Szamuely: Whore on drugs

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Sat Sep 2 22:06:01 PDT 2000


NEW YORK PRESS, Aug 30-Sep 5

George Szamuely

The Bunker

Whore on Drugs

Bill Clinton's one-day visit to Colombia this week encapsulates

perfectly his presidency: a pointless photo-op to sell a fraudulent

bill of goods. He is there ostensibly to express his confidence in

Colombia's President Andres Pastrana, whose fight against the

narco-traffickers is being underwritten by the United States to the

tune of $1.3 billion. However, the idea of Colombia getting out of the

drug business is so patently absurd that not even Clinton's coterie of

obsequious toadies is buying this one. In the first place, the

Colombian military-to be armed and trained by the U.S.-are the last

people on Earth to allow a lucrative enterprise like narcotics slip

through their fingers.

In November 1998, a few weeks after Pastrana's visit to Washington to

assure Americans of his firm resolve to fight the scourge of drugs,

the head of the Colombian air force had to resign. The resignation

followed the discovery of over 1600 pounds of cocaine aboard a

military transport plane that had just arrived in Fort Lauderdale from

Bogota. "This incident need have no effect whatsoever on our views of

President Pastrana's determination to work with us to fight the export

of drugs from Colombia," piped up little Jamie Rubin of the State

Dept. Of course not. Any more than the recent conviction of the former

commander of U.S. Army anti-drug advisers in Colombia, Col. James

Hiett, on charges of covering up his wife's drug smuggling, need have

any effect on our views of the seriousness of the U.S. commitment to

wage war on drugs.

The US. can spray with herbicides every field from the Gulf of Mexico

to Antarctica. But someone else will always be there to provide

Americans with their drug fix. Pakistan, Afghanistan, Myanmar-the list

of candidates is long.

No, the latest round in America's melodramatic "war on drugs" has

nothing whatsoever to do with drugs. It is about corporations with

substantial investments in Colombia lobbying the U.S. government to

step in and take over the country on their behalf. In Pastrana they

have found a happily compliant Colombian leader. Colombia is burdened

with a large international debt, which it must pay off with its oil

exports. Pastrana has signed on to the usual IMF austerity program of

public spending cuts and devaluation. The result has been misery,

strikes and, naturally, a shot in the arm for the narcotics industry.

Colombia's economy shrank 4.5 percent in 1999. Earlier this month,

tanks and troops were called out to the streets of Bogota as 700,000

state workers staged a 24-hour strike protesting government austerity

measures.

But how did drugs get into the picture? It was the corporations that

came up with this wheeze. Lockheed Martin approached the Clinton

administration with a poll it had commissioned, showing a majority of

the public believing drug use to be on the rise, with Democrats, not

Republicans, being held responsible. Therefore, Democrats should do

something dramatic. Lockheed Martin's day job, incidentally, includes

making aircraft for use in military operations against drug smugglers.

One of the most ardent advocates of American military involvement in

Colombia was the U.S.-Colombia Business Partnership-which includes

such corporations as Occidental, Enron, BP Amoco and

Colgate-Palmolive. Drugs are "disruptive of any normal business

relationship," explained Lawrence Meriage, Occidental's vice president

for public affairs. But what was really troubling him was the $100

million Occidental has lost as a result of the repeated rebel assaults

on the Limon Covenas pipeline by various armed groups. Every year, the

oil companies are forced to shell out a "war tax," which they pay

directly to the Colombian army and police for their protection.

Earlier this month, Occidental suspended oil production and declared

force majeure at Colombia's second largest oil field because of

repeated bombing of the pipeline. In 1999 alone it had allegedly been

attacked 79 times. Clearly, they would be saving themselves a lot of

money if the U.S. government took over protecting the pipelines.

The Plan Colombia, allegedly a joint product of the U.S. and Colombian

governments, reads very much as if it were conceived and written in

Washington. It is full of the usual "market democracy" or "do what we

tell you or else" bromides: "Free trade agreements that attract

foreign and domestic investment"; "a fiscal and financial strategy

that includes tough austerity and adjustment measures"; "state-owned

companies and banks are to be privatized"; "foreign investment" will

be "crucial in modernizing the industrial backbone of the country";

"steps" must be taken "to promote a favorable environment for

electronic trade." The Plan gets hilarious when it describes

Colombia's economic plight. After first commending the country for

opening up "its traditionally closed economy," the author notes

sorrowfully that "production of cereals, such as wheat, corn, and

barley...were shown to be noncompetitive in world markets. The result

was the loss of 700,000 hectares of agricultural production to imports

during the decade, which in turn proved to be a critical blow to

employment in the rural areas where Colombia's conflict is mainly

staged."

Yes, but why had Colombia's traditional agriculture become so

"noncompetitive"? Could it possibly have something to do with the

explosion of subsidies afforded to U.S. farmers in recent years?

U.S. Special Forces trainers have already arrived in Colombia.

Congress conditioned the $1.3 billion package on the Colombian

government's ability to curb human rights abuses by its armed forces.

Pastrana was made to promise that military personnel accused of human

rights abuses would be brought to justice in the country's civilian

courts. Of all the demands made on his government, this is the one it

will least likely be held to.

The U.S. has too much invested in Colombia to waste time chasing up

"bad apples." Even the recent murder of six schoolchildren by

Colombian soldiers did nothing to dampen Washington's enthusiasm for

the venture. As always, the wealth of the few trumps the welfare of

the many.



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