Breaking News:Dangerous Delays: What Washington State (Re)Teaches Us About Cash and Cannabis Store Robberies [REPORT]

Politics Outside US

RSS Feed for this category

Feature: US Uses Annual Drug Certification Report to Attack Bolivia, Venezuela

The Bush administration released its annual "Presidential Determination on Major Drug Transit or Major Illicit Drug Producing Countries" report Monday, and both the report itself and Bush administration spokesmen used the occasion to launch attacks on Bolivia and Venezuela. The attack on Bolivia is related to the shift away from the forced eradication of coca crops under the "zero cocaine, not zero coca" policy of President Evo Morales, but the attack on Venezuela, which is neither a major drug producing country nor unusual in the region in being used as a transshipment point for Colombian cocaine, appears to have little to do with its adherence to US drug policy goals and much to do with the increasingly adversarial relationship between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the Bush administration.

https://stopthedrugwar.org/files/boliviancoca.jpg
Bolivian coca (source: US State Dept.)
Chavez and Morales are close allies in an emerging left-leaning, anti-imperialistic axis in Latin America. Bolivia announced this week it is accepting Venezuelan assistance to construct new military facilities near the Paraguayan border.

The list of major drug producing or trafficking nations remains unchanged from last year. Included are Afghanistan, the Bahamas, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela.

Only two nations -- Myanmar and Venezuela -- were determined to have "failed demonstrably" to meet their obligations under international drug control treaties. Myanmar has reduced opium production, but remains an isolated military dictatorship. Sanctions against Venezuela were nevertheless waived, because of a belief by the administration "programs to aid Venezuela's democratic institutions are vital to the national interests of the United States" (though many in the hemisphere have suspicions about what that really means since the administration's tacit support for an attempted coup against Chavez in April 2002 and because of where the money is going).

"Venezuela's importance as a transshipment point for drugs bound for the United States and Europe has continued to increase in the past 12 months, a situation both enabled and exploited by corrupt Venezuelan officials," press secretary Snow charged.

The Bush administration might have a little more traction with such charges if it did not single out Venezuela. Mexico, for instance, is not mentioned in the text of the annual report except in the list of major trafficking nations despite rampant corruption, drug trade-related violence at record levels, and a government response that is curiously supine. Nor is Guatemala mentioned, despite the fact that the head of its anti-drug agency, Adam Castillo, pleaded guilty in federal court in Washington just two weeks ago to conspiring to smuggle cocaine into the country.

"This is the same charade they go through every year," said Sanho Tree, head of the Institute for Policy Studies Drug Policy Project. "These are essentially political determinations." The waiver to continue funneling money to anti-Chavez groups is a clear sign of that, Tree said. "If they decertify Venezuela without the waiver, they can't funnel all that money through the so-called pro-democracy opposition," he told Drug War Chronicle.

The Venezuelan government, for its part, rejected its designation as a failed partner in the war on drugs and accused the US government of "politicizing" international anti-drug policy. In an official statement issued Monday, the government said, "Venezuela denounces the continued politicization of important bilateral issues by the US State Department. The Bush administration consciously continues to practice a policy of substituting facts by unfounded statements, driven by simple political differences, the explicit purpose of which is to isolate Venezuela."

The statement went on to note that Venezuela had seized more than 35,000 kilograms of drugs last year and that its anti-drug efforts had won international praise. In comments earlier this month, British officials praised Venezuela's "tremendous cooperation" in fighting drugs, while the French talked of "intense cooperation" and the Spanish said Venezuelan authorities "are efficient in registering and detaining individuals that could be transporting drugs."

The Venezuelan statement also carried an implicit threat. The Chavez government threw the DEA out of Venezuela last year amid accusations it was spying on the Venezuelan government, and since then, the two countries have been negotiating a new agreement allowing the agency to operate there. "Baseless accusations, such as those contained in the Bush administration's report, will not help finalize an agreement as important as this one," the statement warned.

While the Bush attack on Venezuela's anti-drug record stinks of global power politics, its criticism of Bolivia is based on more traditional US drug policy concerns. "My administration is concerned with the decline in Bolivian counternarcotics cooperation since October 2005," Bush said in the report. "Bolivia, the world's third largest producer of cocaine, has undertaken policies that have allowed the expansion of coca cultivation and slowed the pace of eradication until mid-year, when it picked up. The Government of Bolivia's (GOB) policy of 'zero cocaine, but not zero coca' has focused primarily on interdiction, to the near exclusion of its necessary complements, eradication and alternative development."

White House press secretary Tony Snow amplified those remarks at a Monday press conference. "Despite increased drug interdiction, Bolivia has undertaken policies that have allowed the expansion of coca cultivation and have significantly curtailed eradication," he said. Snow warned that the US government is waiting to see whether the Bolivian government will eradicate minimum acreages, make changes to Bolivian law desired by the US, and tightly control the sale of coca leaf. The US will review Bolivia's compliance with US drug policy goals in six months, he said.

