In Quebec tomorrow, a large U.S. aid package to Mexico -- reportedly on the order of several hundred million dollars a year -- will be on the agenda at a North American summit meeting with President Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon. The eight-month-old Calderon government has repeatedly called for substantial U.S. support to help stem the uncontrolled, drugfueled violence that is subduing city after city in Mexico. For the health of our southern neighbor's nascent democracy and the strengthening of our own border controls, it is fundamental that the United States and Mexico enhance their cooperation. [continues 751 words]
We've Spent 36 Years and Billions of Dollars Fighting It, but the Drug Trade Keeps Growing Poppies were the first thing that British army Capt. Leo Docherty noticed when he arrived in Afghanistan's turbulent Helmand province in April 2006. "They were growing right outside the gate of our Forward Operating Base," he told me. Within two weeks of his deployment to the remote town of Sangin, he realized that "poppy is the economic mainstay and everyone is involved right up to the higher echelons of the local government." [continues 1966 words]
(1) COUPLE FOUND GUILTY IN POT CASE Pubdate: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 Source: Sacramento Bee (CA) Copyright: 2007 The Sacramento Bee Author: Denny Walsh, Bee Staff Writer El Dorado Doctor and Husband Insist Their Plants Are Medicinal. An El Dorado County couple who insist they treat marijuana only as a medicine, but who ran afoul of the federal government's zero tolerance for the drug, were found guilty Thursday by a Sacramento jury of conspiring to grow and distribute marijuana. It took the jury less than three hours on the 10th day of trial to convict Marion P. "Mollie" Fry, a physician, and her attorney husband, Dale C. Schafer, of a conspiracy to distribute and grow at least 100 plants. [continues 6591 words]
ON TAKING office as Mexico's president last December, Felipe Calderon made a crackdown against drug gangs his first action. He was prompted by violence that has seemed to spiral out of control in the past few years, with hundreds of murders--and severed heads dumped in public places. He sent the army into nine states, announced a reform of the police--and began talking to the United States about an aid package. The details are now close to being finalised. An announcement may come on August 20th or 21st at a meeting in Quebec between Mr Calderon, George Bush and Canada's prime minister, Stephen Harper. [continues 526 words]
Workplace Drug Tests Showed A Big Decline In Cocaine Use Across The Country And Especially In South Florida. Cocaine use in South Florida's workforce has experienced a sharp decline this year compared to 2006, mirroring a national trend that shows the drug's use at a 10-year low, a leading U.S. testing firm reports. "The Miami-Fort Lauderdale area saw a dramatic decline of approximately 18.1 percent in cocaine positivity rates among workers," said Barry Sample, the director of science and technology for employee testing at Quest Diagnostics. "This drop may suggest that employees in the area either are choosing not to use cocaine or lack access to the drug." [continues 464 words]
Leaders to Discuss Extensive Aid Package MEXICO CITY -- Not a day goes by in Mexico without a corpse turning up -- sometimes beheaded -- as a casualty of the drug war. The government has called out the army to regain control, but officers complain that drug traffickers have superior firepower. On the U.S. border, authorities in Arizona and other states are no longer surprised to discover tunnels where drug smugglers transport their product northward from Mexico. Unable to contain a crisis that transcends the border, the U.S. and Mexico are quietly negotiating an unprecedented anti-drug assistance package that probably would provide hundreds of millions of dollars in technology, training and equipment to Mexico, according to U.S. officials who have met with their Mexican counterparts in recent weeks. [continues 994 words]
A Deal Is Underway to Increase US Involvement in the Fight Against Mexican Drug Lords. Alarmed by rising threats to Mexican law and order from ever-more-brazen drug lords, the Bush administration is quietly negotiating a counternarcotics aid package with the Mexican government that would increase US involvement in a drug war south of the border. The fact that Mexico - which has historically been averse to any assistance from the US that could be construed as a breach of its sovereignty - is seeking the increased aid shows how serious a threat President Felipe Calderon sees drug gangs posing to his country. [continues 1020 words]
