EDITORIAL Mixed U.S. messages for Latin America
The same week President Clinton kicked soccer balls with Brazilian
children and heralded in Argentina and Chile a new era of democracy, prosperity
and free trade, another U.S. official visited Bolivia and Colombia with a
different mission.
Gen. Barry McCaffrey, head of the Office of National Drug Control
Policy, took a trek to the jungles and capitals of both those countries to
bolster cooperation for the war on drugs.
Prior to the trip, policy analysts in Washington were optimistic
about new language coming from the office of the drug czar. They
said they expected the general, a Vietnam and Persian Gulf War veteran, to
leave behind us vs. them rhetoric and posit responsibility for drug
production and trafficking on both consumer and producing nations.
There was hope, they thought, that U.S. drug policy might
seriously address the poverty, economic inequality and racism that fuels drug
production and consumption at home and abroad.
Such a move might have signaled an important shift in U.S.
antinarcotics policy from a top-heavy law enforcement and military approach
described in the Cold Wars end by a commander of the U.S. Southern
Command as the only war weve got. This war on drugs
strategy, despite its $290 billion price tag for U.S. taxpayers, has
failed to curb the flow of drugs.
News reports from Latin America, however, suggest that
McCaffreys visit may further entangle the United States in partnerships
with security forces in both countries, which are already notorious for human
rights abuses.
Most alarming was McCaffreys claim that the United States is
now ready for direct involvement in Colombias 30-year counterinsurgency
war against those who dare to rebel against the Armed Revolutionary Forces of
Colombia -- FARC. He justified such support by claiming that guerrillas profit
from the drug trade.
U.S. aid and training has historically fed the brutal
counterinsurgency and paramilitary efforts of the Colombian army; but in the
past decade, the professed purpose of security assistance has been
antinarcotics efforts.
Both Congress and the State Department have expressed concern over
direct aid to the militarys anti-guerrilla cause because of human rights
atrocities and the spread of paramilitary groups.
The line between counternarcotics and counterinsurgency
assistance in Colombia is no longer blurry, but has been erased, Coletta
Youngers, a senior associate at the Washington Office on Latin America, said
after McCaffreys visit.
Youngers said that McCaffreys original discourse was good,
but the actions are troubling. It would be disastrous,
Youngers said, for the United States to become more involved in Colombias
counterinsurgency efforts.
Its clear this conflict is only going to be settled
through negotiations, she said.
Ditto for Bolivia. The United States has given President Hugo
Banzer orders to raze 7,000 hectares of coca plants from the Chapare jungle or
risk decertification as a worthy partner in the drug war -- a move
that would have devastating economic consequences.
Banzer is rushing to quash coca, but risking democracy in the
process. He said at a recent conference in Miami that if peasants who cultivate
coca leaf do not rip out their crops voluntarily, we will do a forced
eradication with the police.
Youngers said it is Bolivian peasants who will suffer. Every
time the Bolivian government steps up eradication efforts, violent
confrontations ensue between coca growers defending their economic livelihood
and the Bolivian anti-narcotics police. Inevitably, abuses occur.
While no one can argue against the value of eradicating a drug
source, the question of livelihood is central to the issue. What replaces the
coca? Bullying peasants may get rid of some of the crop for a short time. But
the military solution inevitably falls short.
As one Colombian bishop put it, People fear that if they
stop growing coca they will die of hunger.
Like the recent lifting by President Clinton of the ban on sales
of advanced weaponry to Latin America, the strategies supported by McCaffrey
bode well for the Pentagon and the arms industry. But they threaten the
new world in the making so cheerfully touted by the soccer-playing
Clinton in the barrios.
National Catholic Reporter, October 31,
1997
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