The Bolivians responded with only slightly less asperity than the Venezuelans. "The administration of the United States has a mistaken reading with respect to Bolivian anti-drug policy," said government spokesman Alex Contreras in an official statement Monday. "Bolivia invites the United States to join the policy of zero cocaine and to recall that it is the principal producer of precursor chemicals to transform coca into cocaine. Also, it has the largest market of illegal drug consumers."

The Bolivian government will accomplish its goal of eradicating 5,000 hectares of coca this year, Contreras said, adding that that benchmark "will have been smoothly surpassed, not by the imposition of the US government, but by our own will and without using any tear gas, let alone repression and confrontations," a clear reference to the bloody conflicts between coca growers and former Bolivian governments that attempted to impose US-style forced eradication policies.

Voluntary eradication is indeed going on, said Kathryn Ledebur of the Bolivia-based Andean Information Network, who questioned the Bush administration's strict timelines. "I find it ironic that forced eradication took nine months during the Banzer administration and now they want radical results in six months. No nation can comply with that," she told the Chronicle. "The real sticking point is the six-month deadline to eliminate farmers' personal coca plots. That could push the Bolivian government to the breaking point. This suggests the Bush administration has no real idea what should be done, but it wants a firm scolding on the record."

Ledebur also found irony in the US complaints about the lack of progress with alternative development. "That is funded and driven by the US," she pointed out.

Both Ledebur and Tree agreed that Bolivia is energetically tackling the cocaine trade. "The interdiction of cocaine is a concrete result the Bolivian government can point to," said Tree. "Coca does not equal cocaine, and until it does become cocaine, coca should be a domestic matter and not something on the US agenda. If Bolivia can successfully regulate where the coca goes, it should not be an issue. Evaluating Bolivia on how many hectares of coca it eradicates is a meaningless metric."

Southwest Asia: Proposal for Turning Afghan Opium Into Legal Morphine Gains Support

A proposal to license Afghanistan's illegal opium production and turn it into morphine for the legitimate global medicinal market picked up more support this week as the Italian Red Cross and the Afghan Red Crescent launched a campaign to promote the idea. While so-far scoffed at by the governments of Afghanistan, the US, and the NATO countries, the carefully researched licensing proposal from the Senlis Council, a European security, development, and drug policy think tank, has already won backing from some political figures in England and from the Italian government.

https://stopthedrugwar.org/files/opium-smaller.jpg
the opium trader's wares (photo by Chronicle editor Phil Smith during September 2005 visit to Afghanistan)
The United Nations reported less than three weeks ago that despite ongoing eradication efforts, Afghan opium cultivation had increased a whopping 60% and would produce an all-time record 6,100 tons of opium this year. Afghanistan currently accounts for 92% of illicit opium production worldwide.

According to the UN, some 2.9 million Afghans are involved in opium growing, representing more than 12% of the population. The crop will bring in an estimated $3 billion this year, with farmers pocketing about $750 million and the rest going to traffickers and their allies, who range from the Taliban and Al Qaeda to government ministers, members of parliament, and provincial governors and warlords.

In a Monday press conference, the Italian Red Cross joined the campaign for the Senlis Council proposal. "This system we advocate provides for one part of the Afghan opium to be used to make legal morphine, rather than illegal heroin," Massimo Barra, president of the Italian Red Cross told reporters in Rome. To transform illicit poppy fields into licit ones would "reduce the importance of illegal practices in Afghanistan and would address the pain crisis in developing countries," where opium-based painkillers are needed to treat patients with cancer, AIDS and other diseases, Barra said.

The Afghan Red Crescent is also joining the call to adopt the Senlis proposal. The Crescent, the Italian Red Cross, and the Senlis Council also used the Monday press conference to announce the opening of a 50-bed hospital wing in Kabul for the treatment of drug addicts.

For Senlis Council executive director Emmanuel Reinert, who also addressed the press conference, eradication has proven ineffective and counterproductive because it is taking livelihoods away from hard-pressed farmers.

"Farmers right now do not have a choice; if they could, they'd want to do the right thing," he said, adding that it wouldn't be difficult to pay licensed farmers the equivalent of their net income from illegal cultivation. "The farmers will have the same financial incentive," Reinert said.

