April 21, 2000

U.S. Policy: From the Drug War to the Civil War

by Garry Leech

In the last decade, U.S. drug war policy has focused primarily on the eradication of the coca leaf. As a result, the principal targets have been campesinos whose livelihood depends on the cultivation of coca, often in areas controlled by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Inevitably, such a strategy has resulted in an increased U.S. military role in Colombia's 40 year-old civil war as the FARC are now being labeled "narco-guerrillas" by Washington and, consequently, have become targets in the drug war.

In the 1980s, most of the drug news coming out of Colombia focused on the Medellín and Cali cartels. It was Pablo Escobar, the former head of the Medellín cartel, who was frequently portrayed by the U.S. government and media as the principal drug war enemy. The cartels had been formed in the early 1980s by cocaine processors and traffickers who were reaping unimaginable profits from the booming cocaine market. Consequently, the sights of U.S. drug war policy became firmly focused on Medellín and Cali.

The leaders of the Medellín cartel were ruthless men who loved to flaunt their wealth. Pablo Escobar, who had become one of the richest men in the world, owned a huge private estate that contained his own personal zoo. Many poor Colombians living in the slums of Medellín saw Escobar as a modern day Robin Hood because of the houses and schools he built in poor neighborhoods neglected by Colombian politicians. Escobar's popularity with the lower classes resulted in his being elected the Liberal Party alternate to the national Chamber of Representatives.

However, by the mid-1980s Washington's strategy in the drug war was to stop the flow of cocaine to the United States at its source. With financing and support from Washington, the Colombian government began fighting the traffickers and eventually succeeded in crushing the Medellín cartel even before Escobar's death in 1993. Throughout these years, most of the U.S. public was oblivious to the fact that the FARC even existed, in spite of the fact they had been profiting from the drug trade by means of the taxes they had been imposing on peasant coca growers since the late 1970s.

The "victory" over Colombia's largest drug cartel did little to slow the flow of cocaine to the United States. Initially the void was filled by the Cali cartel and subsequently by other traffickers who have kept a much lower profile than Pablo Escobar and his associates. Furthermore, many traffickers invested their enormous wealth in huge tracts of land while creating paramilitary armies to protect themselves from the guerrillas who regularly targeted wealthy landowners in a country with one of the largest income distribution gaps in the world.

Meanwhile, the Colombian Armed Forces have been primarily focused on fighting the civil war, not the drug war. The drug traffickers and their paramilitary organizations have become allies of the Colombian army in its war against the guerrillas. As a result, it should come as no surprise that there has been a lack of will on the part of the Colombian military to wage war against the drug traffickers/paramilitaries.

The United States, having failed to defeat the narco-traffickers, began to focus on the peasant coca growers who supply the coca leaf to the traffickers for processing and distribution. It just so happens that much of the coca is grown in southern Colombia in regions controlled by the FARC. The Clinton Administration denies it is getting drawn into the civil war, though it has admitted that military aid will help the Colombian Armed Forces protect Colombian "democracy."

Throughout the 1990s the FARC grew in size and strength and currently controls 40% of the country. It is no coincidence that during the same decade U.S. drug war strategy shifted from targeting traffickers to targeting guerrilla controlled regions. Washington knows that the U.S. public will not tolerate another El Salvador or Vietnam in order to protect U.S. political and economic interests; however, it will accept increased military intervention in Colombia to keep cocaine off U.S. streets.

According to U.S. law, aid can only be supplied to Colombian army units not accused of human rights violations. Therefore, Washington is creating three new battalions and targeting most of the proposed $1.7 billion aid package to "clean" army units in the south in order to fight the FARC. Meanwhile, in the north, suspect army units are free to ally themselves with the narco-traffickers/paramilitaries that are responsible for approximately 80% of Colombia's human rights abuses.

It is also no coincidence that mainstream U.S. media coverage also shifted its focus during this period from drug traffickers to the guerrillas as once again they dutifully toed the government line. It is almost as if the traffickers, in the eyes of the U.S. government and media, no longer exist, while the insurgents are repeatedly called "narco-guerrillas" in order to associate them with the drug trade and thereby demonizing them in the eyes of the U.S. public. Meanwhile, the FARC's strategy of taxing all economic activity in its zones of control, including coca cultivation, has not changed since the 1980s when drug traffickers like Pablo Escobar and his associates were the principal drug war enemy.

Over the last five years, in spite of repeated increases in U.S. military aid to Colombia, coca production has increased dramatically. The Clinton Administration's solution to this problem is to further increase aid to the Colombian military in order to drastically expand a policy that is clearly failing. The only rational explanation for increasing support for such a failed strategy is that Washington's primary focus is actually the civil war, not the drug war.

U.S. corporations that have interests in Colombia, as well as defense contractors who stand to gain from increased military aid, are among the most avid supporters of the aid bill and have been relentless in their lobbying activities. Furthermore, according to both the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency and drug czar Barry McCaffrey, the FARC has become a serious threat to Colombian "democracy" and as a result foreign investment has plummeted over the last couple of years.

It is this disruption of the New World Order and U.S. economic interests that is the primary motivator of U.S. foreign policy in Colombia. If an alternative political/economic system resistant to the ongoing U.S.-dominated globalization is implemented in Colombia, it could have a "negative" influence on other countries in the region in much the same way the Cuban Revolution did 40 years ago.

As a result, the guerrillas have replaced traffickers as the drug war "demons of the day." It is essential to Washington that the FARC be contained and what better way to justify an unpopular policy of involvement in another nation's civil war than by placing it in the context of the drug war. Consequently, U.S. multinational corporations, such as Occidental Petroleum--currently fighting the indigenous U'wa over drilling rights on tribal lands--can continue their business as usual. It has become clear over the last twenty years that the U.S. cannot achieve a military victory in the drug war. However, Washington may succeed in containing the FARC, thereby ensuring its continued political and economic hegemony in the region.

This article originally appeared in Colombia Report, an online journal that was published by the Information Network of the Americas (INOTA).

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