A Joint Force Including U.S. Officials Is Working to Stem Cocaine Exports and Related Violence Along the Pacific Shore. BUENAVENTURA, COLOMBIA -- At the sound of approaching patrol boats, the drug smugglers hurriedly fled their camp hidden among the mangroves, leaving behind a wealth of evidence. The Colombian Coast Guard's raiding party arrived to find a still-warm makeshift stove, short-wave radios, satellite phones, enough AK-47 assault rifles to arm a platoon, and, buried under freshly turned mud, 8 tons of cocaine. [continues 1153 words]
(1) ALLMAN: ZIP-TIES ARE IN Pubdate: Fri, 03 Aug 2007 Source: Willits News (CA) Author: Mike A'Dair, TWN Staff Writer Cited: Sheriff Tom Allman http://www.co.mendocino.ca.us/sheriff/ The zip-ties are in. So says Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman. The zip-ties are an effort by Allman to reduce the element of fraud in the medical marijuana industry. Allman said that the zip ties are available at the sheriff's offices in Ukiah, Fort Bragg and Willits. This year the cost will be zero, according to Allman, but next year Allman hopes to sell the ties at $25 apiece. Each tie has a serial number blazoned onto the plastic; next year the ties may be able to contain a microchip. Allman said that each person who wishes to purchase a zip tie must have a valid state medical marijuana card. [continues 8051 words]
$700 Million Deal Could Help Calderon's Effort WASHINGTON -- Mexican President Felipe Calderon, locked in a bloody confrontation with drug cartels, is negotiating a massive counter-drug aid package with the Bush administration worth hundreds of millions of dollars, several officials say. Officials on both sides are working out the details of a package that resembles a U.S. aid plan for Colombia. The talks have been taking place quietly for several months and will be a central item on the agenda when President Bush and Calderon are expected to meet in Quebec Aug. 20-21. [continues 489 words]
Mexican President Felipe Calderon, locked in a bloody confrontation with drug cartels, is negotiating a counter-drug aid package with the Bush administration worth hundreds of millions of dollars, say several U.S. officials familiar with the discussions. Officials on both sides are working out the details of a package that resembles a similar plan for Colombia. The talks have been taking place quietly for several months and will be a central item on the agenda Aug. 20-21 when President Bush and Calderon are expected to meet in Quebec. [continues 832 words]
Colombia Announced It Will Favor Manual Eradication of Coca Crops Over the Current System, Which Focuses Heavily on Aerial Spraying BOGOTA -- In a major policy shift likely to get both praise and close examination in Washington, Colombia has announced it will favor manual eradication of coca crops over the current system that focuses heavily on aerial fumigation. The iconic image of Colombia's largely U.S.-funded war on drugs may well be a single-engine airplane spraying bright green fields of coca bushes with chemical defoliants -- the country's key strategy since the 1980s. [continues 1092 words]
WASHINGTON -- Mexican President Felipe Calderon, locked in a bloody confrontation with drug cartels, is negotiating a massive counter-drug aid package with the Bush administration worth hundreds of millions of dollars, said several American officials familiar with the talks. Both sides are working out details of a package that resembles a U.S. aid plan for Colombia. The talks have been taking place quietly for several months and will be a central item on the agenda when President Bush and Calderon are expected to meet in Quebec on Aug. 20-21. [continues 544 words]
Re: "Guns at the ready - Colombia's FARC a threat still worth fighting," Monday Editorials. In 2000, the federal government created Plan Colombia that was supposed to halt the flow of heroin and cocaine to the U.S. - all in the teeth of that country's 38-year-old civil war. The plan has cost about $5.4 billion. What did we get? According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, prices did not go up, purity remained high, availability did not diminish and the number of acres of coca being cultivated increased to 144,000. [continues 64 words]
Re: "Guns at the Ready - Colombia's FARC a threat still worth fighting," Monday Editorials. Colombia's civil war is 38 years old; we don't need to be involved. Corporations that sell helicopters and drill for oil benefit from Plan Colombia at the price of human sacrifice. According to Colombians, 12 percent of the acreage that we sprayed was coca and 88 percent food crops. The American Medical Association, at its 2004 convention, said the spraying is causing widespread illnesses, destroying pastures, destroying food crops, poisoning livestock, displacing thousands of small farmers and killing birds, mammals, aquatic life and natural plants. Our government's 2006 survey showed Colombia had 144,000 acres of coca being cultivated - more than when Plan Colombia began. When will we declare our independence from big government's scandalous waste of our precious lives and resources? Colleen Minter McCool, Stephenville [end]