US Raps Venezuela, Myanmar on Illegal Drug Trade

Localização: 
Washington, DC
United States
Publication/Source: 
Reuters
URL: 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/18/AR2006091801303.html

Bolivia Drug Fight Faulted: The White House Cited Concerns About Contributions to the Illegal Drug Trade By Bolivia

Localização: 
Washington, DC
United States
Publication/Source: 
Associated Press
URL: 
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/15552243.htm

On the Thai Coup Attempt

The mass media today are full of reports about the slow-motion military coup attempt taking place in Thailand. While I'm not a big fan of military coups, I have to point out that this one couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Long-time Chronicle readers may recall Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra as the man who unleashed a "war on drugs" in 2003 where some 2,000 people summarily executed. That's human rights speak for gunned down in the streets without a trial or even an arrest. Here's a link to just one of the stories we did on Shinawatra's massacre of drug users and sellers. There is much more if you want to dig through our archives. I don't claim to be up to speed on the intricacies of Thai politics. But Shinawatra, a Berlusconi-style figure in Thai politics, a fabulously wealthy media magnate who sought to impose his twisted morality on the country he governed, needs to be sitting in the defendant's dock, not the presidential palace.
Localização: 
Thailand

A Look Inside Brazil's Drug "Commands"

Brazil, Latin America's largest and most populous nation gets surprisingly little press in the US. The mass media paid some attention back in May, when the country's "commands"--the criminal gangs formed in Brazil's prisons that control the drug trade and act as a de facto government in some of the favelas (ghettos) surrounding Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro--rose up in open rebellion against the Brazilian state. But since then, the silence in the US press has been deafening. Fortunately, not everyone in the English-speaking press is asleep at the wheel, and I want to use this opportunity to recommend an article from Britain's Observer magazine. Called Blood Simple, the piece by Tom Phillips is an interesting capsule history of the commands and a frightening look at the war between the state and the gangs. Here are the opening paragraphs, just to whet your appetite: "Blood simple Four months ago, the hostility between Sao Paulo's police and gangs erupted into violence - the result was open warfare. Tom Phillips reports from a city caught in a spiral of terror Sunday September 17, 2006 The Observer The taxi driver squints uncomfortably. 'It's like fire there,' he warns ominously, as I pass him the address on the eastern limits of Sao Paulo. We cut through block after block of grimy, graffiti-clad housing. Ahead, ragged shantytowns cling to the hilltops; behind us a trail of abandonment stretches back towards the city centre, in the form of empty warehouses and cracked windows. As we begin the descent towards our final destination, the driver looks nervously into his rear-view mirror. A police car's flashing siren ushers us to a standstill. Under the gaze of their Taurus revolvers we are hauled out of the vehicle, told to place our hands on the car roof and given an invasive frisk down. When we are finally sent on our way, after a 10-minute interrogation, the driver is apologetic. 'I had to pull over,' he mumbles. 'If you don't, they open fire.' Welcome to the periferia of Sao Paulo; the impoverished outskirts of one of the world's largest cities, where hundreds of thousands of immigrants who came to the megalopolis in search of gold-paved streets have been abandoned to their own dismal fate." There is much, much more about what is going on in one of the worl'd largest cities. Check it out.
Localização: 
Sao Paulo, SP
Brazil

Afghan Fighting Blamed for Opium Bonanza

Localização: 
Afghanistan
Publication/Source: 
The Daily Telegraph
URL: 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/09/15/wafg15.xml

Bolivia Seeks Coca Legalization, Path to the Sea

Localização: 
Bolivia
Publication/Source: 
Jerusalem Post
URL: 
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1157913633521&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Latin America: Colombia's FARC Guerrillas Say End Drug Prohibition

In a communiqué sent this week to the New Colombia News Agency (ANNCOL), Colombia's leftist rebels the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) called for the worldwide legalization of the drug trade to put an end to black market drug trafficking and its associated profits. The unusual communiqué also carried a FARC denial that it owned coca fields in the southern Colombia's Macarena Mountains.

"FARC neither sows, nor owns, nor processes, nor transports nor commercializes any kind of narcotic substance or psychotropic product," said the communiqué from the guerrillas' highest decision-making body, the Secretariat.

The Colombian and US governments have accused the FARC of profiting from the coca and cocaine trade, but it is unclear what this means in practice. Some reports have said that the FARC's involvement is limited to taxing the crops and the trade.

Colombian media had recently alleged that the FARC owned some 7,000 acres of coca fields in the Macarena National Park, thus apparently sparking the FARC's denial. According to the long-lived guerrilla group, the coca fields are owned and worked by thousands of peasants who have no other way of making a living.

While the FARC has called for sustainable coca eradication programs in the past, it seemed to be singing a different tune this week. "We are convinced that the battle against the cancer of narco-trafficking con only be won definitively by elaborating a global strategy that includes the legalization of these products, because this will put an end to fabulous profits that they generate," the statement said.

