Doing the drug thing in Latin America

La Verdad
    By Terra Lawson-Remer

What is the real meaning of the "War on Drugs?" Sometimes it gets lost between political rhetoric, expenditure increases, and the high-tech infrared remote-operated motion-sensitive laser scanners lining our borders. As usual, American politicians and propagandists tend to consider only the domestic impact of U.S. drug policy. Yet narco-traffic is a complicated operation whose tentacles reach from Bogota to Mexico City to small-town America. Given that drug trafficking is a global industry, what is the impact of U.S. drug policy beyond our borders?

In the centers of Latin American drug operations—Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, and Mexico—U.S. drug policy actively supports political repression, fosters economic hardship, and contributes to environmental degradation. The goal of U.S. international anti-drug policy, according to the White House, is to shield America's borders from the drug threat and to break foreign and domestic drug sources. To these ends the government spent over $2 billion in 1998, much of it in the form of donations to our Latin American partners in the War on Drugs. But what has been the impact of these donations?

The Mexican government, touted by Clinton as a valuable partner in anti-drug efforts, is currently facing grassroots civil uprisings in Chiapas. According to recently signed accords, the U.S. continues to provide training for "special vetted law enforcement units, prosecutors...[and] special rapid response military units engaged in anti-drug operations." Although these facts may seem unrelated, they reveal the United States' unwitting assistance to anti-democratic military operations in Chiapas.

The Colombia situation is even more shocking. Although the Colombian police are responsible for most anti-drug operations, the Andean Initiative of the early '90s allocated 75 percent of U.S. money to the military. Since then, paramilitary activity involving military collaboration with drug traffickers has increased. Much of this activity has been targeted at union organizers and sympathizers. In some regions, landholders, including a number of drug traffickers, have formed anti-leftist and anti-guerrilla alliances with the military. During the early '90s, more than 130 paramilitary groups ambushed or massacred 1,300 farm workers, organizers, judges, and administrators advocating land-reform measures. The connection is clear. America is funding the terrorism of Colombian paramilitary groups to the tune of over $600 million.

The numbers speak for themselves. In 1998, the Department of Defense got $848 million to fight the War on Drugs and the Department of State got $212 million. That is only part of the enormous anti-drug expenditures allocated to military and quasi-military activities. The Department of Education got $685 million for its entire budget.

U.S. policies have also had disastrous environmental impacts. In Peru and Bolivia, the U.S. supports crop-eradication programs that spray toxic pesticides from overhead planes. Poor campesinos, farming coca fields (for cocaine) with oxen and plow, hear the drone of a plane and look up in time to inhale lungfuls of toxins. These pesticides kill other crops, like maize and potatoes, making it even more impossible for marginal farmers to make ends meet. Environmentalists should also be concerned about the deforestation that occurs when farmers, in search of arable, toxin-free land, move into the rainforest to continue their coca cultivation.

U.S.-sponsored eradication efforts have been economically devastating to rural coca farmers. Coca is cheap and easy to grow, and the profit margin it yields on cocaine is 300 times that of most alternative crops. Although the U.S. has demanded that Peruvian and Bolivian campesinos cease coca production, viable alternatives do not exist. Drug control strategies call for U.S. aid to fund economic development in conjunction with crop eradication, but the agency's funding and program's reach fall short. Many farmers live in remote areas without roads or rivers, making the transportation of food products to market impossible. Profits from drug trafficking make up about 50 percent of Bolivia's gross national product (GNP). With less than five percent of Bolivian roads paved and its per capita GNP hovering around $1,000 annually, it seems ludicrous to insist that Bolivia seek greater economic insecurity in pursuit of a "Drug Free America."

The impacts of the U.S. anti-drug effort reach far beyond our borders. We're wreaking havoc on the environment and the economies of Latin America and aiding corrupt military campaigns against grassroots movements for democracy and social justice. The War on Drugs acts as a funnel for U.S. money to support political repression. It is the ultimate in reverse money-laundering, whereby clean anti-drug funds are converted into military aid. It's time to think beyond our borders, begin to understand the big picture of the U.S. anti-drug effort, and eschew the war on Latin American peace and stability that we call the War on Drugs.

Recent Herald Columns by this Columnist:
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• Presenting the Brita news filter, 2/5/99
• Lift the Cuban embargo, 1/22/99

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