Washington Ready For Fresh Start As It Admits 'no One Has The Unique Solution'

US CALLS FOR COOPERATION IN DRUGS WAR

The Organisation of American States (OAS), which met in Washington on
November 4 and 5, tried to give the impression that the fight against drugs
has got off to a fresh start - at a time when the worsening situation in
Colombia gives little cause for optimism.

The man behind this meeting of officials combating drug traffickers was
President Clinton's "drugs tsar", General Barry McCaffrey. A week earlier
he had been spreading the good American word during a tour of Europe. Now
he wanted to show the new face of the United States.

The US has long been accused of wanting to call the tune on anything that
is going on in its "backyard", and of imposing its own solutions and
decisions. Washington's attitude has caused resentment in countries south
of the Rio Grande. On this occasion the 34 nations present (all of the
Americas and the Caribbean, except for Cuba) adopted a new slogan in favour
of multilateralism and cooperation.

McCaffrey said that the era of mutual recrimination was over, and they
would now all have to pull together. The countries that produced drugs or
through which drugs were smuggled had previously claimed that trafficking
would not exist if there were no users. The Americans, in turn, had accused
their neighbours of flooding the US market by producing ever larger
quantities of cocaine.

Washington now admits that such distinctions no longer mean much, since
most Latin American nations are producers, countries of transit and consumers.

McCaffrey also admitted that the US was a big producer of drugs such as
metamphetamines, ecstasy and cannabis, and that the traditional policy of
out-and-out repression had its limitations. His deputy, Pancho Kinney,
added: "We can no longer afford to be condescending. No one has the unique
solution."

The first step taken by the OAS, through the Inter-American Drug Abuse
Control Commission, has been to implement a process known as the
"multilateral evaluation mechanism" at every level - production,
consumption and repressive or preventive anti-drugs methods. The first
results of the initiative will be made public at the next OAS summit in
Canada in 2001, when each country, including the US, will be judged by the
others.

According to Canada's deputy state prosecutor, Jean Fournier, who was
behind the evaluation initiative, there was no getting away from the fact
that repression did not work, and that drug trafficking was too big a
problem to be left to police.

The Brazilian drugs tsar, Walter Maierovitch, said that Brazil had become a
country of transit, and that drug use had increased. "Drugs capitalists"
were threatening the foundation of the state. "It's no longer a question of
policing, but of preserving democracy," he added. The cartels had
increasing links with terrorist movements, and took advantage of Brazil's
enormous territory to dispatch their merchandise to Europe via the Iberian
peninsula, and through ports in Yugoslavia and Romania.

Mexico's state prosecutor, Jorge Madrago, was also a worried man. His
country was blighted by the repercussions of drug trafficking: smugglers
were paid in kind, and as a result turned into dealers. But he was
delighted that Mexico's "very difficult relationship" with the US had been
clarified, and that the producing and consuming countries had at last
decided to seek an overall solution in accordance with "the principle of
co-responsibility". The fact remains that Washington still practises a
degree of unilateralism, and takes it upon itself to "certify" its partners
if they conduct themselves properly, and to impose sanctions on them if
they do not.

McCaffrey was, however, able to point to some successes. He quoted the
cases of Peru and Bolivia, where production had plummeted by 50% since
1995. The Bolivian vice-president, Jorge Quiroga, said the area planted
with coca in the Chapare valley, for example, had decreased from 48,600
hectares to 24,800.

Bolivia said that it had achieved these results without outside help and
without infringing human rights. But it wanted Washington to double its aid
of $50m a year so that an alternative form of development could be
encouraged, and the problem eradicated once and for all.

That stance is not to everyone's liking. The US Congress has not shown much
interest in a new approach, which would reduce the role of security forces
and allow other countries a bigger say. And alternative groups challenge
the very notion of the fight against drugs. Several important figures,
including former presidents such as Violeta Chamorro of Nicaragua, Oscar
Arias of Costa Rica and Belisario Betancur of Colombia, as well as the
Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, denounced the ineffectiveness of a
war whose cost has risen 17-fold in 20 years.

Some of the results have been disappointing. In 1998 Colombia doubled its
coca production despite being the third-largest beneficiary of US aid. The
quantities of drugs seized by the authorities are only a drop in the ocean.
Profits from drug trafficking in the US are put at $57bn a year.

Critics say the problem is not a lack of money, firepower or prisons - they
believe in a new approach based on prevention and treatment, which costs
less and is more effective. The fact remains that US policy is still torn
between two views: the ultra-conservatism of Congress and Clinton's
cautiousness on the one hand; and, on the other, awareness that the old
methods are no longer really effective.