DRUGS AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION
'White lies' about the drug war in Colombia
By
Deirdre Griswold
There is dramatic news on the drug front, but it's not
exactly what the Pentagon wanted to see in print. The wife of
the U.S. Army colonel in charge of the Pentagon's "war on
drugs" in Colombia has been charged with shipping cocaine to
the United States.
"Laurie Hiett, wife of Army Col. James Hiett, was charged in
June with conspiracy to distribute narcotics after the U.S.
Customs service found parcels containing cocaine ... that
carried Mrs. Hiett's name," reported Associated Press military
writer Robert Burns on Aug. 6.
Colonel Hiett worked out of the U.S. Embassy in Bogota and
"was in charge of all U.S. military activities in Colombia,
including counter-drug operations," Southern Command
spokesperson Col. Ron Williams admitted to the reporter. The
Hietts must have thought this made them untouchable.
A few years ago, Gen. Ramon Guillen Davila, "one of the
CIA's most trusted sources in Venezuela," was charged in a
sealed indictment with smuggling up to 22 tons of cocaine into
the U.S., according to the Nov. 23, 1996, Miami Herald.
Tons? Yes, tons.
From Korea to Vietnam
to Colombia
The involvement of the CIA and other U.S. agencies in the
drug trade has been detailed in many books and articles,
including the recent "Whiteout" by Alexander Cockburn, "Dark
Alliance" by Gary Webb, "The Politics of Heroin" by Alfred W.
McCoy, and "Cocaine Politics" by Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan
Marshall.
Those who remember the Vietnam War know that the CIA, with
all its protective secrecy, became deeply involved in the
heroin trade during that conflict, as detailed in the book "The
Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia."
An informative piece in the Dec. 3, 1993, International
Herald Tribune by Larry Collins, author of the book "Black
Eagles" about the CIA, cocaine traffic and Central America said
that "CIA ties to international drug trafficking date to the
Korean War."
The agency gave weapons to warlords thrown out of
revolutionary China in exchange for information about Chinese
support for north Korea. "Soon intelligence began to flow to
Washington from the area, which became known as the Golden
Triangle. So, too, did heroin, en route to Southeast Asia and
often to the United States."
The involvement of the CIA and the U.S. military in the drug
trade was briefly in the spotlight again when the intricate
plot by Col. Oliver North to finance the contras in Nicaragua
through an arms trade with Iran made the news. North claimed
not to know about the dirty dealings generated from his office
in the basement of the Reagan White House, but it seems that
plenty of people in Los Angeles knew that the cocaine flooding
into their city was coming from the Nicaraguan contras, with
CIA help.
It is well documented that the Taliban of Afghanistan have a
multimillion-dollar opium and heroin operation. These thugs,
who were nothing more than mercenaries for the feudal landlords
uprooted by the Afghan Revolution, rose to power in a vicious
war paid for by U.S. taxpayers and organized by the
Pentagon.
The KLA paramilitary group that has just been installed by
NATO decree as the civil authority in Kosovo is linked to
organized crime and the drug trade in Western Europe. Evidence
of the KLA-drug connection was presented at the July 31
Independent Commission of Inquiry to Investigate U.S./NATO War
Crimes Against the People of Yugoslavia, held in New York.
McCaffrey and counter-revolution
Everywhere U.S. super-secret agencies have been involved in
counter-revolution, it seems, they have also been involved in
using drug trafficking to generate funds for their
"assets"--and for themselves, too, on the side.
But Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey must think that the public's
memory is short.
McCaffrey is director of the Office of National Drug Control
Policy and he has called for stepping up the "war on drugs" in
Latin America.
The general--whose appointment in 1996 was a major stride in
militarizing what is basically a public health problem--has
requested another $1 billion to stop the advances of the
revolutionary guerrilla army in Colombia, whom he calls
"narco-terrorists." This money will go for special
forces--highly trained killers--and more high-tech planes and
helicopters.
Meanwhile, drug treatment facilities here--the most
economical and effective way to deal with addiction--are going
begging for funds.
McCaffrey may not know much about public health, but he
knows what war and counter-revolution are all about. He's a
veteran of Vietnam. He also commanded a division in "Operation
Desert Storm." He was commander in chief of the U.S. Southern
Command from February 1994 until Clinton named him "drug czar"
two years later.
McCaffrey calls the revolutionaries in Colombia
"narco-terrorists." This is the phrase Washington has invented
for the popular revolutionary army that has been fighting
against the Colombian ruling class for the last 30 years.
The "war on drugs" that the U.S. government has launched
against the revolutionary movement in Colombia is bound to
fail. It will not reduce drug addiction in the United States
and it will not turn back the international drug trade. In
fact, stopping the flow of drugs to the U.S. has nothing to do
with this war.
The "drug war" is nothing but a cover for an all-out
military attempt to keep Colombia and neighboring countries in
Latin America in the orbit of U.S. transnational corporations.
