| 5.3. The International Curse: The Supply and Demand of the Coca Trade |
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| Grey Literature - DPF: The Great Issues of Drug Policy 1990 |
| Written by Susan Hamilton Saavedra |
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Introduction Cocaine, with its derivative crack, is a favored drug of choice in the industrialized developed countries. 65 percent of the world's consumption of cocaine is purchased in the United States with 35 percent going to West European countries and elsewhere. The production and use of this drug has proven to have extensive adverse consequences on the social, political and economic institutions of both the producing and consuming nations involved. This paper will discuss the role of the producing countries (Bolivia, Peru, Colombia) and the effect of production on them and the United States, the leading consumer of drugs. The Inter-American response to this consumption will also be evaluated. Peru Peru is the third largest country in South America but only 15 percent of its land is arable. It is divided into three natural regions consisting of the western coastal region, the Andes mountains, and the inland tropical forest. 50 percent of the Peruvian population resides in the coastal area though it is the smallest segment of the three regions and occupies only 11 percent of the country. 39 percent of the population lives in the Andean highlands (or "las sierras") with the Andes mountains taking up one-fourth of the nation's land space. East of the Andes mountains lies the immense tropical forest which covers almost two-thirds of Peru but supports only 11 percent of the population of 21 million. Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s Peru has been experiencing economic, political, and social instability. The nation's difficulties are aggravated by the increasing strength of the indigenous terrorist movement Sendero Luminoso'1 or the "Shining Path"; rampant inflation along with decreased wage earnings; an increase in the cultivation, processing and sale of the coca plant along with the influx of "narco-dollars" from the coca and cocaine profits; and the violence connected with the drug war that has resulted. All these issues threaten the basic structure for stability, growth, and development in Peru. The guerillas of Sendero Luminoso (led by Abimael Guzman, a former philosophy professor at the University of Huamanga in Ayacucho) are a Marxist-Maoist revolutionary group that is shunned by the world's other Marxist-Leninist Communists. Several future leaders of Sendero visited China during the cultural revolution but the group was independent of and hostile to any world centres of international communism. The Senderistas would not allow themselves to be controlled by or dependent on such centers, even as they admitted their influence. To illustrate their independence, the Senderistas claim to have reformulated Marxist doctrine in what is called Pensamiento Gonzalo (Gonzalo's Thought; "Gonzalo" is the nom de guerre of Abimael Guzman). The full name of the movement's political party is the Peruvian Communist Party — for the Shining Path of Jose Marietegui. This party was formed in 1970 out of the Ayacucho regional committee and other fractions of Bandera Roja 2 (the red flag). The Bandera Roja party whose roots go back to the the Soviet-Sino split of 1964 when the Moaist sympathizing campesino and youth sections of the Partido Comunista Peruano (PCP) split from Patria Roja, the orthodox pro-Peking Maoist party. The Shining Path insurgency movement is also described as Maoist because of its identification with Mao and the Long March. From them, Sendero derived the strategy of a prolonged popular war in the countryside that eventually engulfed the cities. Sendero Luminoso hopes to seize power by overthrowing the Peruvian government in order to create the "Republic of the New Democracy", a peasant-worker republic to be headed by President Gonzalo. "Shining Path" uses "selective annihilation" as means of gaining control. This is a euphemism for the execution of local politicians, reluctant peasants and foreign aid workers. One of the insurgency's chief slogans is "Destroy in order to construct".3 Sendero began its violent effort to take power with an attack on a rural voting station in the 1980 elections that brought a civilian president to office after 12 years of military rule.4 By January of 1989, seventeen thousand five hundred people have been killed by means of "selective annihilation", leaving one-quarter of Peru's towns without municipal leadership. The followers of Sendero fall into two groups; recruited Peruvian university students and peasant farmers (campesinos). Many university students from the valleys are Quechua speaking sons and daughters of richer campesinos and small traders. The movement is especially appealing to them in regard to racial discrimination and the protest against racism plays a definite role in the insurgency movement. In Peru, race is a delicate issue inherent in the caste system which is based on color and cultural identification. Sociologist Carlos Ivan Degregori says: "It is clear that the spinal column of Sendero is drawn from one group. They are young men and women, from the provinces instead of the capital, from the mountains instead of the coast, 'mestizo' (mixed Indian/white blood) or `cholo' (dark skinned), and more educated than the ordinary population."5 The Shining Path uses Peru's ethnic divisions and racism to its advantage, proclaiming itself as the protector of the disadvantaged Indian millions, long ignored or oppressed by Lima's Spanish origin elite. The young people of the countryside who are surrounded by poverty and suffer from the indifference of the white power structure in Lima willingly become followers of the Shining Path.6 The other followers of Sendero are the campesinos (peasants). They live in abject poverty, are marginalized by society, victimized by the nationally faltering economy, and protected by the Sendero Luminoso. The rebels focus on representing the interests of the