There was little surprising about last week’s indictment of fifty FARC leaders for drug trafficking. It is not news that the FARC raises much of its funds by processing and transshipping cocaine, and that many of its top leaders have played a role in it, or at least explicitly approved it. If you don’t understand that much of the fighting in Colombia lately has been concentrated in drug-producing areas and drug-trafficking corridors, then you don’t understand Colombia’s conflict.
So it’s not surprising that the U.S. government would eventually get around to indicting more than the handful of FARC leaders already accused of sending cocaine to U.S. shores. As in the case of paramilitary leaders who face similar indictments and extradition requests, the argument can be made that these individuals conspired to violate U.S. law on U.S. soil.
Some elements of the indictment were surprising, though.
- The allegation that the FARC now controls 50 percent of the drug trade, and 60 percent of drugs entering the United States, was brand-new. Even the Colombian military has never publicly used such a large figure. U.S. Ambassador William Wood said in 2004 (cited in this ICG report) that the AUC controlled 40 percent of the drug trade. Does this mean that the FARC has since increased its share at the paramilitaries’ expense? What about the hundreds of smaller drug organizations, sometimes called cartelitos, that continue to traffic drugs independently of armed groups?
- Also new was the allegation that the FARC has made $25 billion from cocaine trafficking in the United States alone, nearly all of it in the past ten to fifteen years. (DEA Administrator Karen Tandy said, “Americans are responsible for giving the FARC their lifeblood to the amount of $25 billion for 2,500 metric tons of cocaine.â€) This would place the guerrillas’ annual income at $2 billion to $2.5 billion per year, plus whatever they gain from cocaine sent to other countries, plus whatever they make through kidnapping and extortion. This blows away all previous estimates of the FARC’s annual income (such as this one, this one, this one and this one), which were usually within the $200 to $600 million per year range, with only outliers estimating it at as high as a billion dollars. Tandy’s estimate of 2,500 tons of cocaine was also new; if accurate, it would represent over 160 tons of cocaine per year over the past fifteen years, or somewhere between one-quarter and one-half of all cocaine sent to the United States during that period. That sounds rather high.
- Also surprising, of course, was the decision to include 50 individuals in the indictment, including the entire FARC leadership. Though it’s entirely possible that the entire FARC Secretariat and Estado Mayor has had a hand in the drug trade, it’s surprising that the Justice Department believes it has evidence pointing to this many individuals’ specific involvement in shipments of drugs to the United States. It could be that merely holding a leadership position in the FARC is being considered evidence enough of responsibility for narcotrafficking; if so, however, a similar standard has not been applied to paramilitary leaders, whose indictments have proceeded on a case-by-case basis.
Despite these new allegations, there is no reason to expect the indictment to make much difference. Don’t expect a wave of extradited FARC leaders coming to the United States. Of the fifty individuals listed, forty-seven are still at large. The three in Colombian government custody – including one who was captured last year in Venezuela and extradited by the Chávez government – are relatively low-ranking.
In order to extradite the “big fish†and the others on the list of forty-seven wanted individuals, one must catch them first. That will be exceedingly difficult: to apprehend the FARC’s top leadership would require a massive, complex and expensive intelligence operation, involving sophisticated technology and generous incentives to informants. Yet, other than an offer of reward money, the indictment came with no announcement of increased funding to locate and arrest wanted guerrilla leaders.
Mark Bowden’s 2001 book Killing Pablo noted that, during the 1992-93 manhunt for drug boss Pablo Escobar, “there were so many American spy planes over MedellÃn, at one point 17 at once, that the Air Force had to assign an airborne command and control center to keep track of them.†That manhunt, including a special unit (“Bloque de Búsquedaâ€) and an aerial intelligence operation (“Centra Spikeâ€), was a huge effort to capture a target who mainly kept to an urban setting, MedellÃn and its suburbs, protected by bodyguards and bribes. By contrast, the FARC’s “fugitives†move throughout Colombia’s vast jungle, command armies and are protected by rings of security.
Such an ambitious manhunt would be difficult and expensive – and to be credible it would also have to target indicted “former†paramilitary leaders who are still involved in the drug trade. Unless the U.S. or Colombian governments are about to assume the large expense that this would require – which doesn’t appear to be the case – last week’s indictment is just a piece of paper.
