most intense and protracted instances of widespread civilian violence in the history of the twentieth century. Known in Colombia simply as La Violencia, this social process took at least 200,000 lives, including 112,000 in the 1948-50 period alone.[15]

There are five well-known leftist organizations, most of which in some sense were inspired by the Cuban Revolution and who felt that armed revolution was the path to power. These groups are the Colombian Revolutionary Armed  Forces (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia or FARC), being this group the strongest one. Followed by the pro-Cuban Army of National Liberation (Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional or ELN); the Maoist-oriented Popular Liberation Group (Ejercito Popular de Liberacion or ELP); the Revolutionary Movement of 19^th of April (Movimiento Revolucionario 19 de Abril, or M-19); and a small Trotskyite group called the Workers’ Self-Defense (Autodefensa Obrera or ADO). Though  most of these groups allegedly have linkages to the narcotraficantes, the two most politically and militarily significant organizations are the FARC and the M-19.

In November 1982, the government of President Belisario Betancur  took measures to end the problem of guerrilla insurgencies by promulgating an amnesty law, covering all combatants. Soon thereafter some1,500 guerrillas took advantage of the amnesty law, while 331 were released  from custody. The reaction of the guerrilla groups was mixed as M-19 remained largely aloof from the amnesty process, while the FARC cautiously had its members “come in from the cold.”

The amnesty was a bold move by the Betancur government as it sought to end a 35 years-old, constitutionally imposed state of siege. Many of the government’s powers to deal with civil disturbances and revolutionary activities were rescinded, and previously curtailed civil and political freedoms restored. This change, however, in March 1984 when the state of siege was reimposed  in four departments following a destructive guerrilla assault on the capital of Caqueta Department, Florencia. On April 30, 1984, the government’s other domestic policy stance, a crackdown on the drug industry, resulted in the assassination of the Minister of Justice, Rodrigo Lara Bonilla. In response, the state of siege was reimposed nationwide on a temporary basis. The government was at pains, however, to let the rebel groups involved in truce talks know the new order was nor leveled against them.

While the Betancur administration launched an all-out effort against the drug trade in retaliation to Lara’s murder, a cease-fire agreement was negotiated by the government with the FARC, and signed on March 1984. The truce became effective on May 28, with the Colombian leader designating a 43-member National Verification Commission to supervise the agreement. Lara’s assassination, however, began to attract attention to possible ties between the drug trade and guerrilla groups. Furthermore, this forced the Colombian public to notice that the “drug problem” which it has been perceived as a North American problem, had become a Colombian problem. This is not to argue that the “war drug” did not already exist between  the government and the narcotraficantes. To the country, the government had early initiated a struggle against the trade and its antinarcotics teams had been called one of the best in Latin America.

The drug war and the guerrillas were brought together by an escalation of the government’s antinarcotics activities, which culminated in the April 1984 raid on what was the world’s largest known cocaine production center, a complex of seventeen laboratories at Yuri in the eastern lowlands. Hidden in the jungle, his complex yielded 121,500 kilograms of cocaine and had an estimated value  of $1.2 billion. It had forty-six  employees, who were protected by 100 guerrillas from the FARC. This, more than anything else brought into the open the link between some of the guerrillas and the drug traders. Furthermore, many of the weapons held by the guerrillas were brought from Cuba which purchased the cocaine. The National Defense Minister Matamorros stated: “Everyone knows that the planes leave Colombia with cocaine and that they return with weapons from Cuba.”[16]

The situation in Colombia has changed as a result of the open challenge posed by the drug-insurgency nexus. The drug traffickers had become too powerful, too conspicuous, and too greedy. They are involved in politics, sports, public works. One of the most visible capos, Carlos Lehder Rivas formed his own neo-Nazi party, and had an openly public profile.

In his early twenty years old , he was in New York, and he realized that the United States was a good potential consumer of cocaine. ”Also he conceptualized an important change in the cocaine transportation going from the mules to private aircrafts.”[17]

The main drug merchants were forced to temporarily leave Colombia because of the pressure leveled against them. Neighboring Panama, with its corrupt armed forces (itself involved in the smuggling of drugs and guns) served as the safe haven. This was a situation that the drug traders had not considered and the intensity of the government’s pressure resulted in a rethinking of operations in Colombia. What the narcotraficantes wanted was to return home without complications. Consequently, they turned to negotiations with the government through the good offices of former Liberal president Alfonso Lopez Michelsen and the Liberal attorney general, Carlos Jimenez Gomez. The former met with Pablo Escobar, Jorge Ochoa, and Rodriguez Gacha, who claimed to represent 80 percent of Colombian cocaine traffickers, in Panama to receive their proposal. That proposal outlined that in exchange for freedom to return to the country and reassume “normal” lives, the capos offered to inject $3 billion a year into the economy, dismantle the cocaine “factories,” and help rehabilitate addicts.[18]

The failure of the Panama meeting left the drug barons in a difficult situation. The government showed little inclination of retreating. Lara’s assassination had been  a tactical error, and increased government pressure was forcing some operations out of Colombia and into remote regions in western Ecuador, Brazil, and Peru. In addition the government could not capture any of the big figures in the drug trade. The drug barons were being responsible for the majority of the violent crimes that were taking palce in Colombia. The bombing of the United States Embassy in 1984. The threats of killing government figures  even the President were known to be planned by drug barons.

From November 1984 to November 1985, there was a big war of nerves between the government and the major drug dealers. The treaty of extradition with Washington , put a number of drug dealers in Colombian courts ready to travel north to the United States to be sentenced.

Colombia still remains as the core of Latin American drug trade, a position that it will probably stay in well into the next century. It will continue to have an impact well beyond its borders. Internally, the drug industry is likely to have a stabilizing effect on the nation, though violence will remain a factor. In many respects, the introduction and production of cocaine is much like that of coffee in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The drug barons have gradually made inroads to becoming “respectable” and their impact in Colombia’s economy remains powerful. With a vast array of contacts, international networks and an entrepreneurial spirit , the Colombians have managed to make the production and export of cocaine a major transnational  enterprise. The drug-insurgency nexus is powerful, capable of challenging the state’s authority. For the drug dealer, Colombia remains home and, as they climb the social ladder, they too will have  more to lose from a drug-insurgency nexus that has gone out of control.