Colombia's FARC A Threat Still Worth Fighting Shortly before the 9/11 attacks, America's biggest declared threat was not the one posed by al-Qaeda but rather by Latin America's oldest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. The war on terrorism has distracted this nation from the war on drugs, which continues to absorb billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars in Colombia. Considering the ongoing carnage in Iraq and Afghanistan, it almost seems quaint to return our attention to that ragtag gang of Marxist leftovers roaming Colombia's countryside. [continues 294 words]
Government Bringing Social Programs to Long-Neglected Regions in Bid to Establish a State Presence SAN VICENTE DEL CAGUAN, Colombia -- Marxist rebels once ran a visitors center in this town in southern Colombia, the office staffed by a young, amiable female guerrilla and the walls decorated with huge posters of famed fighters. Rebels ran a court, built bridges and taxed locals, including the farmers who grew coca in such abundance that the region became ground zero for the war on drugs. [continues 1228 words]
Uprooting Bushes by Hand Preferred Over U.S.-Funded Aerial Spraying EL MIRADOR, Colombia -- The latest shift in Colombia's war on drugs is evident on a green hilltop in this town, as weather-beaten men in gray jumpsuits -- government-paid eradicators -- use hoes and muscle to rip out bushes of coca. Policemen carrying M-16 assault rifles and land-mine detectors stand sentry, while a radio operator listens in on the crackling conversation between two Marxist guerrilla units. The operation here in the southern state of Caqueta is tedious, hard and dangerous, since destroying coca is a financial blow to the guerrillas, who draw much of their funding from the crop that is used to make cocaine. But Colombian officials say uprooting by hand is the future -- a strategy at odds with U.S. reliance on aerial fumigation. [continues 1206 words]
(1) NATION'S POT PENALTIES CALLED A HODGEPODGE Pubdate: Thu, 05 Jul 2007 Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA) Copyright: 2007 Hearst Communications Inc. Author: Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer Smoke a joint in Alabama or Oregon, and you can permanently lose the right to adopt a child. Smoke one in Oklahoma, and you're ineligible ever to be a foster parent. Light up in Utah, and get a lifelong eviction notice from public housing. Grow a marijuana plant in any one of a dozen states, including California, and you're permanently barred from receiving welfare or food stamps. [continues 7181 words]
Critics And Farmers Say Old Approaches Aren't Working In Colombia. TENCHE, Colombia -- Numar Tirado used to make money on the side growing coca bushes, the notorious plant whose leaves make cocaine. But the dairy farmer stopped two years ago after a U.S.-financed aerial spraying campaign reached this remote corner of the Andean foothills, turning hillsides into withered gray-brown dead zones. Tirado went back to legal, but less profitable, farming. He invested in some more cattle and planted new pasture. [continues 1796 words]
How to make enemies, squander billions and accomplish nothing: That's a U.S. program called Plan Colombia. Its central idea is to slow the flow of cocaine into the nostrils of American night-clubbers by poisoning crops in the Andes. Five billion wasted dollars later, cocaine surges cheaper and purer into our cities and suburbs. Since 2000, Plan Colombia has sprayed an area the size of Delaware and Rhode Island. Meanwhile, Colombia's coca acreage rose 9 percent last year. [continues 555 words]
HOW to make enemies, squander billions and accomplish nothing: That's a U.S. program called Plan Colombia. Its central idea is to slow the flow of cocaine into the nostrils of American night-clubbers by poisoning crops in the Andes. Five billion wasted dollars later, cocaine surges cheaper and purer into our cities and suburbs. Since 2000, Plan Colombia has sprayed an area the size of Delaware and Rhode Island. Meanwhile, Colombia's coca acreage rose 9 percent last year. [continues 567 words]
Domestic News- Policy COMMENT: (5-9) If you've ever been curious about Salvia divinorum, the time for ingesting it legally is nearing an end. Four states have already banned it and Wisconsin now joins 7 other states with pending legislation. The Atlantic Monthly published a fairly extensive review of Plan Colombia beginning with the 15 and 20 ton recent cocaine busts. After 7 years and 5 billion dollars, cocaine production has not decreased and U.S. street prices have dropped from the 1980's $600 grams to 2007 $50 grams. [continues 6639 words]