The indictment would also become worthless should the FARC ever agree to negotiate with the Colombian government at some point in the future. As the paramilitary talks have shown us, the “Justice and Peace†law will shield a group’s leaders from extradition – even if these leaders include narcotraffickers with little or no experience as members of an armed group, and even if the leaders’ organization has not truly dismantled itself and continues to traffic drugs even today.
So if it is neither surprising nor likely to lead to extraditions, why did the U.S. government choose to issue this indictment now? A few reasons come to mind.
- It offers a low-cost way – without increasing the U.S. financial or military commitment – to declare that the Bush administration now considers the FARC to be its main target in Colombia.
- It offers a low-cost way – without facing charges of electioneering – to support President Uribe as he heads for re-election, endorsing his hard line against the guerrillas.
- By referring to the group as the “Farc Drug Cartel,†it strikes a blow against the FARC’s claims to status as a political organization or a belligerent party in Colombia’s conflict.
- It offers a distraction from coming bad news on coca cultivation in Colombia. We expect the Bush administration to be forced to announce in April that coca did not decrease in 2005, for the second year in a row.
- It offers a distraction from the very bad news coming from the paramilitary demobilization process, including evidence that groups have not fully demobilized, that some groups’ members are re-arming, and that nearly all demobilized paramilitary members are still unemployed. The OAS mission’s March 1 report [MS Word (.doc) format] on the demobilization process offers numerous reasons to be very alarmed about where it is headed.
Finally, here are four pieces of advice, lest U.S. officials really believe that their indictment signals “the beginning of the end of the FARC,†in DEA Administrator Karen Tandy’s tough-sounding words.
1. Don’t forget about the “former†paramilitaries. It was very disturbing that none of the officials at last Wednesday’s press conference even mentioned the words “paramilitary,†“self-defense group†or “AUC.†(When asked about paramilitary drug traffickers, Attorney-General Gonzales ducked the question.) This left the impression that the U.S. focus is now entirely on the FARC, and not on the dozen or so indicted paramilitary leaders who now need not fear extradition because they have “demobilized†from the AUC.
In fact, the at-large paramilitary leaders should be an even greater concern. There is no evidence that top paramilitaries have in fact pulled out of the drug trade. In fact, since the current demobilization process is unlikely to dismantle AUC leaders’ criminal networks, they could well be sending cocaine to U.S. shores right now. Yet while the Colombian authorities are presumably doing all they can to capture FARC leaders, very little effort is being made to monitor, much less capture, paramilitary leaders who may still be exporting drugs.
2. Don’t confuse the FARC with a cartel. The “decapitation†methods used to take down the MedellÃn and Cali drug cartels – arrest top leaders and watch the organization disintegrate – will not work against the FARC. Instead of a mafia led by a few individuals who use most of their gains for personal enrichment, the FARC continues to be a military organization that controls territory and has a (small, perhaps enthusiastic) base of support among the inhabitants of Colombia’s most neglected rural zones. As far as we can tell, the FARC is plowing its drug money back into guns, not swimming pools and Swiss bank accounts.
If top leaders are captured, then, the group’s fragmentation and demise are far from guaranteed. In fact, it can have a galvanizing effect on the organization’s members as mid-level leaders rise to take the captured ones’ place. While calling the FARC a “cartel†may be a useful rhetorical device, it is not a good guide for a strategy. Try to fight the FARC using methods used against cartels, and you’ll lose.
3. You’ll also lose if you think that the FARC is your principal target, as the State Department’s Anne Patterson indicated in this interview with El Tiempo. Yes, the FARC are brutal, abusive, and most Colombians despise them. But a strategy that holds up their defeat as an ultimate goal – most likely through a war of attrition against a guerrilla rank-and-file that is more than half women and/or children – will not end Colombia’s larger problem of endemic violence and ungovernability.
If the FARC disappeared tomorrow, most of Colombia’s populated territory would still be lawless and impoverished, with inhabitants forced to protect themselves against threats to their security. It wouldn’t be long until something came along to take the FARC’s place. The U.S. government’s principal target, then, should not be defeating the FARC. It should be helping Colombia’s government to protect its own citizens from all threats, to win the trust of citizens of long-neglected zones, and to bring the law and civilian governance to thousands of communities that know no state presence. Make progress in those areas, and the FARC will lose both strength and relevance.