BOLIVIA

Bolivia and Peru follow Colombia as the most significant forces in The Latin America drug trade. Bolivia and Peru, in fact together corner the market as producers of coca leaves( between 154,000-188,000 metric tons back in 1984), the fundamental raw material for cocaine.[19] Without Bolivia and Peru, the cocaine market would be considerable different.

Bolivia is located at the hearth of the South American continent, and it is one of the major coca leaf producers in the world. It is estimated that the Bolivian coca crop, largely based in eastern part of the country, yield $3 billion per annum. Roughly five tons of coca paste are sent abroad weekly, most it headed to the United States through Colombia where it is processed. Of total earnings it is said that an estimated of $600 million return to Bolivia where it eventually trickles down from the wealthy drug barons to corrupt government and police officials, and peasants who have found the cultivation of coca an economic salvation in difficult times.

As well as Colombia, There are four major reasons for the development of the contemporary Bolivian drug industry. These are: A) the long-standing weakness of the political center vis-à-vis the periphery. B) the existence of a traditional coca industry which has cultural significance for the Indian part of the population. C) developments in the local economy that followed the 1952 revolution. D) and increased demand for cocaine. These factors converged in the 1970’s during the dictatorship of General Hugo Banzer, and were greatly reinforced by the rise and fall of the “cocaine generals”, that came to power in General Garcia Meza’s 1981 coup. Bolivia has traditionally lacked a high degree of political stability and has had close to 200 coups in its history since its independence from Spain in 1821.

            Bolivia’s role in the Latin American drug trade increased greatly in the 1980’s, especially after the infamous “cocaine coup”  of July 17, 1980. Bolivia’s drug baron in the 1980’s was Roberto Suarez Gomez, who was described as “head of traditional latifundista family and owner of extensive lands around Santa Ana de Yacuma, far to the north of Beni.”[20] Once a cattle farmer, in the 1980’s he expanded into coca production, purchased a small fleet of aircraft, and hired a fugitive Nazi, Klaus Barbie, as his security adviser. Klaus Barbie organized and headed the “Fiances of Death,” Suarez’s combinations bodyguards/death squads. Suarez called a meeting of Bolivia’s major drug dealers at Club Bavaria in Santa Cruz in the early 1980’s.[21] These meeting include Irwin Gasser, Jorge Naller, and Klaus Barbie. With contacts in the armed forces, such as Colonel Luis Arce Gomez (a relative of Suarez’s), the barons were able to contact the army commander in Santa Cruz, General Hugo Echeverria. An additional part of the pact was that Arce Gomez, already involved in drug trading with Colonel Roberto Solomon, was to be given the position of Minister of Interior which handled antinarcotics affairs.

            The Carter administration was infuriated by the coup. The brutal rise of the cocaine generals collided with both the United States president’s human rights and antinarcotics policies. In response, foreign aid of around $127,000,000 was suspended and a United States Ambassador Marvin Weisman was withdrawn.

Later on,  the growing irritation of the drug barons, the lack of management of the economy, and the poor international reputation of the Garcia Meza regime set the stage for the government’s collapse. Despite the United States intervention, the effect in the cocaine trade in Bolivia was tempory. The narcotraficantes remain a significant force in the country in the late 1980’s, and any government sitting in La Paz will be forced to contend with their power.

PERU

The third important country in the illegal drug trade is Peru. The export of coca and cocaine, estimated at over $600 million annually, has become one of Peru’s major exports. Peru accounts for 55 percent of the world’s cocaine, the major market being the United States. The fertility of the Upper Huallaga for coca production, is best summarized by a Peruvian peasant: “God made this valley for coca. I plant coffee: it gets knee high and it dies. I plant cacao and it turns yellow. Coca-that’s all that grows.”[22]

The discontent of both Indian and non-Indian peasant groups with coca eradication campaigns has created a difficult situation for the central government. The  Fernando Belaunde-Terry’s administration (1980-85) cast a relatively blind eye in the drug trade, and it was rumored that members of the armed forces were involved though not on the same scale as in Bolivia.

What eventually evolved in Peru’s Amazonian region was the emergence of  four separate forces. A) the narcotraficantes of Colombian and Peruvian nationalities. B) the Shining Path guerrillas. C) the antinarcoticts police and  D) military. Each groups have its objectives, which in some cases overlapped and in other cases, conflicted. There has been considerable discussion that the Sendero Luminoso, and the narcotraficantes have joined forces in Peru. Others have disagreed with the perception of a drug-insurgency nexus having developed in Peru. They argue there is no evidence for these assertions, that too little is known of Sendero Luminoso to speculate, and that such claims are part of the United States-backed disinformation  campaign to link the Latin American left to the nefarious drug trade.

Bolivia and Peru have surpassed Colombia as the major producers of coca. While much of the network throughout the Americas remains dominated by the Colombians, local drug barons with networks of their own have emerged in both countries. Furthermore, the narcotraficantes have been, and continue to be, highly linked to terrorist activities, with ties to the far left as well as the far right. There is also growing domestic consumption in these nations.

The many similarities between the two nations is not complete. Central authority in Peru has traditionally been stronger that in Bolivia. While Peru has had its share of political instability, its record has not been as problematic. Bolivia remains one of the few countries in the world, possibly the only one, that conceivably be taken over by the cocaine Mafia. As one North American commercial banker, who has visited Bolivia in November 1987, commented: “I would not be surprised if the cocaine mafia took over-it probably will not take much .”[23]

ECUADOR

Another country that has being forced to ingress in the cocaine trade is Ecuador. Located between Colombia and Peru, the country is 109,482 square miles in size- the third smallest South American nation. It is geographically divided into three major nations. The two most politically and economically significant are the Sierra (mountains) and the costa (coast). There has been traditional rivalry between Quito, the sierra’s leading city as well as nation’s capital, and Guayaquil, the major port. The country’s political struggles have been between competing national elites based in the two urban centers.