impoverished campesinos. Although the group's methods are brutal, their sense of purpose and discipline appeals to its members. Sendero is respected because there is a method and purpose to its violence. "The Maoist rebels don't kill indiscriminately and exploit the people like the police and the military do."7 Those who live under the power and protection of the guerrillas are intimidated into submission and subjected to forced indoctrination in the ideology of Mao Zedong and information about the Sendero leader, Abimael Guzman. Those who do not obey the rules are judged and executed in public trials in which the observers are sometimes expected to help kill the offenders. Grave offenses include "squealing", exploitation, stealing, and adultery. In the early 1980s, army repression of civilians 8 helped Sendero gain support in various parts of the country, but most notably in the Upper Huallaga Valley, where the world's most fertile ground for growing the coca plant is found and where the Peruvian cocaine drug-trafficking center is located. This area is now a major stronghold for the Maoist rebels. Though the Shining Path imposes an ascetic personal code on members that forbids the use of drugs,9 the rebels are establishing themselves as the defenders of thousands of coca growing peasants who have been exploited by drug traffickers and corrupt local police.10 Sendero guarantees that the farmers are paid by the traffickers while simultaneously allowing the dealers freedom and protection to operate. In exchange for cooperating with drug interests and protecting the cocaine production network, Sendero charges a "protection tax" which finances the revolution and provides the rebels with their main source of income.11 An estimated 1.23 million acres in the Huallaga valley (where 65 percent of the world's coca is grown) are devoted to growing coca plants, with the area under cultivation expanding by 10 percent each year.12 At present, it is estimated that Sendero receives $30 million a year from coca production which enables it to acquire more political influence, sophisticated technology, and weaponry. Reports in the valley say that the rebels have indicated that up to 50 percent of this year's crop will go for the purchase of arms. Sendero began expanding in the Highlands area around 1985. The guerrillas now control dozens of villages and small towns in the Huallaga Valley by means of a shrewd authoritarian system that capitalizes on lawlessness, fear, and lack of development alternatives combined with indoctrination and military tactics. It has managed to intimidate much of the population and virtually eliminate opposition from police and other authorities. In addition to the Senderistas, the army also prevents the police from operating in the Huallaga Valley. "The army fears that by disturbing the coca farmers such an act would drive them into the ranks of the guerrillas."13 However, lured by the prospect of as much as $40 million in U.S. military hardware for an anti-drug campaign, the army now contends that its war with the guerrillas is tantamount to fighting cocaine. In addition, it was noted in the U.S.S.R. Monitor that Moscow delivered 14 Soviet Mi-17 Hip H helicopters to the Peruvian Army in March 1990. During the 1980s Peru received several shipments of Mi-17's and according to the Peruvian government the helicopters will be used "in the struggle against extremism"14 (meaning the Shining Path) as logistical support for Army combat units and for the evacuation of casualties. (During the 1980s Peru was the third largest recipient of Soviet military hardware in the Western Hemisphere, after Cuba and Nicaragua). Sendero's expansion into the Mantaro Valley, considered the third major front after Ayacaucho and the Huallaga Valley, has increased in the past year. This area supplies food and electricity to Lima, and is an important mining center.15 An indicator of Shining Path's growing strength was revealed and demonstrated in May 1981, when about 1 million people obeyed the group's demand for a 3 day 'armed strike' in the country's mining and farming heartland. This action cut off all supplies of food, electric power and export materials from the three Andean provinces to Lima on the Pacific coast.16 There is a growing sense among government leaders and city dwellers that the rebels are gaining ground and they are concerned that the battle for control could threaten Peru's fragile democracy. (The potent combination of revolution and drug trafficking that is flourishing in the Upper Huallaga Valley and surrounding regions threatens the stability of Peru's already beleaguered government). The movement controls much of the Central Andean Highlands where 39 percent of the Peruvian population lives and has expanded into the region east of Lima. Many residents of the coastal capital fear encirclement by Sendero; some say that they believe that the movement will eventually take over Peru. An increase in fear due to terrorism and lack of official control is reflected by the emergence of right wing death squads in 1988. Facing threats from Sendero Luminoso, dozens of mayors and other civic authorities resigned in the Fall of 1989, leaving already-remote communities without administrative ties to the central government. In addition to the insurgency, Peru's fragile democracy is already threatened by economic collapse and social disintegration. "Unless this decline can be halted, Peru is likely to be the first nation to reverse the democratic tide that has swept Latin America in the 1980s."17 Peru is burdened by a $17 billion foreign debt. Its gross national product shrank more than 10 percent in 1988, and 11 percent in 1989.18 Inflation reached almost 2,000 percent in 198819 and increased to 3,000 percent in 1989.20 A major economic concern is that of replacing coca cultivation with other highly profitable crops. Coca is the most lucrative crop in the world and no other agricultural product can compete with it. According to the Interior Ministry of Peru, the drug trade employs 1.1 million` Peruvians, directly or indirectly, and pumps about $800 