http://www.tni.org/drugs/folder2/contents.htm
Executive Summary
Despite the end of the Cold War and recent transitions toward more democratic
societies in Latin America, the United States has launched a number of
initiatives that strengthen the power of Latin American security forces,
increase the resources available to them, and expand their role within
society -- precisely when struggling civilian elected governments are
striving to keep those forces in check. Rather than encourage Latin American
militaries to limit their role to the defense of national borders, Washington
has provided the training, resources and doctrinal justification for
militaries to move into the business of building roads and schools, providing
veterinary and child inoculation services, and protecting the environment. Of
greatest concern, however, is U.S. encouragement and support for the region's
armed forces -- including the U.S. military itself -- to play a significant
role in domestic counternarcotics operatio!
ns, a law enforcement function
reserved in most democracies for civilian police.
Among the vast array of U.S. government agencies involved in drug control
efforts, the Department of Defense (DOD) is on the front line of the war on
drugs in Latin America, a role mandated by the 1989 National Defense
Authorization Act (NDAA). The act designated DOD as the "single lead agency"
for the detection and monitoring of illicit drug shipments into the United
States. Congress backed this directive with dollars, quadrupling DOD's
counter-drug budget between Fiscal Year (FY)1988 and FY1992, when it peaked
at $1.22 billion. Billions more have been spent since then.
As the perceived threat of communism faded and eventually collapsed in the
1980s, the drug war replaced the Cold War as the military's central mission
in the Western Hemisphere. Few in the military establishment, however,
embraced the counternarcotics mission enthusiastically. While many regional
commanders and their officers reluctantly complied with the Pentagon's
directive to develop plans for carrying out the new mission, the Panama-based
U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) eagerly took it on.
For officials within SOUTHCOM, the drug war was an opportunity to apply the
low-intensity-conflict skills honed during 30 years of fighting guerrilla
insurgencies in Central America and the principal means of maintaining and
enhancing relations with militaries throughout the region. Closer ties with
Latin American military forces help to encourage "subordination to civilian
authorities, defense transparency, peaceful resolution of disputes, and
protection of human rights," according to Gen. Wesley K. Clark, until
recently Commander in Chief of SOUTHCOM. 1
Testimony of Gen. Wesley K. Clark before the Senate Armed Services Committee,
11 March 1997. Primarily coordinated out of Panama, the U.S. military now
undertakes a vast array of assistance, training, intelligence-gathering and
surveillance activities aimed at reducing the flow of drugs into the United
States.
Passage of the 1989 NDAA coincided with President Bush's announcement of the
Andean Initiative. Although U.S. military personnel had been involved in
training and transporting foreign antinarcotics personnel outside the country
since 1983, the Andean strategy opened the door to a dramatic expansion of
this role, and to a significant infusion of U.S. assistance to police and
military forces; the Andes quickly replaced Central American as the primary
recipient of such assistance. While aid levels declined in the early 1990s,
over the last 18 months the U.S. Congress and the Clinton administration have
again dramatically escalated the provision of antinarcotics-related security
assistance, primarily to the Andean region and Mexico.
The Andean Initiative placed the spotlight on Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia,
and the impact of the drug war in those countries generated vocal concern
among human rights groups. The vast majority of DOD's spending in the early
1990s, however, went to support domestic law enforcement efforts, and to
detection and monitoring operations in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico
transit zones, employing state-of-the-art military surveillance at a
staggering financial cost. Those efforts quickly came under fire, as a series
of investigations by the General Accounting Office (GAO) found transit zone
interdiction programs to be costly and ineffective.
In late 1994, President Clinton shifted the emphasis of the U.S. counter-drug
strategy in Latin America, after an extensive administration review concurred
with the GAO. Through a Presidential Decision Directive, he moved the focus
of interdiction efforts from the transit zone back to the so-called source
countries, particularly the "air bridge" connecting coca growers and paste
producers in Peru and Bolivia with cocaine refiners in Colombia. A year
later, the architect of this strategy, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, former
commander-in-chief of SOUTHCOM, was appointed "drug czar."
Mirroring Bush administration claims about victories in transit zone
interdiction, the Clinton White House soon declared its air-bridge strategy a
success, citing declining prices paid for coca leaf and demands by pilots for
more money to fly drug-laden planes. But even the administration's most
zealous drug warriors admit that gains have been more tactical than
strategic. Drug traffickers circumvent radar interdiction by flying below it
and transporting more illicit drugs via land or river. Perhaps most
significantly, the need to bring raw materials into Colombia, the primary
cocaine-producing country, has been reduced by the expansion of coca
production in Colombia itself -- by 32 percent in 1996 alone.