4. Remember that if the FARC’s leadership were arrested tomorrow, it wouldn’t affect the flow of cocaine to the United States. It could cause a hiccup in the market, but just as we saw after the demise of the MedellÃn and Cali cartels, the drug trade will easily adjust to new management. Whether the FARC Secretariat ends up behind bars or not, torrents of cocaine will continue to flow northward as long as these other trends continue:
- U.S. demand remains strong, thanks to a population of hard-core addicts with little access to treatment;
- Potential profits remain astronomical, due to the “price support†that our supply-side anti-drug strategy provides;
- The law still fails to reach into much of Colombia’s territory, making the risk of getting caught low enough to tempt new “kingpins†into the drug trade; and
- A lack of rural economic opportunity continues to push poor farmers into growing drug crops.
As long as those problems remain unaddressed, a few dozen indictments against guerrilla leaders who are nowhere near capture is simply, to borrow from Macbeth, “sound and fury, signifying nothing.â€
March 28th, 2006 at 3:03 pm
Excellent post, as usual.
March 29th, 2006 at 12:56 am
I pretty much have to agree. Overall, it’s a great post.
Btw, according to a relatively recent EL TIEMPO article, the new estimates on the FARC’s participation in the drug trade are derived from, among other sources, some 25.000 documents and 5.000 hours of tape recordings, including information and evidence obtained during Plan Patriota.
March 29th, 2006 at 5:02 am
Last week, I read Juan Forero’s article about the 50 FARC in the New-York Times.
I wrote a letter to protest.
This article is the voice of the American government, there is not one word about the AUC, by omission what Juan Forero wrote becomes a big lie.
It seems that he didn’t verify the allegations, what a good journalist should do.
The US strategy in Colombia is based on lies.
The invasion of Irak was also.
The results in both countries are a disaster.
March 29th, 2006 at 12:00 pm
Paquita: I must disagree with your conclusion. While current drug policies are definitely a disaster, Colombia as a whole is at least in somewhat better shape than Irak. The two countries aren’t really that comparable, beyond superficial details. Their problems and their history, past and present, are very different.
March 29th, 2006 at 1:22 pm
I also saw the article in El Tiempo covering the 25,000 documents and 5,000 hours of tapes. I only skimmed it but just a declaration of having documents is not enough to cement these accusations as fact. There have been plenty of instances where documents were had (as was stated), but the documents were fake, or they weren’t real, and it was just used as a justification. The war in Iraq does provide some examples of this (though I’m not commenting about the other two posts). Documents apparently showed an attempted purchase of Uranium by Saddam Hussein from Niger. This document ended up being false. As I see it, one must remain skeptical until an objective analysis or review of the documents are done (at least). Whether this will occur in the upcoming weeks, I don’t know, but we should keep our eyes open. As with the post, pretty much hit the nail on the head.
March 29th, 2006 at 2:35 pm
I enjoyed reading this post. The problem is in the details. It states that the FARC “raises much of it funds by processing and transshipping cocaine . . .” I think it is more accurate to say “. . . from the processing and transhipping of cocaine and heroin. . .” It is like saying the U.S. government finances itself by trafficking weapons and, to a lesser extent, white slavery, which would probably shock you, whereas you wouldn’t have much problem admitting that the U.S. economy benefits from both of these unsavory activities. A recent NPR story on Colombia made, in my opinion, a similar mistake. It openned with words like: “the civil unrest in Colombia has fueled the drug traffic” whereas it would be more accurate to say that the drug traffic has fueled the civil unrest. I hope I don’t sound like a pedantic chicken and egger. As always, in Colombia we must look not just at the forest but also inbetween the trees. I recommend Robin Kirk’s book to gain an insight into the way inwhich U.S. policy has shaped the character of the FARC since 1948.
March 29th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
The Farc controls 50% of the drug trade?
i doubt that. As far i know there, are only about 4 cases of drug trafficking with FARC involvment. The case with Cdte. Sonia, the joint exports to mexico (halcon) with the “mellizos” Mejia-Munera (AUC), the two cases with the 16 front (Surinam, Brasil-Beira Mar). Alone about one paramilitary comander, like “Don Berna” or “los Mellizos” Mejia-Munera, one can find more cases, operations, captures of drugs…
i think these huge nummers (50%, 25bill..) are more PR than facts.