SAN FRANCISCO - A little green leaf is causing big changes in Latin America. To the U.S. government, the coca leaf is the central ingredient in cocaine, a dangerous and profitable drug that needs to be eradicated at its source: the coca fields of South America. But to many Latin American indigenous people, the coca leaf is a medicine which they say should not only be allowed for traditional use, but rather promoted on the international market for its curative benefits. [continues 643 words]
America's biggest drug-financed military problem used to be 3,000 miles away in Colombia. It's now standing at our doorstep in Mexico. Mexico's estimated 2,000 Zeta paramilitary enforcers have reached such a level of supremacy that they no longer answer to their former bosses in the Gulf drug cartel. They are growing in number, firepower and the ability to self-finance with heroin and cocaine profits. Now comes the shadowy new militia known as La Gente Nueva, or the New People, funded by a rival Mexican cartel to avenge the Zetas' murder spree. [continues 270 words]
IN 1999, Washington launched "Plan Colombia," with the promise that the anti-drug program would halve Colombian cocaine production. The law of unintended consequences rules in this drug war. Plan Colombia has not delivered. U.S. crop dusters have sprayed an area the size of Delaware and Rhode Island. U.S. taxpayers have forked over some $4.7 billion. Yet cocaine is abundant and cheap on the streets of America. As Ken Dermota wrote in the July/August issue of the Atlantic, the price of a gram of cocaine in Los Angeles fell from $50 to $100 per gram in 1999 to $30-$50 in 2005. Prices are down in New York, Seattle and Atlanta. White House Drug Czar John Walters recently admitted that street cocaine prices fell by 11 percent from February 2005 to October 2006. [continues 577 words]
With Signs That His Country Is Losing Its War On Drugs, Democrats Plan To Shift Aid Away From Military And Toward Humanitarian Programs WASHINGTON -- President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia, in Washington yet again to lobby for trade and aid, will be greeted by Democrats planning a dramatic change in U.S. support for the South American nation -- away from military and anti-drug efforts and toward development and human rights projects. Earlier this week, a House Appropriations subcommittee drafting the foreign aid budget cut Colombia's overall aid package by 10 percent, from $590 million to about $530 million. [continues 899 words]
The World In Numbers Attacking Cocaine at Its Source Was Meant to Drive Up Prices, Yet U.S. Street Dealers Are Selling It for Less Than Ever. If the four-year slog in Iraq seems endless, consider this: The "war on drugs," begun by Richard Nixon, escalated under Ronald Reagan, and continued by every president since, is now in its 37th year. In this long struggle, the past few months have been especially fruitful. In March, the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted a freighter off Panama laden with 20 tons of cocaine, in the largest maritime bust ever. That was followed in April by Colombian authorities' seizure of a 15-ton cache most likely awaiting shipment to Mexico. [continues 851 words]
Uribe Administration, Seeking U.S. Trade Pact, Lobbies Hard to Overcome Scandal Allegations WASHINGTON -- To win approval of a new trade pact, Colombia is putting together a richly financed lobbying campaign piloted by ex-Clinton White House officials, complete with advertisements, a rapid-response media team and regular visits by Colombian bigwigs to Congress. The necessity and breadth of such a campaign demonstrates just how far Colombia has fallen politically in Washington. For years, the Andean nation was considered a model ally that battled guerillas and narcotraffickers and embraced free-market policies, unlike Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who mocked President Bush and boasted of creating "21st-century socialism." But since Democrats took control of Congress this year, the focus has shifted to a deepening scandal in Colombia, where government officials have been accused of working with right-wing paramilitary leaders who have murdered hundreds of union members and other political foes. [continues 1121 words]
