THE MILITARIZATION OF THE DRUG WAR IN LATIN AMERICA

[continued from part 1]

The administration has attempted to offset transit zone funding cuts by
encouraging greater cooperation from its Caribbean allies, but its efforts
have met with strong resistance from leaders concerned about a further
erosion of their national sovereignty Although Trinidad and Tobago quickly
agreed to a "hot pursuit" treaty Barbados and Jamaica both strongly opposed
attempts by Washington to forge bilateral antinarcotics agreements that
would allow United States forces to pursue suspected drug traffickers
within the territorial waters and airspace of another country and only
signed treaties after intense United States pressure. Regional leaders
accused the United States of using "unfounded allegations, innuendoes, and
the threat of punitive measures aimed at the economic welfare of Caribbean
states" in its efforts to force them to provide the carte blanche for hot
pursuits.

ATTACKING THE "AIR BRIDGE" While the Defense Department continues to spend
more money on transit zone interdiction programs and assistance to
domestic law enforcement agencies, most of the military's energy at least
in terms of public promotion, is now being spent on source country
programs, and in particular its attack on the so-called air bridge that
connects coca growers and coca paste manufacturers in Peru and Bolivia with
Colombian cocaine refiners and distributors. The aim is to interdict drugs
before they enter the transit zone. By targeting the small aircraft that
ferry coca paste from Peru and Bolivia to Colombia for refining, United
States military plan-ners argue, coca farmers will no longer be able to get
their product to the "market," thus driving down the price paid to growers
and forcing them to convert their coca fields to more lucrative, licit
crops. At the same time, it will drive up the cost of transport for
Colombian drug traffickers, an increase that will then be passed on to
United States consumers, who will be discouraged from using cocaine by the
higher price.

This strategy temporarily became entangled in a dispute over policies
adopted by the Peruvian and Colombian governments--with strong United States
encouragement--to shoot down planes of suspected drug traffickers. When
Colombia announced in early 1994 that it too, like Peru, would adopt a
shoot-down policy, some United States officials in Washington became
concerned that the policy would violate international law After the Justice
Department ruled that "United States officials who knowingly provide
information that leads to the shooting down of civilian aircraft could be
subject to criminal prosecution," the Defense Department halted the sharing
of "real-time" air-craft tracking information with Colombia and Peru in May
1994. Congress responded that fall by pro-viding official immunity for
authorized United States personnel engaging in assisting foreign coun-tries
in anti-drug aircraft interdiction.

Freed of legal constraints, the military began its attack on the air bridge
in early 1995 by supplying the Peruvian and Colombian armed forces with
sophisticated radar and surveillance equipment. By October of that year
these efforts had evolved into a formal, classified mission dubbed
Operation Green Clover, a three-month operation in which more than 300
United States soldiers, sailors, air-men, and marines worked in tandem with
forces from Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, and Venezuela. "We
assist with what we call the 'end game,' which is the actual capturing of a
plane, but it is the host nations themselves that do any chasing or
shooting," explained Brigadier General George Close, SOUTHCOM's director of
operations.

SOUTHCOM officials trumpet Green Clover's suc-cess in terms of disrupting
the air bridge, but reports on the extent of this success vary According to
the January 19, 1996, issue of the command's own newspaper, Tropic Times,
the operation "resulted in the shooting down of 27 drug-smuggling aircraft
by allied nations." When touting the success of Green Clover three months
later, Secretary of Defense William Perry said, "Twelve drug-smuggling
aircraft were interdicted or shot down by allied nation forces during the
operation." Nonethe-less, the "superbly executed military operation" led to
an expansion of the source country strategy according to its
self-proclaimed "principal architect," General Barry McCaffrey the
commander of SOUTHCOM.

In April 1996, a month after McCaffrey stepped down as SOUTHCOM's commander
to become national drug czar, the military announced the launch of its
successor mission, Operation Laser Strike. As part of the ongoing
operation, United States military personnel work cooperatively with nine
Latin American countries, operating ground-based radar sites, flying
detection and monitoring aircraft, and providing operation and
intelligence support to host nation forces. While the air bridge between
Peru and Colombia was the sole focus of Green Clover, Laser Strike expanded
the source country strategy; it now includes operations aimed at
disrupting the river and coastal smuggling routes developed by drug
traffickers as an alternative to air transportation in neighboring Ecuador,
Venezuela, and Bolivia, as well as in Peru and Colombia.

In October 1996 McCaffrey told Congress that "results of this
multinational, cooperative effort have yielded stunning tactical results.
The so-called 'air bridge' between Peru and Colombia saw a greater than 50
percent temporary reduction of flights as aircraft were intercepted and, in
some cases, shot down. The cost of shipments increased fivefold, as pilots
demanded more money as their personal risk increased dramatically Movement
was reduced so dramatically that there was a glut of coca base on the
market and the price of the product being shipped fell by 50 percent
overall and as much as 80 percent in some areas.