Excuse my poor englisch, i`m no native speaker
March 29th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
Kyle: Yeah, that’s why I’m not defending the exact numbers provided, but the case of the war in Iraq was a little different, because it was intelligence provided through different channels.
Nobody really raided Hussein’s installations and factories in order to find intelligence. It was all pre-war intelligence, mostly indirect stuff because Hussein was still in power and was toying with the inspectors. In that situation, a lot of things were still unknown and it was hard to confirm the validity of many sources until the 2003 invasion occured. The U.S. did have a lot of info, but most of it was indirect and rough, nothing really too concrete.
In the case of Colombia, a war is already going on and a lot of FARC camps and other installations such drug labs, etc. have been raided, especially in recent years, when the Colombian Army has been constantly operating in the south of the country. Given that, it’s reasonable to think that at least some of the info wouldn’t be rough pre-war intel, such as most of what the U.S. thought it had on Irak.
March 30th, 2006 at 6:34 am
Zortea, it is naive to believe that the FARC are involved in drug traffic only anecdotically. FRAC activities and finances are well interleaved with the drugs economy.
March 30th, 2006 at 9:15 am
Is the FARC-EP Dependent on Coca? An Examination of the Insurgency’s Power and the Recent U.S. Indictment against the Leadership
James J. Brittain, University of New Brunswick
R. James Sacouman, Acadia University
Numerous accounts in the popular media, academic journals, or state-based reports have expressed the tactical and military fortitude of the FARC-EP. While some studies have examined the insurgency’s capacity to stave off increased U.S./Colombian counterinsurgency efforts, others have noted the FARC-EP’s ability to expand its geographical area while simultaneously increasing its combatant numbers through recruitment. Within this spectrum of analyses, however, very few studies have quantitatively exposed the US/Colombian state’s assertion of the FARC-EP’s dependency on cocaine or, for that matter, its direct relation to the coca-industry. This excuse, used to implement the U.S./Colombian ‘war on drugs’ via Plan Colombia is, we demonstrate, a lie.
During the Cold War it was well recognized throughout the world that Marxist and Marxist-Leninist based insurgency movements could be partially-sustained through the objective and subjective support of the USSR. However, with the end of both the Cold War and the Soviet bloc, a precipitous and immediate decline of important struggles and revolutionary movements of a classically Marxist orientation were realized, especially within Latin America. Some analysts went so far as to say that “after the fall of the Sandinistas and the Berlin Wall, revolution once again disappeared from the left’s lexicon†(Castañeda, 1994: 68). Within this presumed disappearance, however remained a political-military organization, claiming a Marxist-Leninist ideology and strategy toward revolutionary self-determination of/by/for the working classes and peasant allies within Colombia. The FARC-EP not only survived the Cold War and the failure of Soviet-styled communism, but the guerrilla has grown remarkably in both numerical size and geographical breadth.
Prior explanations of the FARC-EP’s fortitude have not been based on a critical appreciation of the insurgency’s ideological positioning, nor have they been rooted in an analysis of the political economy and the devastating material conditions of the large majority of the rural population. To the contrary, reports have often portrayed that the FARC-EP’s “power is overwhelmingly supported by the cocaine and opium sales from the FARC-controlled territory†(Steinberg, 2000: 264). Upon Plan Colombia’s inception several scholars and many U.S.-state officials claimed that the FARC-EP’s growing strength was hypothetically plausible “as long as their agendas are supported by highly profitable illicit activities … from drug profits and from related kidnapping ransoms†(Steinberg, 2000: 264). Others have expressed a similar position by arguing that the FARC-EP’s past military accomplishments have been proportional to the rise of the coca-industry in areas under the insurgency’s control. Alain Labrousse (2005: 179) wrote that the guerrilla’s most pronounced “successes against the Colombian army between 1996-1998†were solely attributed to “the FARC’s South Bloc, which operates in two of the biggest coca producing departments of Caquetá and Putumayoâ€. To examine if this is accurate, a contemporary analysis of the numbers is necessary.
Since the U.S./Colombian state began the ‘war on drugs’, coca cultivation within FARC-EP extended regions has, in fact, dropped significantly. For instance, the FARC-EP has maintained consistent power and support for over three decades in Putumayo. Of course, Plan Colombia specifically targeted Putumayo based on the reasoning that the vast majority of coca cultivation within the country was produced within this department alone (UNODC, 2005: 15, 28). Within a five year period, coca cultivation showed a precipitous decrease in Putumayo and in all other principal FARC-EP extended regions (such as Caquetá, Cauca, and Guaviare) which once held roughly 95% of the total coca crop cultivation within the country (O’Shaughnessy and Branford, 2005: 32). In 2003 alone, coca cultivation decreased by 21% (Crandall, 2005: 182).