The Oriente region, east of the Andes, is difficult to reach, rich in mineral resources, and sparsely populated. Isolated from rest of the country, it has long been perceived as a national storehouse of riches waiting to be exploited. But development has lagged in this rugged area, making it deal terrain for the potential expansion of the drug-insurgency nexus. There are the same common elements: fertile soil, jungle, relatively poor communications with the country’s political centers, and inaccessibility to adequate patrolling by either the armed forces or police.

Before the current democratic period that began in 1979, Ecuador’s political system was marked by administrations that ended prematurely, military coups and rule, and transitional governments. Ecuador’s many political parties are part of the problem, because they have usually functioned as personal vehicles for politicians of wide-ranging ideological viewpoints. As a result, continuity in the democratic tradition has been difficult to achieve, and presidents such as Leon Febres Cordero, who lacked the support of a strong party in Congress, have encountered considerably difficulty in implementing policies. Such difficulty indicates that most parties have failed to establish ties with broad groups in society.

Ecuador’s involvement in the cocaine trade commenced in the late 1980’s. Although a national concern, the drug trade is not the major political issue it is in other Andean countries. Debt policy, unemployment, and wages are probably perceived as more important. At the same time, smuggling has been a traditional part of border relations with Ecuador’s neighbors, adding up to an estimated of  $600 million in contraband annually. The country’s location between Colombia and Peru has led to a situation in which parts of Ecuador have received the spillover from cocaine traffickers and producers, especially during periods of crackdowns in those bordering nations.

Narcoterrorism’s  introduction into the Ecuadorean political system was reflected by a number of incidents in 1986 and 1987. Although there have been periodic skirmishes  with both Colombians narcotraficantes and guerrillas throughout the decade, noticeable, large scale, commercial production of the coca leaf in Ecuador did not occur until 1986, when it was estimated at about 1,000 metric tons. The following year, because of the government’s tough eradication program, it fell to 400 metric tons.

In his address to the nation on September 24, 1987, President Febres Cordero mentioned the perverse crimes of terrorism and drug trafficking, and noted that his government was fighting hard against it. Earlier in the year, in January, he also held a meeting with his Colombian counterpart, President Barco, to discuss the growing problem of the drug-insurgency nexus and its possible overlap into Ecuador. In particular, both chief executives were concerned about the formation of Batallon  America from Colombia’s M-19, Peru’s Tupac Amaru, and Ecuador’s Alfaro Vive Carajo. The development of better connections among these groups could have long standing repercussions for each country to control the drug trade.

 On May 8, 1988, Ecuador went to the polls in the second round of presidential elections. The social Democratic leader, Rodrigo Borja Cevallos, defeated  Abdala Bucaram by a margin of 6 % of all votes. The new president ran a campaign that was critical of outgoing Febres Cordero’s free market economics policies, and close relations with the United States. He indicated that his new administration would reassert state control over the economy, resume diplomatic relations with the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, and pursue a less pro- United States foreign policy. At the same time, Borja emphasized that the Ecuadorean government’s commitment to combat the cocaine trade would continue. As today, the present regime is still supporting the idea of not having to deal with drug relaed issues, but Ecuador will never move from where it is, so that means that Ecuador will always be in the middle of the problem having not choice.

 

 

 

 

 

EVENTS THAT HAVE CAUSED CONTROVERSY ON THE WAR ON DRUGS.

In August of 1997, Semana, a weekly magazine from Colombia has published a secret document which reveals how the Senate of the United States sees the situation of Colombia regarding with the narcotraficantes. It says that there are forty three groups of narcotraficantes that are associated to work very often.  This is the way that this secret memorandum starts which has been elaborated by the Senate of the United States and signed by all the assisstants and congressmen from Republican and Democratic Parties.

This document reveals the names of the new drug barons, the way the operate, and the profits that thay have earned . It also it presents the American vision regarding to narcotrafico in Colombia and the weak measures that the American government have used to face the problem. It says that this document is like a bible for the people in the American Senate working in the United States and Colombian relations.

According, with this document  the “Cartel del Norte del Valle” has become the most powerful criminal organization  of Colombia. And, the most important group is the one formed by the Henao Montoya family. Orlando Henao, controls all related operations with the drug transportation, trademark, and everything related with bank accounts. Arcangel Henao, is in charge of the security, owning his own private army which are in charge of collecting debts for the drug transactions, or killing to those who did not pay. It is said that the Henao family owns extensive parts of land in Colombia, and that the Colombian airline known by the name, Intercontinental de Aviation, is property of the Henao family as well.

This document also reveals some information where the drug baron Jose Santacruz Londono is mentioned as the responsible for the murders of the journalist Miguel Unanue in New York, and the vice-president of the well known Hecht’s stores in Baltimore.

Regarding, with Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela, the document describe in details the relations between Orejuela and the drug baron of the Juarez Cartel, Amado Carrillo, known as the Lord of the skies (El senor de los cielos). It is said that the relations between Colombians and Mexicans narcotraficantes had gotten strong when they bought several companies from the Mexican government during Carlos Salinas de Gortari’s regime.

According, with the estimates from the American congress, the drug business represents 4% or 5% of the Gross Domestic Product of Peru and Bolivia, and 7% to 9% of the Gross Domestic Product of Colombia. The activity of the Colombians drug barons is one of the 12 most biggest business in the whole world.

This document also reveals the existence of a second witness besides Guillermo Pallomari, who has confirmed the ingress of money from the Cali Cartel in the 1994 electoral campaign. This guy’s name is Francisco Laguna one of the Cali Cartel lawyers who was apprehended in Miami because of the Piedra Angular case. It says the Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela told his lawyer that he has given three-million dollars for a political campaign. Francisco Laguna was also partner of Michell Abbell, the principal suspect in the Angular case. Laguna, according, to the Americans was also responsible for writing versions of the text that was supposed to be included  in the 1991 Constitution in which was reinforced the prohibition of the extradition law of Colombians to the United States.