The "success" of the air bridge attacks is noted widely by the Clinton
administration, even as the flow of drugs into the country continues to
rise and South American coca and poppy production expand. While
acknowledging that these operations have had no impact on the availability
and price of cocaine in the United States, a high-ranking National Security
Council official, Peter Boynton, director of global issues and multilateral
affairs, still argued in March 1997 that the administration has "been
successful to an extent that no one has had before." Because of a dramatic
drop in profits from coca leaf production, farmers are now "more open" to
growing alternative, licit crops, he explained, adding that intelligence
reports indicate there has been "signifi-cant abandonment of coca fields in
Peru."

The administration's assertion that coca produc-tion in Peru in 1996 fell
precipitously--l8 percent according to its figures--is not in dispute. What
is in dispute are the reasons for that fall. Coca fields continue to be
abandoned due to the spread of a fungus that has recently plagued coca
production in Peru. (In fact, Peruvian coca farmers have been clamoring
for years for economic support in order to switch to alternative crops.) In
addition, Peruvian coca and cocaine base have traditionally been
purchased by the Cali cartel; hence, coca production in Peru was
significantly affected by the Colombian government's gains against the
car-tel, most of whose leadership is now behind bars. More important,
Colombian drug ana-lysts point out that Colombian traffickers have sought
to "verticalize" the cocaine industry by elim-inating the need to transport
a raw material, coca or cocaine base, from other countries. As a result,
coca production in Colombia increased by a huge 32 percent in 1997 alone,
according to the United States government's own figures. Colombian
traffickers are now importing and promoting domestic production of a more
potent and productive variety of Peruvian coca from the Tingo Maria region.
Finally administration officials themselves note that as a result of the
"successful" air interdiction pro-gram, more cocaine-related products are
transported by river-hence the need for more resources for greatly
expanded riverine interdiction programs.

A POLICY DOOMED TO FAILURE

Even as the Defense Department plans further
expansion of its counternarcotics efforts, many within its ranks remain
highly critical of the military's involvement in the drug war. Like their
civil-ian counterparts, these critics question the underlying rationale for
the mission, its effectiveness, and its impact on the region's democratic
institutions. They also challenge the strategy and tactics being used to
carry out the mission, arguing that they work at cross-purposes with the
desired result.

The military's counternarcotics operations in Latin America have also been
hurt by its poor understanding of the Clausewitzian principle of attacking
the enemy's "center of gravity" according to critics. If, as Clausewitz
suggests, the "center of gravity" is the "hub of all power" and "the point
against which all energies should be directed," then, by its own
estimation, the military is fighting a foe whose defeat is improbable.
SOUTRCOM officials have identified 14 "centers of gravity" in the drug war,
including "narcoguerrillas," coca farmers, drug labs, coca and poppy
growing areas, and drug mafias, as well as drug users in the United States
and Latin America. That there are this many centers of grav-ity would
indicate that the mission nears the impos-sible. Analysts Eva Bertram and
Kenneth Sharpe argued in the Winter 1996 issue of World Policy Journal that
the real "center of gravity" is the demand for drugs in the United States,
which cre-ates the economic incentive to supply them. In that case, "the
enemy in the drug war is not a foreign army of insurgency but an economic
market."

The current supply-side approach is further ham-pered by the "balloon
effect" of applying pressure in one place only to see the problem pop up
somewhere else. Perhaps an even more accurate description is the "hydra
effect" noted by Bertram and Sharpe in their World Policy Journal article:
"Like the mythical sea serpent that Hercules battled, the drug trade is an
evasive enemy: Each time one of the hydra's heads is cut off, two more grow
in its place." Repeated counternarcotics operations have caused traffickers
to diversify their supply routes, while sometimes forcing coca growers and
proces-sors to move their fields and labs to more remote areas. The
potential for controlling the impact of the hydra effect on drug
interdiction efforts is severely limited by the sheer size of the
geographic area involved. Peru, Colombia, and Bolivia combined are as
large as the United States east of the Mississippi, and the Caribbean and
Gulf of Mexico equal slightly less than half the land area of the United
States. Despite the best intentions of the Defense Department and other
United States gov-ernment agencies, all evidence points to a glut of coca,
cocaine, and heroin on the international and United States markets.

Beyond the failure of the drug war to date to stem the flow of illicit
drugs into this country United States military personnel express concern
about the unintended consequences of a drug war that has led Washington to
forge closer ties with military forces that are notorious human rights
vio-lators. In calling for the demilitarization of United States anti-drug
efforts, one Navy commander cited a report on drug policy produced by an
Inter-American commission that noted that the increased military role in
drug enforcement in Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia resulted in "greater
violence and increased violations of human rights." Others warn that by
tightening its alliance with local military forces, the United States
government undermines people's faith in civilian institutions at a time
when democratic development remains delicate.

THE ADMINISTRATION IN DENIAL Clinton administration officials respond
vocifer-ously to suggestions that human rights and democ-ratization are
taking a back seat to the objectives of the drug war. They stress that all
counternarcotics training provided to the region's militaries includes
human rights instruction and that all United State's personnel receive
human rights training before they are sent to the region, where they are
required to report any suspected abuses by their allies. Bu through the
drug war, United States assistance is provided prior to actual improvements
in human rights performance or demonstrated political will on the part of
aid recipients to hold accountable those responsible for abuses.

