US links to Colombia’s narcotic political economy and paramilitarism

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

and international corporations, does not guarantee a decrease of socioeconomic problems at a grassroots level. In actuality, preferred market access for agricultural commodities did little more than benefit a select minority of owners through increased profits. Some have, however, argued that benefits from the ATPDEA were witnessed in Colombia’s flower industry, which was transformed “into a $600 million national business that now accounts for 14 percent of the world export market” (Sweig and McCarthy, 2005: 32). While it was suggested that the ATPDEA “helped” the flower industry, it is important to note that flower workers remained mostly teenage women who received less than US$0.60¢ an hour, and were denied the ability to receive formal education (Friedemann-Sánchez, 2006).53 As rates of poverty escalated in both urban and rural sectors over the last two decades, it is clear whom the Drug Eradication Act helped – certainly not the many young women in the flower industry trying to survive. A consequence of the ATPDEA has been an attack on workers. While some aspects of the economy, such as the flower industry, were applauded, less attention was placed on the devastating societal effects of such neoliberal policies. There was an inequitable increase of imports in sectors of the rural economy, leaving a deficit the economy was unable to respond to. Producers in the countryside either continued or went back to coca as a means of subsistence. In short, the ATPDEA witnessed an increase in US economic power at the expense of Colombia’s overall economy (see Williams, 2005: 164).

World Bank statistics show that between 1989 and 1993, Colombia’s average tariff decreased from 44 percent to less than 12 percent, resulting in lower prices for imported goods. Consequently, the country’s trade surplus soon became a trade deficit. In 1989, Colombian exports totaled $7.3 billion and imports $6.4 billion – a surplus of almost one billion dollars. But only nine years later, exports of $13.6 billion were surpassed by imports totaling $17.5 billion, resulting in a deficit of close to $4 billion. It soon became apparent that the government’s policies were negatively impacting domestic producers who were unable to compete with the high-tech industries of scale in developed countries.

(Leech, 2002a: 45)

As coca activity increased, commercial investment deflected attention from the growing rates of impoverishment in the countryside. Over the last decade, Colombia has witnessed a two-way exploitation of the dual economy, a great deal of which is tied to narcodollars. First, problems in the rural political economy led peasants to increasingly colonize new lands to grow coca out of necessity. Second, urban-based textile and commodity export factories saw capitalists drive down wages to maximize surplus profits (Richani, 2005a; 2005b). On paper, Colombia soon “saw its legal and illegal exports to the United States jump dramatically” as the ATPDEA assisted in cleansing monies generated through the coca industry (Williams, 2005: 164; see also Richani, 2005a). All this helped further justify Washington’s foreign policy via NSDD

221 and the future deployment of the largest counterinsurgency operation in the hemisphere, given the façade of a war on drugs.54 Paradoxically, the US and the Colombian state’s policy towards coca resulted in the expansion of the narcotic industry with unhindered ease. However, if measures were established to institute “a comprehensive attack on the trade – from eliminating production at the source,” then why did coca cultivation levels increase (see Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, 2001)? The answer lies in the fact that as Washington and Bogotá specifically targeted peasants in areas of FARC-EP control, the AUC implemented devastating aggressions against the rural populace while expanding its power over the narcotics industry, with serious consequences. First, US-sponsored fumigation practices have had an indisputable affect on the rural population and environment of Colombia. The destruction of peasant crops has hampered the capacity for communities to sustain themselves – let alone develop – subsequently leading people to colonize forested regions (Leech, 2006b; Petras and Veltmeyer, 2003a: 179; Ungerman and Brohy, 2003; CISLAC, 2001; KAIROS, 2001). Aerial spraying of defoliants has forced many to leave their homes, villages, and regions, only to further spread coca cultivation over greater territories. This has greatly eroded the environment as peasants have little choice but to cut down trees and inhabit previously unpopulated territories. As fumigation soon follows, so are more soils and water supplies contaminated, thus affecting present and future food production, economic stability, and health conditions (Ungerman and Brohy, 2003; Leech, 2002a: 71). It could be argued that the US and Colombian states are carrying out an attack against the poor through the use of such methods. Second, the rural population has been horrified by (internationally backed) domestic reactionism. Through a “drain the water” mentality the state has utilized financial assistance from the United States to destroy “peasant links to the FARC” by driving “the peasantry out of the countryside and isolating the guerrillas” (Petras and Veltmeyer, 2001: 143; see also Petras, 2002: 17). Since they seldom initiate confrontations with the FARC-EP, state and paramilitary forces have targeted peasants, small landowners, and rural workers who are presumed supporters of the guerrillas. In order for this to be legitimated on a national or global scale, a justification must be and has been presented.

Although presented as fighting the war against narcotics, the Plan is actually directed against suspected peasant sympathizers and peasant guerrillas linked to the left. The use of paramilitary forces to repress civilians allows Washington and its military clients “plausible denial” (in fact, Washington even criticizes the “paras”) while channelling arms, funds and protection via the Colombian military command.

(Petras and Veltmeyer, 2003a: 178)

Such a policy has seen the causalities of the civil war reach unprecedented heights. In service of foreign political and economic interests, the Colombian state has greatly feared any escalation in support for the FARC-EP (see Petras, 2002: 17; see also Petras and Veltmeyer, 2003a: 40). As a result a massive