This document not only talks about the different narcotraficantes, but it also criticize the Colombian Judicial System. The 8,000 process only reflects how corrupt Colombia has become. Another major issue of discussion is the Penitentiary System. It is said , that the majority of the politicians and drug barons are treated like “kings”. They have access to cell phones, computers, faxes, television, and VCR’s. It is a common sight to see the drug baron’s cooks preparing such fine plates such as lobster, steaks, filet mignon, and champagne. What really upsets the American Congress is that Colombia by letting this happen in its prison system and, it is also allowing the narcotraficantes to continue with their business from inside.

According with this document although, the Colombian people did not approve the extradition politics in a survey done in 1996, where Colombians were asked if they agree with the extradition of Colombians  narcotraficantes. The results were that a 51% of them agreed.

The importance of the document  is centered mainly in that the opinions expressed in this text, they do not compromise the totality of all of the  American civil members, that deal with the situation in Colombia. This document has been revised by members of the Democratic, and Republican parties, which means that the weight has been divided equally, and whatever the Administration Clinton decides it would be clear that it was a issue of great value because concerns with the sovereignty of a South American nation.

Documents like these have been published in many magazines where the drug lords have been exposed , but it seems that the respective authorities just look the other way, because it is not in their own interest have to deal with the truth for many reasons. These indulge such as the fear of being killed, or of loosing one of their relatives, or  because they do not want to be an issue of controversy.

Another document that was published in REVISTA SEMANA on the 28 of July of 1997, was the Pallomari Testimony.  This individual was the accountant for the Cali Cartel. There were rumors that Pallomari had had some arguments with  The Rodriguez Orejuela brothers, they were being blamed by Pallomari  for the disappearance  of his wife. That is why Guillermo Pallamori went looking for protection in the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in Miami. When Pallomari said that he would collaborate with the DEA, his wife vanished without explanation. So Pallomari had to turn himself in to the DEA, because people from the Cali Cartel were going to kill him.

It has been said that the 8,000 process has had witnesses that have lied , but the accounting papers collected do not lie. Pallomari started talking about Santiago Medina, who was the accountant for the President Samper campaign. He talked about the story of the  $5 million in boxes wrapped with paper gift, that were brought in airplane from Pacho Herrera. He also talked about the roles of Eduardo Mestre and Alberto Giraldo in these operations. He affirmed that 30% of the Colombian Congress receives financing from the Cali Cartel. He referred also to people enrolled in the National Police and  members of the Colombian Army, that have links with the Cali Cartel. He also strongly clarified the issue that the candidate to the presidency in that time, (1994-1995) Andres Pastrana, had refused  to receive a penny from the Drug Barons. All the declarations that  Pallomari made were proven with the documentation that Guillermo provided. In this documentation there were names, places, and dates that compromise important people in Colombia.

But, the testimony  that caused most controversy was the supposed diner that took place in Cali  during the presidential campaign where the Orejuela brothers met with Jose Santacruz Londono, Ernesto Samper and Humberto de la Calle. The purpose of this meeting was to talk about the submission to the justice of the members of the Cali Cartel.

As we can see the narcotrafico troups have enrolled distinguish people, that today rule the future of Colombia. So, it is obvious that the Cartels have powerful links, which make things easy for these people to do whatever they want.

Another issue of extreme importance is the one published in the wide world web on April 14 1998, about the called for unity among all revolutionary forces in order to resist United States intrusion into Colombia affairs made from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). It is said that this call for unity was directed at the rival National Liberation Army (ELN). The ELN and FARC have been divided by the fact that FARC has become closely tied to Colombians drug cartels, serving as security forces for growing, processing and transportation operations. ELN, on the other hand, has been relatively more active against more conventional revolutionary targets, and has been particularly effective in hindering the efforts of oil companies such as BP and Occidental to develop oil fields and build pipelines.

There are two important implications in this call for unity. First, the conflict between the guerrillas and the government has been intensifying in recent months. FARC has scored some major successes against government troops, in other recent incident decimating the government’s 3^rd Mobile Brigade at El Billar in Caqueta Department. The ELN, on the other hand, suffered major loss last week with the death of its commander, Manuel Perez, apparently from hepatitis. The loss of Perez, a former priest and relative moderate, has created a power vacuum in the ELN leadership. By most accounts, this vacuum is being filled by Nicolas Gabino Rodriguez, who is expected to take ELN on a much more militant course. Were FARC and ELN to combine, it is not all clear that the Bogota government could defeat these guerrillas forces.

This leads to the second important point. The United States currently deploys 200 publicly acknowledged military advisers in Colombia, whose purpose is to help direct the Colombian government’s counter-narcotics program. Since FARC is deeply involved with the drug lords, it follows that these advisers are advising Colombian operations against FARC. These operations have not been going well. The United States is clearly facing a crucial strategic decision. The current level of deployment is insufficient to stabilize the situation and role back the guerrillas.

The United States must either dramatically increase its forces in Colombia, moving from an advisory to an operational role, or it must accept its inability to control events inside of Colombia and establish a cordon sanitaire  around the country in order to block drug shipments.

            As important as FARC’s call for unity is, FARC’s open declaration of war on the United States is even more important. Late last month, FARC kidnapped several American citizens who were on a bird watching expedition near Bogota. They continue to hold several and there are reports that they have been moved to a holding area in the south where a large number of government’s POWs are being held. FARC is clearly feeling good about its capabilities following its military successes and reports out of the Pentagon that the United States government is unsure that Colombian government forces can defeat the guerrillas. Thus, by simultaneously proposing units talks with the ELN and openly challenging the United States, FARC is throwing down the gauntlet to the United States.

            Traditional distinctions between drug interdiction and political counter-insurgency have little meaning in Colombia, and will have even less if ELN joins with FARC. The United States strategy of resisting the drug lords, but avoiding involvement in political conflict is utterly untenable. The guerrillas, well-financed from their work as mercenaries for the cartels, are clearly a formidable military match for the Colombian Army. A withdrawal of advisors at this point might well bring down the Colombian government. Moreover, establishing a blockade of Colombia would be an air-land-sea operation of enormous proportions, involving deployments in Venezuela and Peru, as well as massive air-sea interdiction operations.