Re John Negroponte's May 22 Other Views article, Helping Colombia is in our national interest: Negroponte wants to keep pumping in $15 million a week to fund military drug enforcement. The results? Cheap cocaine on our streets, traffickers pushed from Colombia to destabilized neighbors, twisted paramilitary pay-offs and corruption in counter-narcotics programs. Since 2000, we've spent billions of dollars in Colombia through Plan Colombia. The only thing we've bought besides 475 extradited drug traffickers is a military presence next to Venezuela. [continues 92 words]
A Paramilitary Boss' Testimony Underscores Militias' Grip on Political and Business Life in the Nation. SINCELEJO, COLOMBIA -- This is the chronicle of a death foretold. Mayor Eudaldo "Tito" Diaz knew he was a marked man. He had resisted right-wing paramilitary fighters in El Roble, a town in the northern state of Sucre, and the assassins had him in their sights. In a town hall meeting, he confronted Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, grabbing the microphone and warning that he was going to be killed. [continues 1053 words]
America has spent billions battling the drug industry in Bolivia, Colombia and Peru. And the result? Production as high as ever, street prices at a low, and the governments of the region in open revolt. The immensely costly "war on drugs" in Latin America is slowly collapsing like a Zeppelin with a puncture. The long-forecast failure for strategies which involve police and military in forcibly suppressing narcotics - first decreed by President Richard Nixon decades ago - is now pitifully evident in Bolivia, one of the poorest countries of the Western hemisphere. [continues 1551 words]
A decade ago, Colombia teetered on the brink of disintegration. Terrorist groups were taking thousands of citizens hostage. Unfettered drug trafficking was threatening core institutions and the basic cohesion of the state. As I saw first-hand earlier this month on a visit to Colombia, the picture today is strikingly different: A democratically elected government is making great strides in curbing violence and drug trafficking. It has restored the integrity of the state and taken the fight to the terrorists and traffickers themselves. Colombia's rebirth is one of Latin America's success stories. [continues 648 words]
A Politician Says That If the U.S. Doesn't Pass a Free-Trade Agreement, His Country Could Be Forced to Withdraw. BOGOTA, COLOMBIA -- A prominent politician closely allied with President Alvaro Uribe said his nation should pull out of a U.S.-financed effort to fight drug trafficking and terrorism if the American Congress does not pass a free-trade agreement with his country. Sen. Carlos Garcia, a presidential aspirant and leader of the largest bloc in Colombia's Congress, said Monday in an interview that the failure to pass the trade accord could force the government to withdraw from Plan Colombia, which has cost the United States about $5 billion over seven years. [continues 705 words]
The Current And Former Officials Are Suspected Of Signing A 'Devil's Pact' With Paramilitaries BOGOTA, COLOMBIA -- The Colombian government ordered the arrest of 19 current and former officials Monday who are accused of signing a 2001 "devil's pact" with outlawed paramilitary groups in which they promised to work together to "re-found Colombia." The orders represent the government's biggest move yet to bring to justice politicians it alleges were complicit with the right-wing militias in Colombia's decades-long civil war. Farmers and businessmen formed the militias for self-defense against leftist guerrillas in the 1980s, but many of the groups evolved into mafias engaged in killings, drug trafficking, extortion, land grabs and election fraud. [continues 492 words]
ISSUE: Global Effort Losing Ground. In Europe, the appetite for cocaine is so powerful, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's chief likened it to the 1980s cocaine craze in America. Africa's porous borders and weak police presence have made it a tempting hub for Colombian cocaine cartels moving drugs into the expanding European market. And Afghanistan's hefty opium poppy production hit a record high last year. If you thought the global war on terrorism was tough, the war on drugs is next to impossible. [continues 254 words]
Figures for Last Year Show That Cocaine Is Cheaper, Purer and Widely Available. MEXICO CITY -- The United States and its Latin American allies are losing a major battle in the war on drugs, according to indicators that show cocaine prices dipped for most of 2006 and U.S. users were getting more bang for their buck. Despite billions of dollars in U.S. antidrug spending and record seizures, statistics recently released by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy suggest that cocaine is as available as ever. [continues 708 words]