Latin America: In Break With Campaign Promises, Peru's New Government Will Accelerate Coca Eradication

When new Peruvian President Alain Garcia was in a tight race against pro-coca populist upstart Ollanta Humala earlier this year, he promised his government would oppose coca eradication because Peruvians consider the leaf sacred and a part of their tradition. But Reuters reported Wednesday that the Garcia government is now seeking US support for a new push against coca production in what is now the world's second largest coca producer.

https://stopthedrugwar.org/files/cocafield.jpg
coca field
According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime's annual report on coca production, Peru produces 30% of the Andean coca crop. Colombia accounted for 54%, while third place Bolivia accounted for 16%. While the UN reported a slight decrease in Peruvian coca cultivation last year, the US government estimated production had actually increased by 38%.

While some coca is cultivated legally and sold to the Peruvian national coca monopoly to be made into various products, some doubtless is diverted to the black market and made into cocaine. Peruvian police report busting some 500 cocaine labs last year.

More than $330 million in US aid since 2000 has failed to rein in Peru's coca-growing peasantry. Now, the Peruvian government wants more. "We want a greater state presence in coca-growing areas, more effective coca eradication, coca crop substitution and security for export cargo to limit smuggling," Peru's anti-narcotics chief Romulo Pizarro told Reuters. "We can't let these traffickers continue to poison people's lives."

That was music to the ears of Susan Keogh, narcotics affairs director at the US embassy in Lima. She said eradication must be part of the new campaign because alternative development alone would not be enough to end the drug trade. "There are so many illegal drug laboratories that they're like the McDonald's on every corner (in Peru's coca regions)," Keogh told Reuters. "You can't just flood those areas with development, you need eradication too."

While not as politically potent as their Bolivian counterparts, Peruvian coca growers are increasingly organized, if fractious, and they and their representatives in the parliament, like coca grower union leaders Nancy Obregon and Elsa Malpartida, are bound to make life miserable for the Garcia government over this issue. It won't help matters that Garcia is breaking his vows to them.

Drug War Issues

Criminal JusticeAsset Forfeiture, Collateral Sanctions (College Aid, Drug Taxes, Housing, Welfare), Court Rulings, Drug Courts, Due Process, Felony Disenfranchisement, Incarceration, Policing (2011 Drug War Killings, 2012 Drug War Killings, 2013 Drug War Killings, 2014 Drug War Killings, 2015 Drug War Killings, 2016 Drug War Killings, 2017 Drug War Killings, Arrests, Eradication, Informants, Interdiction, Lowest Priority Policies, Police Corruption, Police Raids, Profiling, Search and Seizure, SWAT/Paramilitarization, Task Forces, Undercover Work), Probation or Parole, Prosecution, Reentry/Rehabilitation, Sentencing (Alternatives to Incarceration, Clemency and Pardon, Crack/Powder Cocaine Disparity, Death Penalty, Decriminalization, Defelonization, Drug Free Zones, Mandatory Minimums, Rockefeller Drug Laws, Sentencing Guidelines)CultureArt, Celebrities, Counter-Culture, Music, Poetry/Literature, Television, TheaterDrug UseParaphernalia, Vaping, ViolenceIntersecting IssuesCollateral Sanctions (College Aid, Drug Taxes, Housing, Welfare), Violence, Border, Budgets/Taxes/Economics, Business, Civil Rights, Driving, Economics, Education (College Aid), Employment, Environment, Families, Free Speech, Gun Policy, Human Rights, Immigration, Militarization, Money Laundering, Pregnancy, Privacy (Search and Seizure, Drug Testing), Race, Religion, Science, Sports, Women's IssuesMarijuana PolicyGateway Theory, Hemp, Marijuana -- Personal Use, Marijuana Industry, Medical MarijuanaMedicineMedical Marijuana, Science of Drugs, Under-treatment of PainPublic HealthAddiction, Addiction Treatment (Science of Drugs), Drug Education, Drug Prevention, Drug-Related AIDS/HIV or Hepatitis C, Harm Reduction (Methadone & Other Opiate Maintenance, Needle Exchange, Overdose Prevention, Pill Testing, Safer Injection Sites)Source and Transit CountriesAndean Drug War, Coca, Hashish, Mexican Drug War, Opium ProductionSpecific DrugsAlcohol, Ayahuasca, Cocaine (Crack Cocaine), Ecstasy, Heroin, Ibogaine, ketamine, Khat, Kratom, Marijuana (Gateway Theory, Marijuana -- Personal Use, Medical Marijuana, Hashish), Methamphetamine, New Synthetic Drugs (Synthetic Cannabinoids, Synthetic Stimulants), Nicotine, Prescription Opiates (Fentanyl, Oxycontin), Psilocybin / Magic Mushrooms, Psychedelics (LSD, Mescaline, Peyote, Salvia Divinorum)YouthGrade School, Post-Secondary School, Raves, Secondary School