On the other hand, remaining in Colombia at the current level is an invitation to disaster, as it is only a matter of time before FARC decides to engage American forces directly, on their terms and in their own time frame. Increasing United States forces modestly will not begin to address the problem, while introduction of brigade or divisional level forces would not guarantee victory, nor provide a national security benefit proportional to force levels.

In short, the United States has not good options in Colombia. The United States government is caught between military reality and its public commitment to combat drugs. Washington lacks the ability to dramatically shift the military equation, and the will to abandon its public commitment. Its sole hope is that peace talks between, the government and guerrillas expected to take place in Spain will bear fruit. But if it does, it will be a bitter fruit for the United States, as it will undoubtedly guarantee guerrilla interests and thereby protect the cartels. The one American card : try to block  FARC-ELN unification by offering the ELN an incentive. Unfortunately, we have no idea what that incentive might be.

In Mexico the former drug czar was also involved in a big scandal, when he was accused of having received money from drug baron known as “The lord of the skies”

On February 1997, Mexico’s ousted drug chief, Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, appeared at a pretrial hearing, and he refused to answer questions about allegations he accepted money from a powerful drug lord.

            Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo’s arraignment at the second Federal Criminal Court was 62-years old, when he was accused of protecting and accepting favors from Amado Carrillo Fuentes, the fugitive head of the powerful Juarez Drug Cartel. Fuentes earned the nickname “Lord of the skies”, because of his practice of converting jetliners to smuggle South American cocaine into the United States.

            Gutierrez Rebollo, with two of his accomplices have been held in a high-security prison in the neighboring state of Mexico, where the court is located. If convicted Gutierrez faces up to 25 years in prison and heavy fines. His two aides, Capts. Horacio Montenegro Ortiz and Javier Garcia Hernandez , could receive up to 10 years as co-conspirators.

            Gutierrez Rebollo, a military officer for 42-years , has been involved in the drug war for the past eight years. For the last three months, he headed the Institute for the Fight Against Drugs, an agency of the attorney’s general office. Before that, he was commander of the military zone headquartered  in Guadalajara, the capital of western Jalisco state and long a major center for drug traffickers.

MEASURES TAKEN BY THE GOVERNMENTS OF THE UNITED STATES AND COLOMBIA IN THE WAR ON DRUGS.

In 1983     President Reagan began and declare the war on drug, “…to do what is necessary to end the drug menace.”[24] The declaration of the war from the United States government, with specific actions taken place in Colombia, generated a resentment of Colombia society again the United States. To generalize about drugs and Colombia society is not an exaggeration, because the drug capos had and still have a great influence in the political system of the country, and also in the bases. The enforcement law that the United States tried to impose, turn on, in a real civil war in Colombia society.

“In Latin America, campaigns of repression erupted in organized violence between armed groups, including the military and police.”[25] If well, guerrilla  and drug lords have different convictions, “…, the drug lords as a group were highly conservative,…the guerrillas favored revolutions,…the drug lords wanted to enjoy the Colombia society and be part of its upper crust,…the guerrillas want to destroy that society and create a new one.”[26]

The coalition between guerrillas and narcos, has broken loose a wave of violence, that affected all social classes in Colombia. Each day the drug lords are gaining more power, are enlarging their areas of influence, and corruption has infiltrated all spheres.

This has begun with the police and the political classes, and governmental institutions are loosing control and respect from people. This phenomena, is breaking a real social chaos in the nation. Also drug trafficking has exercised a wide impact on political and administrative system in Colombia, as well as in the rest of Latin American countries. Also the persecution of the drug lords induced them to improve their equipment, and bringing in more sophisticated technology of communication. Now a key issue is that the bribery  has become common in Colombian society in the late 1980’s and 19990’s.

In the other hand, the United States mass media quickly seized upon the development. For example, from 1962 through 1970 the readers’ guide to periodical literature listed only one article on cocaine. In 1979 alone there were 25 articles. The effects of the mass media was definitive in the use of drug in the United States, and also on the commercialization of the drugs. The adoption of cocaine in the middle classes was evident.

Although, that the law enforcement and the eradication programs imposed by the United States government, had been enjoying a great deal of support from the Colombian government, such Belisario Betancur, Virgilio Barco, and Cesar Gaviria. It is clear that this war did not have a great impact in the eradication of the problem. On the contrary, it has been helping to develop violence and other social problems for both societies, the supply  of drugs and consumer society.

Since Nixon Administration (1969-1974), and very especially during Reagan Administration, and with the declaration of the war on drugs, the United States have been pushing hard the Colombia government for the eradication of the drug. The United States government strongly encouraged Latin American countries to enlist in the anti-drug war. Basically,  what the United States government has been asking to the Colombian government is for: 1) Extradition of Colombian narcotraficantes to the United States in order to be prosecuted under American Law. 2) Expropriation of goods own for illegal transactions (drug related). And 3) To permit the American ships the navigation in Colombian waters.

These are three among the many issues that The United States government has been asking to the Colombian government to approve.

            In the last fifteen years, with blind eyes and following a dependable tradition, the Colombian government has sacrificed its population in order to satisfied United States interests. The actions that the Colombian government has been taken, has not yet satisfied United States expectations, and instead has gained United States descreditation . Colombian government has been decertified for two years on the row. The reason express by the United States for this matter was the supposed political implications of the current regime of Ernesto Samper with the narco-money.

             Dr. Lee P. Brown (1994-1998) who served as President Clinton’s first director of the White Hose Office of  National Drug Control Policy, before leaving his post in January 1996. He was a New York City police commissioner from 1992 to 1993, capping 32-year career in law enforcement. He later was professor of sociology at Rice University in Houston. Recently he was elected Major of Houston-Texas in 1998. Brown in one of his interviews in 1997, commented that he was very concerned about the problem of heroin. He said that he saw a sweet deal of heroin on the streets of our cities throughout America, and that the purity was very high and the price was very low.