Washington works most closely with local military forces because there are
few alternatives, explains ONDCP's Brown, noting that police in the region
are "most typically corrupt because they are vastly underpaid." The
alternative of strengthening civilian institutions to increase their
effectiveness in countering drug trafficking "is not a viable approach
anywhere in the near term." However, as described earlier, the long-term
consequences of increasing military involvement in the drug war may be even
more detrimental to the prospects for democratic consolidation and regional
stability, both of which are fundamental for international drug control
efforts to ultimately succeed. Calling out the troops may satisfy
short-term needs to score political points at home, but it undermines
effort' to rein in Latin American militaries and redefine their roles to
encompass only traditional national defense. Nor is it clear that bringing
in the military will allow local governments to circumvent the very real
problem of corruption. As Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozado, who
completed his term in office last year, once put it, "When you have corrupt
chief of police, you fire him. When you have a corrupt chief of the army he
fires you." The check of accountability and transparency for the region's
armed forces makes routing out the inevitable corruption that accompanies
anti-drug efforts even more difficult.

WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS

The future course of the military's counternarcotics
efforts is unlikely to be shaped as much by he debate within the United
States military or the Clinton administration as it will be by developments
on Capitol Hill, where the purse strings are controlled. In the drug war,
as a Defense Department official put it, the military does "what we have
been told to do" by Congress. Political pressure by Congress for further
militarization of the drug war 5 undeniable, with lawmakers displaying
their enthusiasm by consistently providing Defense with more
counternarcotics funding than the White House requests, including an
additional $143 million in 1997

One of the United States Navy's highest-ranking officials, retired Admiral
Elmo Zumwalt, has dis-missed the heated rhetoric by noting that "when
congressmen and senators sound off, it is usually 10 percent body and 90
percent odor." How nox-ious the current stink becomes may depend on how
effective general-turned-drug czar Barry McCaffrey is in his post. When
Clinton named General McCaffrey the Persian Gulf War hero and former
SOUTHGOM commander, head of the ONDCP in March 1996, it was widely seen as
a direct response to Republican election-year criticisms that the president
was "soft" on drugs. And many people argued, some favorably that the
appointment presaged a further militarization of the drug war. Since taking
office, however, McCaffrey has eschewed use of the war metaphor when
discussing United States anti-drug efforts, preferring to cast the enemy
not as a military foe but rather a social "cancer" that requires a
different sort of response. "At the end of the day I would suggest that
this actually isn't a war and it's not to be won by any-body's army," he
told Congress soon after being named drug czar. "At the end of the day
prosecu-tors, law enforcement officers, teachers, school superintendents,
religious leaders, that is who the front-line troops are.

Nevertheless, while McCaffrey may be inclined to view the surgeon general
as the most appropriate commander for the overall United States
coun-ternarcotics effort, it is clear that he believes there still is a
vital role for United States military forces to play In a March 1997 speech
at the Heritage Foundation, he reiterated his argument that the use of the
war metaphor is inappropriate, but then quickly made an exception for Latin
America, where "the language is pretty useful for us." Despite General
McCaffrey's rhetoric highlighting the problem of demand for illegal drugs,
programs and resources have not shifted accordingly. The expanded ONDCP
staff is stacked with his military proteges, and he has proved himself to
be more adept at obtaining funds for his Latin American military allies
than for domestic, demand-related programs.

The 1997 National Drug Control Strategy the first the ONDCP produced fully
under his tenure, provided additional evidence that McCaffrey will keep
United States military personnel active in the fight against illegal drugs,
both internationally and domestically United States forces and their
regional allies must continue to "give the traffickers no quar-ter," the
report urged, and to do so will require "tak-ing aggressive action in
source countries, throughout the transit zone, and at our borders."

Since politics shapes the course of United States policy more than the
realities of the drug problem, the future role of the military in fighting
drugs ulti-mately may be decided by whichever of two strong popular
currents proves to be the more powerful in terms of generating public
pressure. The first is the desire to slash government spending, which
raises the question of how long the public will tolerate the expenditure of
nearly a billion dollars a year on mil-itary counternarcotics efforts that
have yielded lit-tle in terms of reducing the demand for and availability
of drugs in the United States.

Defense spending, however, traditionally has been the last area hit by the
congressional budget ax, and this is a result of the second driving force,
the near-childlike faith Americans have in the abil-ity of their armed
forces. They believe the military solution to the national drug problem
will be rela-tively painless since it will occur outside the coun-try As
long as the national drug control strategy continues its overwhelming
emphasis on supply-side controls, much of the action in the drug war is
guaranteed to occur beyond United States borders under the Defense
Department's command. The principal question that remains is how
"aggressive" that action will be. The costs to democratization and human
rights throughout the region will no doubt continue to be high.


Checked-by: Mike Gogulski
Rechecked-by: Eric Ernst