BOGOTA, Colombia -- The street price of cocaine fell in the United States last year as purity rose, the White House drug czar said in a private letter to a senator, indicating increasing supply and seemingly contradicting U.S. claims that $4 billion in aid to Colombia is stemming the flow. The drug czar, John Walters, wrote that retail cocaine prices fell by 11 percent from February 2005 to October 2006, to about $135 per gram of pure cocaine -- hovering near the same levels since the early 1990s. In 1981, when the U.S. government began collecting data, a gram of pure cocaine fetched $600. [continues 553 words]
Letter to Senator Billions Spent to Fight It, but Colombian Drug's Purity Higher, He Says BOGOTA, Colombia -- Cocaine prices in the United States have dropped and the drug's purity increased, despite years of effort and nearly $5 billion spent by the U.S. government to combat Colombia's drug industry, the White House drug czar acknowledged in a letter to a key senator. The drug czar, John Walters, wrote Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, that retail cocaine prices fell by 11 percent from February 2005 to October 2006, to about $135 per gram of pure cocaine -- hovering near the same levels since the early 1990s. In 1981, when the U.S. government began collecting data, a gram of pure cocaine fetched $600. [continues 319 words]
BOGOTA - Cocaine prices in the United States have dropped and the drug's purity increased, despite years of effort and nearly $5 billion spent by the U.S. government to combat Colombia's drug industry, the White House drug czar acknowledged in a letter to a key senator. Drug Control Policy director John Walters wrote Republican Senator Charles Grassley that retail cocaine prices fell by 11 per cent from February 2005 to October 2006, to about $135 U.S. per gram of pure cocaine -- hovering near the same levels since the early 1990s. [continues 179 words]
BOGOTA, Colombia: The street price of cocaine fell in the United States last year as purity rose, the White House drug czar said in a private letter to a key senator, indicating increasing supply and seemingly contradicting U.S. claims that US$4 billion (€2.9 billion) in aid to Colombia is stemming the flow. The drug czar, John Walters, wrote that retail cocaine prices fell by 11 percent from February 2005 to October 2006, to about US$135 (€99) per gram of pure cocaine. That's way below the US$600 a gram pure cocaine fetched in 1981, when the U.S. government began collecting data, and near the level it has been at since the early 1990s. [continues 520 words]
"Your tax dollars at work." Remember those road signs that mark road construction projects in an attempt to show taxpayers that they are getting their money's worth? As you are calculating your tax return and perhaps writing checks to the taxman, the state treasury, or your local municipality, we thought we'd pull a few numbers together from our 180,000 article collection about drug policy, and ask this simple question: are you getting your money's worth? While reading this list, please keep three important points important points in mind: [continues 798 words]
Widespread Corruption Led To Nation's Rise As Haven For Traffickers In Colombian Cocaine CARACAS, Venezuela -- The airliner leaving Caracas for Mexico City carried a seemingly conspicuous cargo: one ton of Colombian cocaine stuffed into 25 bulky, nearly identical suitcases. But the smugglers' baggage went untouched by the Venezuelan National Guard and airport police that day in early February. And it may not have been an oversight. Drug traffickers routinely pay a "tax" of $3,000 a kilo to security forces to move cocaine through the terminals at the busy Maiquetia airport and on to global markets, foreign and Venezuelan investigators and experts say. [continues 1061 words]
Guyana has been identified among those countries that serve as an "air bridge" to facilitate the direct flow of cocaine from Colombia to the Caribbean. According to an article in Wednesday's Los Angeles Times, US action to combat the flow of drugs has denied Colombia's traffickers a once thriving route to Central America and Mexico, but a new air bridge linking airports and airstrips in Venezuela, Suriname and Guyana to Hispaniola - the Dominican Republic and Haiti - has been created. Twin-engine Beechcraft King Air business planes are used, since, with the passenger seats removed, they can ferry three-quarters of a ton of cocaine per flight. [continues 796 words]
Colombia Is Making A Significant Shift In Priorities In Its War Against Drugs And Guerrillas, But Critics Wonder If It Will Be Implemented BOGOTA -- With all the hoopla surrounding President Bush's recent visit to Colombia, few seemed to notice the arrival the next day of German President Horst Kohler, on the first visit since 1971 by a German head of state. But Kohler's visit symbolized a tenuous but nevertheless significant European nod of approval for a shift in Colombia's anti-drug policy, criticized here and abroad over the years as being too much military stick and not enough economic carrots. [continues 1020 words]