            Brown was very much concerned about how to engage consumers in some meaningful way to help address the drug problem. He wanted to have an exchange of information between consumers and drug enforcement people. He said that the solution for the drug problem is a long-term goal, that it would take couple of decades with sustained effort and, most important, sustained funding from the Congress, if we want to see a progress. The major point is to do a commitment in terms of doing what we have to do internationally, a commitment to do what we have to do domestically, and particularly focusing in reducing the demand for drugs.

            In May 21, 1995 Lee Brown, the Director of the White Hose Office of National Drug Control Policy, and former police chief of Houston, criticized mandatory minimum sentencing for drug offenses.

Brown said, “ I have two concerns with mandatory minimums at a federal level: one is that low-level drug dealers are now in our federal prisons taking up space that should be there for violent offenders people who are  a threat to our society.”[27]

So, what the drug czar is stating here is that drug dealing is not a violent crime, and that violent offenders should be given law enforcement priority.

The second concern that Brown has is that minorities, particularly African-Americans, are most likely to use crack cocaine. Whites are most likely to use powder cocaine. If you are caught with 5 grams of crack cocaine, you go to prison. If you are caught with 5 grams of powder cocaine , you get probation.

The White House Director of National Drug Control Policy, Dr. Lee Brown held a meeting on August 29, 1995 with the Presidents of Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil, and anti-drug leaders in these nations and Venezuela, to develop increase cooperation by both current and emerging cocaine and heroin source countries. Brown reported in on concrete areas of progress, shutting down the airbridge. The topics that were discussed in this meeting were crop substitution, aircraft and other equipment for eradication. It has been said that the new routes being developed to markets in Europe and the United States by the Cali Cartel has been disrupted with the airbridge.

            In 1996, the United States decided to impose aid sanctions on Colombia, cutting all aid in the war on drugs, field where Colombia really need.

            The war on drugs does not make the daily headlines as it once did, but the tragic reality remains that drug abuse and related violence continue to tear a the fabric of United States society. Since 1990, the federal government alone has spent more than $70 billion on drug control. Yet more drugs are available at lower prices and higher quality than ever before, and drug abuse remains widespread. As policymakers search for effective solutions to the very real problem of drug abuse, meaningful debate threatens to deteriorate into a rhetorical war as both the new Congress and the Clinton Administration seek to out-do one another in devising get tough policies to combat drug trafficking.

            Barry R McCaffrey, has been the United States drug czar since February 1996, Before his appointment as Director in the Office of National Drug Control Policy, he was a highly decorated, four-star general in the United States Army. Among his notable achievements was commanding the United States Army’s 24^th Infantry Division.

            The Clinton Administration’s border policy was summarized by the former general and now United States Drug Czar, Barry McCaffrey. He said that there is no border, so that means that there is no policy either. McCaffrey told the Mexican Government that the United States was to blame for drug trafficking in the United States. He said, that the people of the United States are the only ones to blame because their appetite for illegal drugs.

            Gen.Barry McCaffrey, commented that the purpose of the new legislation is to improve the effectiveness of federal drug-control programs designed to keep illegal drugs out of America. McCaffrey stated that this bipartisan statement of concern with the drug smuggling situation underscores the need to implement all initiatives that support Goal Four of the ten-year National Drug Control Strategy: Shield America’s air, land, and sea frontiers from the drug threat.

            In 1998 this Strategy directed federal drug-control program agencies to conduct flexible, in-depth interdiction operations that anticipated shifting trafficking patterns in order to keep illegal drugs from entering our nation. In 1997, surge operations by the United States Coast Guard and Customs Service reduced the flow of cocaine to Puerto Rico by 46-percent. These entities are now organizing for success along the Southwest border, and developing a supporting technology plan that will subject all suspicious cargo and vehicles to non-intrusive inspections.

             In October, 1998, the United States Congress gave a $2.69 billion shot in the arm to the fight against Latin American drug traffickers. The money went to buy planes, boats, radars and guns needed by the United States Coast Guard, the United States Customs Service and Colombian police to stop South American cocaine and heroin from reaching the streets of the United States. The Senate also approved the additional anti-drug funding over the next three years as part of the massive omnibus spending package signed into law by President Clinton. The Western Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act, authored by Republican Senator Mike de Wine of Ohio, beefed up international police action, reversing a 1990’s trend toward spending more on domestic drug enforcement. The new legislation stated that the United States has to crack down on foreign sources rather than internal demand if it wanted to stop Americans taking illegal drugs.

            The purpose of this law is to keep drugs out of the United States. The drug measure will, in particular, bolster Colombia’s national police with new helicopters and equipment to confront leftist guerrillas allegedly allied with drug cartels.

            The law earmarks $201-million over the next three fiscal years to buy the Colombian police six powerful Blackhawk helicopters needed to reach high-altitude poppy plantations. It also provides for the upgrade of 50 United States-UH-1H Huey helicopters into super Huey gunships, the purchase of DC-3 transport planes and the rebuilding of an anti-drug base destroyed by guerrillas in southern Colombia. This measure warned Colombia that the United States drug assistance will be cut off in the newly elected President Andres Pastrana’s plans to make peace with the guerrillas interfere with drug eradication operations.

            Pastrana’s peace plan involved demilitarizing parts of the country. The law, however, allowed Clinton to keep the aid flowing to Colombia for 90 days if he finds that is vital for United States national interests there. Congress decided to add $180 million over three years for alternative agricultural development programs aimed at weaning peasants off the drug crops in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia..

            The escalating war of words in Washington threatens to fuel a dramatically failed drug control policy one with harmful side effects in the Andean countries of Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru, where the United States international drug control efforts are focused. The emphasis on attacking the supply side rather than the demand side of the narcotics industry and the focus on these source countries are fundamentally flawed assumptions about the coca and cocaine markets.

            Differences in opinion about root causes and solutions, coupled with high level corruption within source country governments, including the very police and military forces charged with carrying out antinarcoticts programs, are exacerbating the tension between the United States and the Andean countries. As a result, effective cooperation with our Andeans counterparts remains elusive.

