|
Latin
Leaders
Call
Drug
War
a
Failure
11/5/99
This Wednesday (11/3), an
open letter to the drug czars of the Western Hemispheres was released,
calling on policy makers to "admit that after two decades the U.S. war
on drugs -- both in Latin America and in the United States -- is a failure."
The letter, which was signed by former presidents of Colombia, Costa Rica
and Nicaragua, a former dean of the Harvard School of Public Health and
Harry Belafonte, among others, was presented at a well attended press conference
in Washington, DC this morning, aired on C-Span and covered by the Associated
Press as well as numerous Latin American media.
The letter, and drug czars
summit to which it was addressed, come at a time when U.S. drug czar Barry
McCaffrey is lobbying a hawkish Congress to pour more billions of dollars
in the Andean drug war quagmire, including major new funding to the Colombian
military, an institution which has been tied to massacres and other human
rights abuses and which is embroiled in a protracted, unpopular civil war.
The press conference was
organized by the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, with organizations
including the Washington Office on Latin America and Institute for Policy
Studies.
Robert White, former ambassador
to El Salvador and Paraguay and President of the Center for International
Policy, responded to drug czar McCaffrey and Congress' casting of the Colombia
issue in terms of "narcoguerrillas," saying, "The idea that you can target
one group of people, in this case the guerrillas, and say that they are
responsible, is naive and self-serving."
Michael Gelacek, former vice-chairman
of the United States Sentencing Commission, offered words of caution for
the drug policy officials gathered in Washington: "If you say we're
winning the war on drugs, you're doing yourself and your citizens a tremendous
disservice. We lost the war on drugs a long time ago," adding, "You're
going to have to deal with the consequences of our policies, if you adopt
them."
Rev. Bernard Keels, of the
United Methodist Church in Baltimore, said, "The crisis of drug abuse needs
real material solutions in America's cities... and a spiritual confrontation
that does not attempt to blame others -- such as peasants in South America
-- for our failings as individuals and as a society."
The final speakers may have
been the most dramatic. Leonilda Vurita Vargas and Margarita Terun
Gonzales, representatives of the coca growers union in the Chapare region
of Bolivia, described the tragic consequences of drug war militarization
and eradication programs on their community. Since April, said Vargas,
13 of them have been killed, including one small child who died from inhaling
gases. The forces that are supposed to only eradicate coca have burned
down 15 of their houses, as well as 8 hectares of pineapple, one of the
alternative crops to coca. Vargas explained that while Bolivian officials
come to the United States and claim to be making crop substitution work,
it hasn't worked because they have no markets for the alternative crops.
Speaking at the drug czars
summit, Pino Arlacchi, Director of the United Nations Drug Control Program,
predicted drug production in Latin America will end in five years -- despite
an increase Caribbean drug trafficking in the Caribbean and an estimated
15% increase in cocaine production in Colombia this year (see http://www.unfoundation.org/unwire/unwire.cfm#22).
Arlacchi's chosen them at last year's UN Drug Summit was similarly utopian:
"Drug Free in Ten -- We Can Do It!"
In related news, Human Rights
Watch reported on Wednesday that two soldiers whom government investigators
say murdered a Colombian senator in 1994 remain on the army payroll, despite
overwhelming evidence against them.
The text of the open letter
follows:
A Message to
the Hemisphere's Drug Policy Makers:
As you meet to develop a
hemispheric drug strategy, it is time to admit that after two decades the
U.S. war on drugs -- both in Latin America and in the United States --
is a failure. Despite a 17-fold increase in U.S. drug war spending
since 1980, record seizures, arrests, and incarcerations at home, and destruction
abroad of hundreds of drug labs and coca and poppy crops, today in the
U.S., illicit drugs are cheaper, more potent, and more easily available
than two decades ago.
Under the banner of fighting
drugs, U.S. military aid to Colombia has skyrocketed: today Colombia
is by far the largest recipient of U.S. military aid in the hemisphere
-- and the third largest in the world after Israel and Egypt. Yet,
over the last decade, total drug production in Colombia has risen 260 percent.
The escalation of a militarized drug war in Colombia and elsewhere in the
Americas threatens regional stability, undermines efforts towards demilitarization
and democracy, and has put U.S. arms and money into the hands of corrupt
officials and military, police and intelligence units involved in human
rights abuses.
Before escalating the war
on drugs even further, an honest evaluation of the strategy is needed.