This means propping up a corrupt and brutal ruling class
there--that is, the same social grouping that owes much of its
wealth to the cocaine trade.
Progressives have argued for decades that the drug trade is
a product of capitalism. It is nothing more than an extreme
form of profiteering--one that ranks along with arms sales,
prostitution and slavery in directly profiting off of human
misery and degradation.
It attracts capital the way any for-profit business does--by
promising a generous return on the investment.
The profits grow directly with the risks involved--so
criminalizing and even militarizing the problem just make the
trade more lucrative. Prohibition in the same way led to the
growth of organized crime and vast fortunes for the most
successful bootleggers. The Kennedy millions originated in the
illegal liquor trade.
Narcotics have grown into a huge industry that relies not
only on the desperado characters portrayed in movies but, even
more importantly, on the prosaic administrators and managers of
"legal" businesses like banks and brokerage houses. They
launder the hundreds of billions that are made in drug
profits.
Banks and money laundering
Back on Oct. 5, 1989, a New York Times report on the
testimony of Assistant Treasury Secretary Salvatore R. Martoche
to the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and
International Operations said the Bush administration official
admitted that U.S. banks were laundering the enormous sum of
$110 billion a year in drug money.
Just this July 27, the New York Times referred to an ongoing
investigation of Citibank's "private banking" practices. You
won't find the word "drugs" or even "controlled substances" in
the article, which lumps together private accounts the bank has
set up for a number of wealthy people. But in at least one of
the cases mentioned--an offshore account Citibank set up for
Raul Salinas--the laundering of drug money is what it's all
about.
A report posted last Oct. 30 (titled GAO/OSI-99-1) on the
web site of the General Accounting Office goes into quite a bit
of detail on Citibank's relations with Salinas, brother of the
former president of Mexico--who got elected with U.S. support
and then returned the favor for U.S. big business by signing
the NAFTA trade agreement.
Any worker who has ever tried to open a checking account
with the bank will be shocked at the special treatment accorded
Salinas. At a time when he was in prison on a murder charge,
Citibank opened an account for him in the name of his
fiancé. It accepted a double-endorsed check that wasn't
even made out to her real name.
Had the check been for $100, the bank would have told her to
take a hike. But the checks she used to open the account added
up to $100 million. So she got special treatment--from
Citibank's offices in Mexico City, New York, Zurich and
London--and was able to open an offshore account in the Cayman
Islands.
The GAO report on this matter refers to other cases of bank
money laundering. In a 1994 case against two employees of
American Express Bank, the largest monetary penalty ever
imposed--$35 million--was levied against the bank.
Yet this is just the tip of the iceberg. The truth is that
with an industry as large as drugs, all kinds of financial
institutions are part of the profit-making network.
Special Agent Harold D. Wankel of the Drug Enforcement
Administration told the House Banking and Financial Committee
on Feb. 28, 1996, that "Drug trafficking is a
multibillion-dollar cash business, and drug money is essential
to these enterprises. Without it, they cannot finance the
manufacturing, the transportation and the smuggling, the
distribution, the murder and the intimidation that are
essential to their illegal trade. Drug money laundering
organizations are established to ensure the cash flow to these
illegal businesses.
"Profits from the sale of illegal drugs are recycled through
laundered investments, which take place across many
borders--and often involve international financial
institutions--banks and money exchange houses. With today's
sophisticated banking techniques, including the electronic
transfer of money, once the money enters into the banking
system, it can be transferred among dozens of banks within a
24-hour period, making the paper trail either impossible or
extremely time-consuming to follow. Globalization of the drug
trade has necessitated an expansion and sophistication of the
laundering of illegal drug profits."
But you'll never see SWAT teams breaking into the offices of
these white-collar dope pushers and slamming them against the
wall on the nightly news. That kind of treatment is reserved
for the street dealers who take all the risks and get peanuts
compared to the big criminals.
Demonization of FARC
The U.S. government has tried to portray the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP) as "narco-guerrillas"
because, it says, there are coca-growing peasants living in the
areas controlled by the rebel force, and they are "taxed" by
the guerrillas.
These peasants, like poor farmers everywhere, get very
little for what they grow. They are not the kingpins of the
drug industry.
The FARC is a Marxist organization that intends to
completely revamp Colombian society along socialist lines. The
real drug lords fear this most of all, because they know that
when the economy is socially owned and producing to satisfy
people's needs, not to generate a profit for private owners,
then they will be washed up.
Just look at Russia today for proof of this statement. When
the Soviet Union existed, there was virtually no drug problem
there. Now that capitalism has been restored, organized crime,
drug addiction, violence and prostitution are rampant and
Russian mobsters have become part of an international
underworld.
China, too, needed a revolution to get rid of the opium
habit that had been forced on it by the British during the
Opium Wars.
The answer to the drug problem is not McCaffrey's war in
Latin America. It is victory for progressive movements like the
FARC that are fighting to overturn capitalism's poisonous
influence on human society. And that goes for here, too.
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