            United States  antidrug efforts in the Andes are not only ineffective; they might in fact be doing more harm than good. United States antinarcotics efforts have the harmful side effect of forging closer United States links to abusive police and military forces in the Andes. In Peru and Colombia, the United States assistance is provided to the security forces, who are among the worst human rights violators in the hemisphere. In Bolivia, the drug war is generating political instability and heightening social conflict. So Basically, United States international drug control efforts appear to be undermining other important United States policy goals of promoting human rights and democracy.

            In May, 1998, President Clinton announced a comprehensive international crime control strategy for America in which he pledged  to seek new authority to fight money laundering, and freeze the United States assets of people arrested abroad. Despite numerous laws, treaties, multilateral agreements, and public pronouncements, large scale trafficking, and money laundering continues because the demand is high, profits are enormous, and detection is difficult. Cocaine is produced for export at $950 to $1,235 a kilogram, and sold at the wholesale level in he United States for $10,500 to 36,000 a kilogram. A kilogram of heroin costs about $3,000 to produce, but it sell wholesale in the United States for $95.000 to $210,000. The average Colombian trafficking organization earns approximately $300 million annually, according to a 1994 State Department report.

            Most illicit drugs are grown and processed in poor countries, where economic opportunities are scarce, law enforcement is weak, and officials can be bribed or eliminated. Increasingly, as well, money laundering is also taking place in developing countries. Measures in major financial markets to detect and prosecute laundering are driving it toward less developed markets linked to the global financial system.

            “The globalization of trade, finance and communications has made it easier to transport illicit drugs and launder the proceeds. The sheer volume of financial transactions, many via wire transfers or electronic messages between banks, is staggering. Within the United States, more than 465,000-wire transfers-valued at more than $2 trillion-are handled daily. Another 220,000-transfer messages are carried in and out of the United States by an international messaging system known as SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication).”[28]

            In 1995, the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) estimated that within the United States approximately 0.05% of transfers or roughly 250 transactions a day involve money laundering. Although a wire transfer initially contains information about the sender, or originator of the transfer, as the transfer passes through several banks before reaching the beneficiary’s account, the verification of the originator is often dropped. Under regulations instituted in 1996, United States banks are required to identify the originator, and the beneficiary of wire transfers, and such information must travel with the message throughout the transfer. But foreign banks are not required to supply this information.

            This service can involve offshore accounts, moving large sums of money  from one country to another, devising intricate networks of accounts, and helping to purchase homes, businesses and investments with laundered funds. The service can also include setting up concentration accounts, where funds from various individuals are commingled and their origins not identified. Citibank’s private banking service, for instance, laundered tens of millions of dollars in drug money for Raul Salinas de Gortari, the jailed brother of former Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari.

            Although the United States is one of the world’s leading money laundering centers, very few money laundering cases are filed, an indication that this crime is difficult to detect, or that inadequate resources are being devoted to enforcement. In 1995, only 62 criminal laundering cases were filed with the United States attorneys, of the 138 defendants, 52 were convicted.

            In May 1998, however, the Justice and Treasury departments announced the successful culmination of “Operation Casablanca,” hailed as the largest, most comprehensive drug money laundering case in the history of the United States law enforcement. The three-year sting operation involving some 200-undercover agents, led to the arrest of 26 Mexican bank officials, the seizure of an estimated  $150-million, and the freezing of over 100 bank accounts in the United States and Europe.

            The United States accused three of Mexico’s largest banks and the Canadian auditing firm Price Waterhouse of knowingly aiding Juarez (Mexico), and Cali (Colombia) drug cartels in laundering hundred of millions of dollars of their United States drug sales. Mexican officials said they were jointly with the United States investigating another 260 cases of alleged money laundering.

            But the detection of money laundering is impeded by various national laws that protect financial, communication, and data privacy. In the United States, the Right to Financial Privacy Act of 1978, provides many of the procedural protections for financial records guaranteed more broadly by the Fourth Amendment. The Electronic Communication Privacy Act of 1986, essentially prohibits the monitoring of wire transfers while in transit or in storage without a court order, warrant, or administrative subpoena.

            In a significant number of countries, bank secrecy laws hinder the obtaining of comprehensive information about financial transactions by prohibiting banking officials from releasing customer information to people outside the financial institution, or simply by prohibiting access by foreign law enforcement agencies on the ground of national sovereignty. Additionally, under data protection laws such as the European Union’s Data Protection Directive, information may be prohibited from leaving a signatory country if it is being sent to a country with less stringent data protection laws.

            Turning to most recent news on February, 1998, the Clinton Administration announced that it is lifting the two-year-old sanctions against Colombia, because of the South American nation’s progress in combatting illegal drugs. United States secretary of the State Dr. Madeline Albright, commented to the reporters that clearly, progress is essential to turn the tide in the drug war. She also said that the Colombian government has not demonstrated full political support from counternarcotics efforts, but the United States wants to boost cooperation. Lifting that sanctions means fewer obstacles to United States assistance to Colombia’s anti-drug efforts. Colombia also will be spared economics penalties for the coming year.

            After these declarations, President Andres Pastrana said that he wanted to improve relations with the United States by eliminating drug trafficking as a source of tensions between these two countries.

            On October 28, 1998, President Clinton met with new Colombian President Andres Pastrana in the White House Pastrana was the first Colombian President to visit the white House after 23-years. The United States government refused to deal with Pastrana’s predecessor, Ernesto Samper, because of allegations that he accepted campaign funding from cocaine lords.

            The conversations in the White House focused on Colombia’s peace process, efforts to combat drug trafficking, protection of human rights and economic development. The Harvard-educated Pastrana, who was inaugurated in August 1998, has made overtures of peace with guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC.)

            The head of the Drug Enforcement Administration says the nation has neither the will nor the resources to win the drug war. DEA Administrator Thomas Constantine, said

that curbing drug use is not a high enough priority with the American people. He also said the nation has not made the financial commitment to curb the flow of illegal drugs into the United States of America. The use of drugs is really a prevention issue, and the long-term solution for this nation is when our citizens, families, teachers and employers take this as seriously as they do the Y2K (Year 2000 computer) problem.