Drug problems have not been solved because the approach taken -- prohibition
enforced by a militarized drug war -- is fundamentally flawed:
U.S. drug policy disproportionately
targets peasant farmers and fails to address the poverty and inequality,
widespread throughout the Americas, which are at the root of drug cultivation.
The U.N. estimates that at least
75% of international drug shipments would need to be intercepted to substantially
reduce the profitability of drug trafficking. Yet interdiction efforts
intercept only 10-15% of the heroin and 30% of the cocaine, according to
the most optimistic estimates.
Continued demand in the U.S.
ensures that even if drug cultivation, processing and shipment are controlled
in one area, they emerge in another.
U.S. prisons are overflowing
with more than 400,000 drug offenders. The vast majority of those
behind bars are low level dealers; for example, only 5 percent of those
jailed for crack are high level dealers.
Current drug strategy can never
work given the magnitude of profits from illicit drugs -- according to
the U.S. government $57 billion annually in the U.S. alone. According
to the United Nations, drug trafficking is a $400 billion per year industry,
equaling 8% of the world's trade.
Has the policy of doing more
of the same produced a better result? Clearly the answer is no.
The problem is not insufficient
funds, firepower or prisons. Rather, a totally new approach is needed.
To be effective, U.S. drug control strategy must shift from militarized
eradication and interdiction in Latin America and a law-enforcement dominated
approach at home. As you meet to discuss the future direction of
drug control, we urge you to consider the following points:
When it comes to reducing cocaine
consumption, drug treatment is 7 times more cost effective than domestic
law enforcement, 10 times more effective than interdiction and 23 times
more effective than eradication, according to a RAND Corporation study.
Expanding the U.S. drug war
to other countries will merely further expand the failure of drug control
throughout the hemisphere while escalating killings and environmental destruction.
Emphasis should be placed on
public health, economic development, protecting human rights and pragmatic
approaches to reducing drug-related problems.
A long-term solution to the
drug market needs to be developed by engaging in a dialogue with the countries
and non-governmental organizations in this hemisphere that examines all
options to the drug war.
Signed:
Antonio Aranibar, Former Foreign
Minister of Bolivia
Oscar Arias, Former President
of Costa Rica and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
Harry Belafonte, Entertainer
and Activist
Belisario Betancur, Former President
of Colombia
Jorge Castaneda, Professor of
Politics, New York University
Violeta Chamorro, Former President
of Nicaragua
Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Argentine
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
Shirley Fingerhood, Former Justice
of the New York State Supreme Court
James P. Gray, Judge of the
Superior Court, Orange County, California
Dr. Howard Hiatt, Former Dean,
Harvard School of Public Health
Cruz Reynoso, Former Justice
of the California State Supreme Court
Mario Vargas Llosa, Peruvian
writer and Politician
Robert E. White, President,
Center for International Policy (former Ambassador to El Salvador and Paraguay)
-- END --
|
Issue #115, 11/5/99
Medical Marijuana Wins Again! Maine Becomes 7th State to Shield Patients from Arrest | Justice Department Asks Appeals Court for Rehearing on Medical Marijuana Defense | Latin Leaders Call Drug War a Failure | Citizens Protest Drug Czars' Conference | Observations on ONDCP's Response to the Open Letter | District of Columbia Syringe Exchange Language Holds Up Appropriations Bill | Australia: Vatican KO's Nuns' Safe-Injecting Room Plan, but University Saves the Day | McWilliams and McCormick Trials Beginning This Month | Temporary Job Opportunity in Washington | Editorial: Guest Editorial: Why Is There a War in Colombia? Look to the Streets of Washington, DC
|
This issue -- main page
This issue -- single-file printer version
Drug War Chronicle -- main page
Chronicle archives
|
PERMISSION to reprint or
redistribute any or all of the contents of Drug War Chronicle (formerly The Week Online with DRCNet is hereby
granted. We ask that any use of these materials include proper credit and,
where appropriate, a link to one or more of our web sites. If your
publication customarily pays for publication, DRCNet requests checks
payable to the organization. If your publication does not pay for
materials, you are free to use the materials gratis. In all cases, we
request notification for our records, including physical copies where
material has appeared in print. Contact: StoptheDrugWar.org: the Drug Reform Coordination Network,
P.O. Box 18402, Washington, DC 20036, (202) 293-8340 (voice), (202)
293-8344 (fax), e-mail [email protected]. Thank
you.
Articles of a purely
educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of the DRCNet
Foundation, unless otherwise noted.
|