Despite spending some $20 billion over the past decade on international drug
control and interdiction efforts, illegal drugs from Latin America still
flood the United States -- a fact that concerns many within the military
itself. Pentagon-backed counter-drug operations have resulted in some
successes -- the arrests of drug traffickers, eradication of coca fields,
destruction of processing labs, and disruption of transportation -- but gains
have been episodic and temporary, as the sophisticated, well-financed "enemy"
adapts quickly to enforcement strategies.
The seizure of thousands of metric tons of cocaine between 1988 and 1995, and
the eradication of more than 55,000 hectares of coca plants, have failed to
reduce the supply of illegal drugs in the United States or their
availability, as measured by price and purity. Eradication in the Andes is
offset by expanded cultivation. The area under coca cultivation actually grew
by 15 percent from 1988 to 1995, and opium poppy cultivation jumped by 25
percent. As a result, the seizures of cocaine and heroin "made little impact
on the availability of illegal drugs in the United States and on the amount
needed to satisfy the estimated U.S. demand." 2
After noting how aggressive U.S-led interdiction efforts in Latin America
simply force the cartels to diversify routes and improve their methods of
shipment, one frustrated military planner compared the cocaine industry to
poison ivy and the military response to scratching. "Scratching gives some
short-term relief -- which is hard to resist -- but it spreads the problem." 3
Other military analysts suggest that a cardinal rule for U.S. forces
operating abroad is to focus on a clearly identified central target; however,
to combat illicit drugs military planners have identified 14 such targets.
Pursuit of these moving targets threatens to draw the U.S. armed forces
deeper into Latin America, even as some in the Pentagon, such !
as DOD drug
policy coordinator Brian Sheridan, claim to be "looking for the exit door on
this issue." 4The militarization of the drug war may be spreading more
problems than just drug trafficking. U.S. strategy depends on building close
ties with Latin American militaries and beefing up their counter-drug
capabilities, resorting in some countries to unholy alliances with armies
that have deplorable human rights records. In Colombia, Mexico and Peru, U.S.
international drug control efforts -- including the provision of equipment,
training and direct assistance -- contribute to counterinsurgency campaigns
characterized by gross violations of human rights. Moreover, the U.S. war on
drugs has promoted a dangerous internal security role for Latin American
militaries. Finally, it provides an on-the-groun!
d role in the region for the
U.S. military and expanded intelligence-gathering and surveillance, evoking
concerns about national sovereignty among countries throughout the hemisphere.
These issues generate significant controversy on Capitol Hill. Members of
Congress have questioned both the human rights impact of drug policy and the
U.S. government's ability to effectively monitor use of antinarcotics
assistance. In four reports from 1991 to 1994, the GAO concluded that U.S.
officials lacked sufficient oversight of military aid to ensure that
equipment was being used efficiently and as intended in Colombia and Peru. In
February 1997, the agency reported that this problem lingers, and has spread,
citing the Mexican government's use of U.S.-supplied, counternarcotics
helicopters to transport troops used in quelling the uprising in the state of
Chiapas. 5 Amnesty International USA and Human Rights Watch/Americas have
released information from the U.S. Embassy in Colombia documentin!
g the
provision of U.S. antinarcotics assistance to counterinsurgency units of the
Colombian armed forces responsible for some of the worst human rights
atrocities in recent years.The concerns expressed by the Washington Office on
Latin America (WOLA) and other human rights organizations about the
on-the-ground impact of the drug war are shared by many within the DOD
establishment. In fact, some of the harshest criticisms of the Pentagon's
anti-drug mission come from within its own ranks, where parallels are often
drawn to the Vietnam War. Like their civilian counterparts, military critics
question why they were drafted for the mission, the tactics being used to
carry it out, and its overall effectiveness. These doubts, however, have not
tempered the enthusiasm of Congress and the U.S. public for a military
solution. In a nation that historically has a propensity to declare "war" on
its social ills, as if waging a "war" simpl!
y means rallying others around a
cause, it is not surprising that failure in such efforts brings a call for
escalation rather than reevaluation. For many, the urge to "scratch" remains
irresistible.
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