            Constantine said he has faith that one day the nation will focus on the issue, but at this point he just does not think the we have paid enough attention to it.

Despite having an army of 8,000-employees and a $ 1.4 billion budget, Constantine said, “the DEA has fewer resources than international drug rings. It is known that a Drug Mafia that operates in Mexico, it makes $ 2-billion every single year selling cocaine and methamphetamine  in the United States. It also is known that it has better technical support in equipment and countersurveillance, even armored cars than we do.”

Despite the confiscation of record amounts of drugs at the borders, interdiction will not solve the problem. According to some experts, the key is not in the source countries, the key is in the United States, within those things we can not control.

            In a news conference United States officials also released  the Administration’s evaluations of the anti-drug efforts of 30 overseas countries. The Administration did not certify Colombia as fully cooperating, because officials believe the nation’s anti-narcotics effort faces serious shortcomings. Colombia remains the world’s leading producer, and distributor of cocaine and a major supplier of heroin and marijuana.

            The Andean policy need to be reinforced, perhaps it was worthwhile to consider the suggestions made by the Organization of American States Conference on the Traffic of Narcotics. These soft options underline community participation, and include the following: The establishment of Inter-American clearinghouse through which a steady flow of information, experiences, ideas, and programs could be exchanged.

Also the promotion of community level organizations in every major district of every city, town,  and village of the Americas to mobilize school, church, neighborhood, medical centers, and social clubs in joining the fight against drug use. Finally, improving statistical and epidemiological information on drug use, especially on the patterns of consumption.

            There has already been some movement along these lines because joint effort with Lain America and Caribbean governments against narcotraficantes is a core policy objective. Enforcement has benefited from a greater sharing of intelligence, joint maneuvers in drug production regions, and an upgrading of extradition treaties between nations. Colombia, Brazil, and Peru have already coordinated anti-drug campaigns in their shared border regions, and meetings have been held between the respective drug-enforcement police of those countries. The United States has actively conducted missions with Bolivia, Mexico, the Bahamas, and Jamaica.

The Organization of American States has also supported the empowerment of enforcement measures such as: More frequent regional and interregional training seminars and workshops for drug law enforcement personnel. Also needed are more rapid and more secure and direct means of communication, and a stronger bilateral agreements between states with common problems arising from the illicit traffic.

Cocaine production and cultivation have been substantially reduced in Latin America since a United Nations drug summit launched a global campaign to combat the worldwide drug epidemic last June. The cultivation of the coca plant, which is the main ingredient of cocaine, has been cut by an average of 25-percent in Latin America. In three years, coca cultivation in Peru has dropped by 55-percent and in just one year, it has dropped by about 20-percent in Bolivia.

            In another effort to reduce drug production, the United Nations program recently signed an agreement with the European Space Agency to have monitoring of all illicit crops of opium, coca and cannabis worldwide. The Space Agency will be financed by the European Union and other major donors. The agency already receives information from ground monitoring, but it is sometimes conflicting and not well coordinated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CONCLUSION

To conclude, I can say that every third world society has the same structure, and that structure is being imposed on the United States drug war. Basically, this technique taken from the United States to control is only to control the interest of the Latin American countries and that it has nothing to do with drugs. The dependency situation in which the United States had been subjugated developing societies such as Colombia, leave as a result the violation of  one of the human rights such as the right to live. Where is the International Community? Perhaps, is because the United States throughout history, has been exercising its powerful position without limitations, and it has acted as a stated sovereignty and also a state with a special characteristic of International Organization. The Colombian government is always questioned by the International Community for the violation of the Human Rights, but they ignore the origins of all these vilolations.

The alternatives of the solution to the drug problem  that the United States has being trying to impose, has generated a chaotic situations in other aspects on the various Latin American nation’s. The social aspect, is centered in the violence that unfastened with the United States’s declaration of the war on drugs. In this war the narco-guerrilla have used methods, such as kidnapping, car bombing, and blackmailing.

Briberies, homicides, and other are also methods that the narcotraficantes have  used to pressure the Colombian government against the United States enforcement laws. This kind of activities point out Colombia as one of the most violent countries in Latin America.

Because of the poor situation in Colombia, a great murder of campesinos, leaving families and changing the cultivation of coffee, bananas for coca has been one of the biggest problems in Colombian society. “The expansion of the drug trade, however, has caused labor shortages in other parts of the agriculture sector.”[29] Also the polarization of the country is evident “In the countryside, 1.3% of rural, often absentee landowners own 48% of the land. Only 63% of the campesinos own less than 5%. Income distribution in Colombia remains very skewed with the poorest 50% receiving only 17%, and the wealthiest 20% of 55% of the whole national income…drug traffickers now own more than 5 million hectares, more than half of the country’s best and most productive land.”[30]

Add to this social chaos, the displacement of campesinos in big cities, the misery situation where hundreds of orphans and widows are living, because men were killed, or just became fugitives of the law. Anoher important issue is the flow of black money, that drove the country to generalized corruption at all levels. Since they buy the votes in political campaigns. Moral has nothing to do with politics that is for sure.

Colombia still laments the loss of Rodrigo Lara Bonilla assassinated in 1984, when he was the former Minister of Justice. Also the loss of Jorge Prado Leal, candiadate for the presidency assassinated in 1987, and Luis Carlos Galan Sarmiento, also candidate for the presidency in 1989. They are only three from the long list of prominent political victims of the war on drugs.

The flow of “easy money” from drugs is capable of buying  all the spheres in any society. Politicians do not know the meaning of moral and ethical values, and to a certain extent they are doing the same damage that narcotraficant do. The politic of the United States toward Colombia has been characterized by a constant pressure with economic repercussions to Colombia. The question is why the United States of America has only declare the war to those producers countries?  Why the war has not been declared internally, and controlling more of the channels of transportation and communication? Or why has not the the United States invested more funds in educational programs good for consumers and focused on future consumers? Or, it is that the United States government suddenly has become impotent that is letting that this illness overtakes its society? Or perhaps, as Dr. Adam Chomsky  says, Is the war on drugs an excuse for something else?

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