The Allegations Come As Congress Reviews Aid To The U.S. Ally. The CIA Says The Intelligence Hasn't Been Fully Vetted WASHINGTON -- The CIA has obtained new intelligence alleging that the head of Colombia's U.S.-backed army collaborated extensively with right-wing militias that Washington considers terrorist organizations, including a militia headed by one of the country's leading drug traffickers. Disclosure of the allegation about army chief Gen. Mario Montoya comes as the high level of U.S. support for Colombia's government is under scrutiny by Democrats in Congress. The disclosure could heighten pressure to reduce or redirect that aid because Montoya has been a favorite of the Pentagon and an important partner in the U.S.-funded counterinsurgency strategy called Plan Colombia. The $700 million a year Colombia receives makes it the third-largest beneficiary of U.S. foreign assistance. [continues 1550 words]
It Has Become A Major Transit Point For Colombian Cocaine Bound For Central America And Mexico, Authorities Say. CARACAS, VENEZUELA -- The airliner leaving Caracas for Mexico City carried a seemingly conspicuous cargo: one ton of Colombian cocaine stuffed into 25 bulky, nearly identical suitcases. But the smugglers' baggage went untouched by the Venezuelan National Guard and airport police that day in early February. And it may not have been an oversight. Drug traffickers routinely pay a "tax" of nearly $1,400 a pound to security forces to move cocaine through the terminals at the busy Maiquetia airport and on to global markets, foreign and Venezuelan investigators and experts say. [continues 1107 words]
Why Finance More Drug War Failures? Two days after President Bush promised $3.7 billion more in aid to fight cocaine trafficking in Colombia, Sacramento police and federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents announced the largest crack cocaine bust in the city's history. Police seized seven pounds of crack and two pounds of pure cocaine Tuesday. The drugs' estimated street value was a modest $375,000. The juxtaposition of the two events, the president's promise of yet more aid for drug fighting in Colombia and the record cocaine seizure in Sacramento, is instructive. Over the last seven years, U.S. taxpayers have spent $4.7 billion to finance Plan Colombia, under which the Colombian government sprayed millions of acres with herbicides to eradicate coca fields and launched military offensives against guerrillas. It has had minimal impact on the availability or price of cocaine in the United States. [continues 283 words]
President Bush just snuck back into the White House after conducting a five country tour of Latin America. One of the main points on his agenda was to court its leaders into following the United States in their traditional drug prohibition strategies. In Bogota, Colombia, he was greeted by protestors who were not impressed with the $700 million in aid to combat drug trafficking through Plan Colombia. Despite Bush's monetary incentives, elected officials up and down the Americas are looking at the violence in the streets and are beginning to question the failed U.S. drug prohibition model. The latest voice to join the choir was Rio de Janeiro's governor, Sergio Cabral, who on February 23 called for legalizing drugs as a strategy to fight the ongoing drug-related gang violence that is devastating his state. He expressed hopes that this new approach would reduce the violent crime caused primarily by drug prohibition and the illicit markets it spawns. [continues 312 words]
Amid Tight Security, He And Colombian Leader Vow To Fight Traffickers BOGOTA, Colombia - Amid tight security, the presidents of the United States and Colombia vowed an ongoing alliance to fight the drug trade and the rebel groups that feed off it. "This country has come through some very difficult times," President Bush said at the side of President Alvaro Uribe, a close ally whose country receives more U.S. aid than any outside the Middle East. "I'm looking forward very much to ... continuing to work with you to defeat the drug lords and narco-traffickers - the narco-terrorists." Mr. Bush has proposed about $700 million in direct annual aid on top of the $4 billion Colombia has received since Mr. Uribe took office in 2002. The Colombian leader prodded Mr. Bush for even more, saying U.S. support has helped curb crime, corruption and the drug trade and weakened left-wing guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries. [continues 452 words]