Fighting A Misguided War: Drug Policy in the Andes

By Elanor Starmer

Since 1989, the United States has spent $25 billion fighting the war on drugs from abroad. Despite the effort, drug abuse and related violence remain serious problems in the United States, and drugs are more accessible than ever before. Drugs and drug violence pose a terrible threat to our communities; it is time to find a new way to discourage drug trafficking and abuse. Unfortunately, there are few new ideas emerging from Congress and President Bush. Rather, they seem poised to repeat failed policies, allying the United States with abusive security forces and de-emphasizing issues of democracy and human rights.

Regional Policy: The 1990s

In 1989, President Bush Sr. initiated a $2.2 billion plan to stop the cocaine trade at its source. Counternarcotics funding went primarily to Andean police forces, who would undertake interdiction and eradication efforts. Unfortunately, Bush's policy of attacking drugs abroad allied the United States with forces possessing varying human rights records. While the Colombian police boasted a solid record on human rights, the National Intelligence Service (SIN) in Peru and Bolivian antinarcotics police did not.

In Peru, counternarcotics policy allied the United States with President Fujimori and SIN head Vladimir Montesinos. Fujimori became increasingly authoritarian and was later accused of corruption, while the SIN was found to be acting as political police, perpetrating attacks on the press and civilians. SIN aid was eventually cut and the United States did pressure Fujimori to democratize; however, US monetary support undermined any incentive for improvement on the part of the Peruvian government for most of the decade. US support is particularly problematic in light of recent findings that Montesinos himself was involved in the drug trade.

In Bolivia, US aid originally supported UMOPAR, the antinarcotics police. Funding was eventually cut after it was determined that UMOPAR carried out systematic human rights abuses against civilians, including arbitrary detentions and excessive use of force. In 1997, the United States shifted aid to the Bolivian military; military presence in the Chapare coca growing region has since grown, and groups in the Chapare complain of harassment and torture.

In both cases, the US forged ties with abusive forces in countries where democracy was weak, and where civilian institutions did not have the power to control the actions of the police and military. Aid was only cut after human rights violations had escalated dramatically.

Along with perpetuating human rights abuses, Andean regional policy has failed to curb the production of illicit drugs like cocaine and heroin. US officials call counternarcotics efforts in Bolivia and Peru "successful" because drug production diminished in those countries. However, while Bolivian coca cultivation decreased 17% in 1998, Colombian cultivation increased 28%. These statistics show that the "balloon effect"-where production curbed in one country pops up in another-will always be a problem as long as the demand for drugs is not reduced.

Colombia: Bolstering a Failed Policy

The US government's recent $1.3 billion aid package to Colombia expands counternarcotics funding from the police force to the Colombian armed forces. The package includes the training of three counternarcotics battalions and the supply of Blackhawk and Huey helicopters for surveillance, interdiction, and eradication efforts.

This aid is being applied to a country already in the midst of a civil war. Forty years ago, left-wing guerilla forces began actions against the government. These forces now number almost 20,000 people, but receive little public support because of their involvement in kidnappings and political executions. They also profit from the drug trade by taxing coca growers and producers.

While the Colombian armed forces commit fewer direct human rights violations than in the past, they are deeply implicated in support for abusive paramilitary forces. These right-wing paramilitary groups, often comprised of former military personnel, are responsible for 78% of the political killings in Colombia. While their targets are those they suspect of guerilla ties, most of their victims are civilians, often local community leaders, such as teachers and union members. Like the guerillas, paramilitaries also profit from the drug trade through taxes. Both paramilitaries and guerillas exercise control over large areas of land where coca cultivation takes place.

Clearly, in Colombia the drug war is complicated by a related political conflict, which has escalated with an increase in military aid. As the armed forces and paramilitary allies step up attacks in coca-growing regions controlled by guerillas, the United States finds itself funding not just counternarcotics, but also counterinsurgency. Aid has also complicated the peace process, started by President Andres Pastrana: guerillas protested US military aid and military-paramilitary ties by temporarily halting talks last November. Meanwhile, paramilitary violence has increased since the aid package took effect. Paramilitaries took the lives of more than 700 people last year, and massacres killed 100 more in the first 17 days of 2001.

Colombia's Conflict Spreads

A conflict as intense as Colombia's is difficult to contain. Already, armed actors have begun to move across the border, and skirmishes between paramilitaries and guerillas have occurred in Ecuador and Bolivia. Colombian peasants, pushed off of their land by violence, threats, or crop fumigation, have been displaced within Colombia and often move to neighboring countries that lack the resources to support them.

Furthermore, because drug demand continues unabated, production has sprung up again in neighboring countries. Peruvian coca reduction slowed significantly in 2000, and heroin production has begun in that area as well.

What next?

Colombia's ambassador has requested $600 million in military aid each year for the next four years. While the new administration's Colombia policy is not yet determined, it is likely that President Bush will ask Congress for hundreds of millions of dollars more in counternarcotics aid to the Andean region. This aid will probably be included not as a separate Colombian or Andean bill, but as part of the regular appropriations bills; these bills are shaped in subcommittees in March-April and reach the floor of the Congress between May-July.

Congress and President Bush suggest that an increase in regional military aid can counteract the spread of the conflict. However, militarizing the entire region will not solve the problem. Instead, it will increase human rights violations against Andean citizens, especially the poor and those who speak out against the powerful militaries. Nor is this type of policy worth its monetary cost: a recent study by the RAND corporation found that it is 23 times more cost effective to treat addiction at home than to target the supply abroad. As long as a demand exists and addiction remains a problem on US streets, we will see coca production continuing to grow in areas like Bolivia and Peru, and beginning in countries such as Brazil.

On a fundamental level, military aid for counternarcotics ignores the root causes of drug involvement: poverty and demand. Poverty limits the options available to peasants in coca growing areas while demand keeps prices high, making drug trafficking a lucrative venture for some and drug cultivation a survival strategy for many.

ACTION:

Now is the time to speak out against the continuation of expensive, ineffective counternarcotics policy in the Andes. Military aid does not work; our tax dollars will be much better spent on treatment programs in the United States and alternative development, human rights, and justice programs abroad. The Colombian military, with its ties to paramilitary groups, does not merit US aid. It is time to take our counternarcotics policy back to the drawing board.

Call the Congressional Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 or write:

The Honorable (full name)
United States Senate
Washington DC 20510

Senate Website: www.senate.gov

The Honorable (full name)
United States House of Representatives
Washington DC 20515

House Website: www.house.gov

Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly Guidelines

The 205th General Assembly (1993) "[E]ncourages economic conversion and public investment in need-reduction policies:

a. education concerning addictions, and prevention programs;
b. public health maintenance programs, which include counseling;
c. rehabilitation of individuals who are addicted, and rehabilitation programs for their families;
d. justice in educational opportunity;
e. justice in economic opportunity; and
f. economic conversion for tobacco growers and industry workers."

The 1993 Assembly "[U]rges reversal of current U.S. drug supply-limiting policies:

a. mandatory drug sentencing;
b. zero tolerance policy and property confiscation without due process;
c. domestic and international low-intensity conflict;
d. erosion of personal rights and equal protection under the law; and
e. decriminalization of possession with judicial focus on drug manufacturers and suppliers."

That Assembly also "[C]alls for the demilitarization of U.S. drug wars policies in foreign countries, and calls for the replacement of low-intensity conflicts with programs of economic aid and local self-development."
The 210th General Assembly (1998) "[C]alls upon the United States government to monitor human rights concerns in Colombia, and to be guided by the requirements of the Foreign Assistance Act in conditioning the provision of foreign aid and assistance on that government's adherence to international human rights standards."