Thus, according to the hegemonic argument linking revolutionary development to narcotics, the FARC-EP must be incredibly weakened by the loss of such an important resource of income. In actuality, however, such a premise is proven to be incorrect. Over the past three year period, the FARC-EP has shown a remarkable increase in both power and recruitment, with major military offenses being realized especially in the past two years (Rangel, 2004). Since February 2005, the FARC-EP has demonstrated a consistent military offense throughout various sectors of the country, especially within the south, all of which have translated into record attacks against state/paramilitary forces (Brittain, 2005; Restrepo and Spagat, 2004). In 2003, FARC-EP attacks increased by 23%; 2004 saw a 101% rise in offensives carried out against government infrastructure and a 21% increase in offensives on private MNCs through attacks carried out on oil pipelines (Fundación Seguridad y Democracia, 2006; Vieira, 2006; Crandall, 2005: 177). Interestingly, it was also during this period that several media outlets released information illustrating that the FARC-EP has been far less involved in narcotic activities than previously suspected (Semana, 2005; Miami Herald, 2005; El Tiempo, 2005).
In our view, the FARC-EP has illustrated an important organizational and objective reality to the extended international community. The entire argument that the FARC-EP revolutionary leadership is dependent on the narcotics industry in order to engage in revolutionary conflict with the Colombian state is drastically incorrect. What has been realized in the past few years, yet strangely ignored, is that the FARC-EP is far less dependent on drugs and/or kidnappings than previous or current claims illustrate. Rather, the strategy and tactics of the FARC-EP, as recognized by James LeMoyne of the UN, are arranged around a revolutionary ideology of worker and peasant self-emancipation. The membership of the FARC-EP understands that it is leading the fight for the exploited and impoverished sectors of the Colombian population (LACIC, 2004; see also Coghlan, 2004: 10; O’Donoghue, 2003). The decline of the narcotic-industry within FARC-EP extended regions has had little affect on the ideological positioning and aptitude of the FARC-EP.
In our view, the FARC-EP is so profoundly consequential precisely because of its Marxist-Leninist organization. It is surely classically M-L for the FARC-EP to support the peasant and semi-proletarian demand to find a way to survive in rural Colombia by allowing and regulating coca production and marketing in its zones of influence while seeking to find alternatives. It is surely classically M-L for the FARC-EP to be at war with the criminal-capitalists of the AUC, with it clearly argues is a fascist Colombian state, and with US imperialism.
This information is important to note when considering the recent indictments brought against the leadership of the FARC-EP by the United States Department of Justice (USDOJ). The USDOJ, without providing any evidence, has stated that the FARC-EP have imported over $25 billion (USD) of drugs to countries throughout the world?! Such a claim leaves two important questions to be answered: 1) How is the United States (DEA, CIA, etc.) and the Colombian state able to intercept or trace (so-called) FARC-EP cocaine when coca-cultivation and processing has significantly dropped within regions under the insurgency’s extension?; and 2) How is the Colombian state so easily able to intercept or trace (so-called) FARC-EP cocaine when the combined arsenal of the Colombian army, the United States (Special Forces, CIA, DIA, DEA etc.), four major private contracting firms, and the entire paramilitary cannot even find the FARC-EP leadership?
In the midst of these indictments against the FARC-EP leadership, over 6+ tons (roughly $1.5 billion) of state/paramilitary AUC cultivated and processed cocaine has been objectively found in the port of Cartagena in the first 100 days of 2006. The authors recognize that it is in the best imperialist and capitalist interests of the United States, the Colombian states, and their AUC partners to work together to distract attention from the real world by laying “the largest narcotics trafficking indictment ever filed in U.S. history†against the FARC-EP. The principal narco-trafficker within Colombia, for the past decade at least, has been the chief partner of the US and the current Colombian state, the state-terrorist AUC. In order to prop up the undemocratic Uribe state and to seek to check if not destroy the advancing socialist revolution, the United States Department of Justice and the U.S. District Court is forced to lie.
