Pubdate: Sun, 11 Mar 2001
Source: Deseret News (UT)
Copyright: 2001 Deseret News Publishing Corp.
Contact:  30 East 100 South., P.O. Box 1257, Salt Lake City, UT 84110
Website: http://www.desnews.com/
Author: Brad Knickerbocker, The Christian Science Monitor

'DRUG CERTIFICATION' PROGRAM LETS THE U.S. ESCAPE BLAME

Is it time to shift from sticks to carrots in the "war on drugs".

One of the bluntest tools in the U.S. arsenal has been the 15-year-old 
program that "certifies" drug-producing and trafficking countries as 
cooperating in antidrug efforts. Those that don't make the grade lose 
foreign aid.

But even those countries that earn Uncle Sam's stamp of approval find the 
whole process insulting. Mexican President Vicente Fox, whose new 
administration has begun cracking down on drug production and official 
corruption, calls it "an affront, a sham that should be denounced and 
canceled."

Other critics say it's hypocritical for the United States to take a 
holier-than-thou attitude when nearly 15 million Americans use illegal 
drugs, spending $63 billion a year to support their habit.

"The drug certification process . . . allows the U.S. government to place 
the blame abroad without taking a serious look at the failure of efforts to 
reduce the demand for illicit drugs in the United States," says Gina 
Amatangelo of the Washington Office on Latin America, a private research 
and advocacy group.

All in all, it's a complicated issue in which many nations and 
institutions, as well as virtually all social groups, bear some degree of 
responsibility -- as the current film "Traffic" makes plain. Which is why 
the focus on drug certification is likely to provoke a broader debate over 
U.S. drug policy -- particularly in Latin America, that part of the world 
that seems to interest President Bush the most.

Bush has indicated interest in changing the certification program. There 
are at least four proposals in the Senate -- backed by conservative 
Republicans as well as liberal Democrats -- that would suspend if not 
eliminate it altogether. Even former drug czar Barry McCaffrey says it's 
time to end the decertification process. There's growing interest in moving 
from a unilateral certification system to a multilateral process of regular 
reporting conducted by the 34-nation Organization of American States (OAS).

The latest State Department report shows some signs of progress in 
eradicating drug-growing and stemming trafficking. Yet the flow of illegal 
drugs into the U.S. continues, symbolized by the recently discovered tunnel 
from Mexico to Arizona that was stuffed with $6 million in cocaine.

Just a few days ago, Coast Guard officials seized a boat (a rusty fishing 
vessel called the Forever My Friend) headed from Mexico to California with 
nearly nine tons of cocaine hidden beneath a load of fish -- the 
fourth-largest seizure in U.S. maritime history. In just six days recently, 
the Coast Guard intercepted nearly 29,000 pounds of cocaine -- as much as 
it had captured in all of 1996.

In all, the State Department estimates, worldwide drug trafficking 
generates $400 billion in revenues each year. In the years since the drug 
certification program began in 1986, federal spending on drug control has 
grown from $3 billion a year to nearly $19 billion.

While countries such as Peru and Bolivia have cut sharply into cocaine 
production in recent years, critics say the effort has not come without 
cost, particularly in the area of human rights.

For example, the Washington Office on Latin America reports that "the 
anti-narcotics police forces that the U.S. has created in Bolivia brazenly 
intimidate, abuse and torture peasants -- while carrying out (coca) 
eradication campaigns."

The latest U.S. drug certification report lists 24 "major illicit 
drug-producing and drug-transit countries." Of these, two --Afghanistan and 
Burma (the largest producers of opium poppies) -- were "decertified." 
Cambodia and Haiti were also decertified, but they received waivers on 
grounds that cutting off foreign aid would harm U.S. interests.

The other 20 "major" drug producing and trafficking countries (including 
Mexico and Colombia) were found to have "cooperated fully with the United 
States or . . . taken adequate steps on their own to achieve full 
compliance" with the United Nations 1988 Drug Convention.

(The United States is not without blame. The certification report lists it 
as a "major" source of precursor chemicals used in narcotics production and 
also as a "major" money-laundering country.)
Moving from a unilateral certification regime to one that does not feature 
the United States as international drug cop would be a controversial move.

"We believe that most governments will be more responsive to constructive 
criticism offered by a community of nations after an objective and 
collaborative process, than to requirements imposed by a subjective, 
unilateral process accompanied by the threat of sanctions for 
noncompliance," Rand Beers, assistant secretary of State for international 
narcotics and law enforcement, told a Senate panel last week.

But that makes some supporters of certification suspicious. Sen. Charles 
Grassley, R-Iowa, has said that having the OAS oversee drug compliance 
"looks like it could be a gimmick to water down accountability."

Grassley would focus the U.S. program on those countries with the worst 
drug records, doing away with an annual list that seems insulting to allies 
in the drug war like Mexico.

"We can improve the process, keep accountability," he says, "but still 
remove some of the elements that have given everyone so much heartburn." 
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager