DOMINANT CLASS REACTIONISM
141
US LINKS TO COLOMBIA’S NARCOTIC POLITICAL ECONOMY AND PARAMILITARISM US foreign policy has purportedly targeted the narcotic industry for well over a century; however, its punitive opposition to drugs became most significant during the latter decades of the twentieth century. Under the Republican guidance of Richard Nixon (president 1969–74), Washington formally announced its “war on drugs” in the late 1960s. This was the catalyst for a conjoined foreign and domestic policy that sought to combat the usage of narcotics in sectors of United States, which paved the way for future anti-drugs policies under the Reagan, (both) Bush, Clinton, and Obama administrations.48 Interestingly, such a policy has not aimed at combating usage via treatment, understanding why sectors of society consume mind/mood-altering substances, or improvement of socioeconomic conditions, but rather at targeting producer nations (Isacson, 2005: 19; Neild, 2005: 68; O’Shaughnessy and Branford, 2005: 21–2; Livingstone, 2003: 173; Leech, 2002a: 41). In the mid-1980s, the time of important revolutionary struggles throughout Central America, the United States stated that the FARC-EP was heavily involved in Colombia’s internal and external drug trade (Scott and Marshall, 1998: 96–103). Following these allegations, proven false years later,49 Washington claimed that “the narcotics trade threatens the integrity” and “national security of the United States,” and established the National Security Decision Directive Number 221: Narcotics and National Security (NSDD 221) on April 8, 198650 (White House, 1986: 2; see also Avilés, 2006: 48; Williams, 2005: 168; Scott, 2003: 39, 71, 87–8; Solaún, 2002: 5). Formalizing the NSDD 221 as a national security policy enabled Washington to aid and construct “foreign assistance planning efforts” allowing state forces to legally carry out direct actions, militaristic or otherwise, in regions other than their national jurisdiction (Avilés, 2006: 48; Crandall, 2005b: 168; Parenti, 2002: 79, 82; Jackson, 1994: 170; White House, 1986: 3). The legislation strategically defined the coca industry “as a national security matter, allowing for the use of U.S. troops in Colombia in alliance with the CIA” (Scott, 2003: 87).51 On the heels of the NSDD 221, the Ronald Reagan (1981–89) and George H.W. Bush (1989–93) administrations encouraged the Andean region to adopt economic reforms under the argument that they would stimulate agricultural producers to move away from the drugs trade. Each country in the region was encouraged to open (apertura) their economies to greater trade, which in turn would lead to development. For Colombia the argument was that a liberalized economy would deflate the coca industry, as increased trade – compounded by a reduction in tariffs – would translate into the primary sector, assisting the expansion of both secondary and tertiary production. Enter in the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA).52 Neoliberal trade pacts did not lead to a reduction in coca. The production of coca is a consequence of social and economic conditions (factors of exclusion, poverty, systemic absence of social services, and so on). The lowering of trade barriers, while addressing macroeconomic restrictions to domestic