Works Cited;
Brittain, James J. (2005) “The FARC-EP in Colombia: A revolutionary exception in an age of imperialist expansion:†Monthly Review 57(4): 20-33.
Crandall, Russell (2005) “From Drugs to Security: A New U.S. Policy Toward Colombia†in The Andes in Focus: Security, Democracy & Economic Reform. Russell Crandall, Guadalupe Paz and Riordan Roett (Eds.) Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. pp. 173-189.
El Tiempo. (2005) “Las cuentas de las FARC†January 31 On-Line http://eltiempo.terra.com.co/coar/NARCOTRAFICO/narcotrafico/ARTICULO-WEB- _NOTA_INTERIOR-1957382.html Accessed February 18, 2005.
Fundación Seguridad y Democracia (2006) Balance de Seguridad 2005. Bogotá, CO: Fundación Seguridad y Democracia.
Latin American & Caribbean Information Center, LACIC (2004) “Latin America’s Oldest Guerrilla Group Celebrates 40th Anniversary†May 26 On-Line http://lacic.fiu.edu/new/lanews_view.cfm?article_id=500 Accessed May 27, 2004.
Leech, Garry M. (2005) “The Success and Failures of President Uribe†November 25 On-Line http://colombiajournal.org/colombia222.htm Accessed November 26, 2005.
Miami Herald. (2005) “Colombia†February 1 On-Line http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/america/10783610.htm Accessed February 18, 2005.
O’ Donoghue, Patrick J. (2003) “ UN Adviser Snubs USA … “FARC is NOT a terrorist group†May 19 On-Line http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=7487 Accessed March 16, 2006.
Rangel Suárez, Alfredo (2004) (Coyuntura de Seguridad – Informe Especial) El Repliegue de Las FARC: ¿Derrota O Estrategia? Bogotá, CO: Fundación Seguridad y Democracia.
Restrepo, Jorge and Michael Spagat (2004) “The Colombian Conflict: Uribe’s First 17 Months†CEPR Discussion Paper 4570.
Scott, Peter Dale (2003) Drugs, Oil, and War: The United States in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Indochina. Boulder, Co: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Semana. (2005) “Las cuentas de las FARC†January 30 On-Line http://semana.terra.com.co/opencms/opencms/Semana/articulo.html?id=84475 Accessed February 18, 2005.
Steinberg, Michael K. (2000) “Generals, Guerrillas, Drugs, and Third World War-Making†Geographical Review 90(2): 260-267.
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes, UNODC (2005) Colombia: Coca Cultivation Survey. Bogotá, Colombia.
Vieira, Constanza (2006) “Colombia: Conflict to Heat Up Ahead of Elections, Says Analyst†January 16 On-line http://ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=31716 Accessed March 15, 2006.
March 30th, 2006 at 11:11 am
To Anonymous:
The attempt by known radical scholars such as James J. Brittain and R. James Sacouman to explain how the FARC could be oh-so-unrelated to the drug trade and still be strong is interesting enough, I’ll give you that, yet it fails to be really convincing. They cherry pick their evidence, only fully achieving their conclusions in a rhetorical manner. In that respect, they are no better than those that they call liars.
Given their ideological preference for the FARC in previous works, it isn’t a surprise that they undermine almost anything that runs contrary to their argument, nor that they seemingly conciously omitt referring to some of the other things contained in the very sources they cite, but which don’t fit their stated view of the FARC.
March 30th, 2006 at 12:51 pm
I didn’t compare Irak and Colombia, You don’t need to tell me that their problems and their history, past and present, are very different. I’m not completely stupid and ignorant.
I just want to say that those two countries are suffering terribly due to strategies based on lies and I don’t say either that the two strategies are the same.
March 30th, 2006 at 12:53 pm
Sorry, I forgot to say that my last post is an answer to JCG.
March 30th, 2006 at 4:18 pm
The growing body of testimony from recently demobilized ex-farianos supports the claims that the FARC has come to depend more and more on narco-trafficking for its finances. But it also supports the idea that this is a development which began relatively recently and in response to increased pressure from the AUC.
The FARC have released documents, held workshops, etc. on the evils of the drug trade and coca production for a long time. Raul Reyes’ message to the 1998 World Social Forum is examplary. The FARC have even designed, proposed, and (perhaps) implemented rural projects with the aim of “eradicating illicit crops from the area” and of “generating alternative sources of income for small producers.” The rhetoric is exactly the same as you’ll find in any USAID terms of reference for a large alternative development project in a coca producing country.
