[CTRL] Fwd: [CIA-DRUGS] Fwd: US takes on the Drugs War Lords

Tue, 04 Sep 2001 20:25:27 -0700 






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US Drug-war threatens to destabilize Colombia
 
Colombia is slowly sliding into a drug-related and revolutionary war while much of the world looks the other way. Whole tracts of countryside are being threatened by the polluting effect of the glyphosate herbicides now in widespread use. The crop-dusters flying their deadly patterns often at heights of only 15 metres have already sprayed large swaths of Colombia from Caqueta state in the south to Magdalena in the north. Flying as many as 5-6 missions a day, these aircraft are guided to their jungle targets by US Spyplanes and Surveillance satellites. Flown by a mix of US contract flyers and local pilots, they are heavily protected by flights of helicopter gunships suppressing opposition ground fire from the heavily armed drug-cartels and the FARC insurgents, now believed to have manportable surface to air missiles.
 
Colombian officials claim, with little positive verification, that tens of thousands of hectares of coca production  have been destroyed. What is confirmed however, is that as many or more hectares of arable land have been poisoned by chemicals believed to include Roundup Ultra containing Cosmoflux 411F weedkiller sprayed at 3.8 litres per hectare in concentrations 100 times stronger that would be legal in the USA. This has created yet further food shortages, widespread illness particularly amongst children, the elderly or the sick and increasing the level of poverty among an already desperately poor people. The effect has been to alienate still further the local population and swell the ranks of those prepared to co-operate with the drugs-cartels and seek the support of the FARC revolutionaries.
 
The USA is being dragged into a conflict with all the potential to become a small scale Vietnam and in its own backyard, however within this is the threat of a wider regional conflict with Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela and El Salvador becoming involved in the US operations. President George W Bush inherited a massive overt anti-drug program of $1.3 billion made up of $860 million in military aid, $290 million for Intelligence operations and $132 million for humanitarian projects, while a further $180 million is earmarked for drugs-related operations in Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru.
 
However, as long ago as 1998 US efforts were bedevilled by the taint of corruption and killings when General Ivan Ramirez Quintero, Colombia's third most powerful military officer, was forced to resign following the revelation of his shadowy past as a CIA asset and his control of the 'death squads' run by his elite military intelligence unit. There followed a succession of missed opportunities, botched operations and corruption, whilst all the while the FARC insurgency grew in strength. The accusation that FARC used poison gas in an attack that killed four Policemen in San Adolpho on Sunday will further heighten fears about their military capability and even perhaps the true role of the three IRA men presently under arrest in Bogota.
 
The US has a requirement to replace its bases in Panama and an urgent need to strengthen its capability around Colombia and has thus moved quickly to establish new facilities on both Aruba and Curacao in the Caribbean, while both Venezuela and El Salvador have been asked to allow the use of their air space for anti-drug operations.  However, it is Ecuador that has moved into the fore-front of US military thinking. New facilities have been established at the port city of Manta, Special Force units from the US Southern Command operate alongside some 5,000 Ecuadorian troops of the 19th Napo and 21st Condor Jungle Infantry Brigades on the borders of Colombia, while other specialist US forces operate radar stations tracking the drug-cartel's aircraft and secret listening posts on behalf of the NSA monitoring FARC and the cartels communications. 
 
The USA has committed its forces to a dangerously unstable area and with no certainty of victory. It is an unwanted involvement for the US military, but one that many US analysts feel was unavoidable. Inevitably, the past history of CIA operations in Latin America and its well-established links with the drugs trade will yet again come under close scrutiny.
 
Richard M. Bennett
 
   
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