Unfortunately, one doesn’t come across such documents anymore. The last one I know of is dated March 1999. I’ll bet it was about then that the FARC began to shift tactics from a mere tax on coca producers to actually taking control of the farms and value chain.
March 31st, 2006 at 3:22 am
@sergio
i don´t see the FARCs are involved in drug traffic only anecdotically. i´m well aware of their dominant position in coca/cocaine production. But i think their position in drug traffic isn`t as dominant as 50% control of the whole trade. I know that there is much more involment in drug trade, than the cases i mentioned. But i only wanted to compare the discovered (by law enforcement) operationes of the FARC to the ones of the “normal” drug traffickers and Parabosses. And this is indicating a much greater dominance of AUC and “normal” traffickers than only a 50% share.
And my suggestion that this numbers are PR, has “historical” causes. Anyone can remember how US law enforcement talked about the “organizations” (in fact aliances of org) of the Medellin and later Cali Cartel, and there 80% control of the cocaine trade
Which was we should know nowadays PR, and not facts.
i hope my english is unterstandable(?), posible to unterstand
April 3rd, 2006 at 1:51 pm
The FARC’s involvement in the upper links of the drug-economy chain (not just taxing coca-growers) is generally accepted, even without recent testimonies from demobilized guerrillas. That has been clear at least since mid-2001, when the Colombian military captured prominent Brazilian narcotrafficker Fernandinho Beira-Mar during an operation against the FARC’s 16th Front. I’ve had enough conversations with residents of southern Colombian coca-growing zones to be convinced that the FARC runs cocaine-processing labs and that, in the areas it controls, it now buys nearly all of farmers’ coca paste directly, cutting out the middlemen.
That said, the 50 percent figure sounds high to me too, especially since paramilitaries and “unaligned†narcos continue to dominate so much of the drug trade. In particular, it remains unclear to what extent the guerrillas are involved once the drugs leave Colombia’s shores, whether their networks include international distribution.
By the way, I would add that if the 50% figure is true, it should be interpreted as overwhelming evidence of Plan Colombia’s failure. Recall that we were told back in 2000 that Plan Colombia would weaken the guerrillas by reducing their income from the drug trade. Now, six years later, we’re told that their share of the cocaine business has risen to 50 percent!
That may be, but again we’re not sure. Back in 2002, then-DEA chief Asa Hutchinson told a Senate caucus that Colombia’s armed groups were largely uninvolved in the heroin trade:
This situation may well have changed since 2002. But note that the participants in the indictment-announcement press conference two weeks ago made many references to FARC cocaine trafficking, but no mentions of heroin.
One final note on this post. Subsequent conversations have hinted that the U.S. government may have had another reason for issuing the indictments now: a desire to send a message to Colombia’s newly elected Congress. There may be some fear in the U.S. embassy that the body’s many paramilitary-linked members may try to weaken Colombia’s extradition treaty with the United States. This is purely speculative but still an interesting possibility.
April 3rd, 2006 at 5:22 pm
The Attorney General’s indictment smacks of subterfuge. Washington is pursuing counterinsurgency under a counter-narcotics mantle. Nobody denies a partial rebel reliance on drugs income. But the evidence that they are responsible for the stated large amount of cocaine entering world markets or the U.S. is poppycock. It is indeed of interest that no mention is made of the paramilitaries; FARC involvement in trafficking pales beside theirs.
In Vietnam, the U.S. looked the other way with regard to opium trading among hill tribesmen allied with the U.S. in the war on Communism (even as U.S. soldiers consumed opium and heroin on a troubling scale). And Washington again looked the other way when the Nicaraguan Contras used drug money to buy arms. And now there’s Colombia…
The conclusion seems clear: Washington can abide massive drug trafficking by rightwing supporters of U.S. interests (never mind their role in massacres and the worst human-rights violations in our hemisphere), but must resort to legal chicane and military force against any degree of trafficking by leftwing opponents perceived as a threat to those same interests.
Beyond this, one sees in U.S. Colombia policy something of our government’s deception that now parades with painful clarity as regards the growing war in Iraq. Let’s offer up a miserere for the human suffering everywhere that stems from a deep rot of ignorance, corruption, and special interests in our nation’s capital–Jim Jones