million annually into the nation's economy. Peru's economic problems are heightened because United States and other developed countries are reducing the amount of tropical products they purchase, aggravating the economic situation and enhancing the attractiveness of coca production. In an attempt to alleviate this problem, Peru proposed to the United States and other developed countries that they give preferential treatment to Peru by adopting political measures regarding the price to be paid for tropical products such as coffee, tobacco, palm trees, cocoa (chocolate), and the anotto seed that can replace the coca-leaf production.21 In 1988 the government of Peru spent over $150 million dollars combatting the drug problem in the valley and eradicating more than 5,000 hectares of coca plantations. The United States also spent over $8 million in The enormous demand for cocaine has created a perverse problem for Peru with economic repercussions. The profits generated by the illegal planting of coca are greater than the revenue from Peru's main exportable goods such as copper, fishmeal and silver. The amount of land presently used for the production of coca leaves (almost 200,000 hectares) is greater than the area used for Peru's main agricultural crops, and occupies almost as much land as the rice plantations that feed the entire Peruvian population.22 The production of cocaine has increased and expanded not only because of the greater demand in the U.S. but because of lower market prices for products such as oil (which dropped from $25 to $9 a barrel in 1986) and coffee (which was reduced by half in 1989). Peru's commodity based economy (cereals, potatoes, meat, citrus, maize, wheat, barley and native quinoa, copper, electricity etc.) 23 has been losing ground for 30 years but the decline has accelerated during the past five years. This economic deterioration has aided the growth of the Sendero insurgency for Peru's legal exports total $2.5 billion annually and the drug profits bring in an additional $1.2 billion. A national desire to preserve Peru's constitutional democracy through the next presidential election scheduled for April 1990 remains but as conditions worsen both civilian and military offices fear that the country will be ungovernable in the 1990s.24 In the nationwide municipal elections held Nov. 12, 1989 to select the presidential candidate between two primary contenders, Mario Vargas Llosa (political party) and Ricardo Belmont (political party), the Sendero insurgents increased terrorist activities. Sendero's violence transformed the elections from an issue of local concern, involving 9 million people residing in the Peruvian highlands, to a national demonstration of strength and a challenge to the government's ability to protect the people and preserve the fundamentals of democracy. The guerrillas hope-to make a "sham" of the municipal and presidential elections and provoke a military takeover in the expectation that repressive counterinsurgency tactics will drive peasants towards the Shining Path and create a genuine people's revolution. To thwart the actions of Sendero, the police and the army (also accused of extensive human rights abuses), conducted raids throughout the country and arrested hundreds of people. This was done to retaliate for the killing of more than a dozen local officials, candidates, and the wives and children of officials before the elections. In addition, there were a series of explosions in the highland cities and towns. As part of this campaign, the guerrillas blew up power lines, leaving 30 percent of the capital and much of the coast without electricity. In addition, Sendero gathered 200 residents from an Andean village on Nov. 8, 1989, held an impromptu military court trial, and then executed 8 people. Enrique Bernales, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Violence and Pacification, said that the death of 123 mayors, other local officials, and political leaders in 1989 resulted in the withdrawal of approximately 500 municipal candidates from the race.25 During the fist week of November before the elections, the guerrillas ordered that Lima, the capital, be shut down for a day. In a show of solidarity, 30,000 people aided by the major mayoral candidates, defiantly marched through Lima chanting "Say yes to democracy".26 The presidential candidate, Mr. Belmont said, "I think the people want to vote because it's become open war, either democracy wins or the Shining Path takes control. We are losing our fear because we are almost losing our country."27 Despite the death threats and terrorism, the coalition of center-right parties led by Mario Vargas Llosa won the mayoral races nationwide, strengthening Vargas Llosa's bid for the presidency. In addition, Peruvians turned out in large numbers on Nov. 12 to elect mayors in nearly 2,000 municipalities. A victorious Vargas Llosa said that "This has been the best demonstration before the world that Peru is not the Shining Path, is not crimes or kidnappings, but is a country that wants to live in peace and democracy."28 Bolivia This land-locked South American nation ranks 5th in area and 8th in population.29 It is the poorest country in the region with a population of 6.9 million people and a per capita annual income of less than $600. The minimum monthly wage is $25. The cost of living in Bolivia, however, is one of the highest in South America with the prices of poultry and dairy products comparable to those in the United States and Europe. Bolivia receives about $100 million per year in U.S. aid. During the last few years, Bolivia has halted its 5 digit inflation rate of 26,000 percent and is presently laying a foundation for solid economic growth but it remains poor and its top cash crop is coca.30 Once a leading producer of tin, Bolivia now produces close to 50 percent of the paste used to make cocaine consumed in the United States. Its main legal export earned $214 million in 1988; mineral exports totaled $196 million. During the 1970's, Bolivia was receiving high prices for its tin and natural gas. Both foreigners lending petro dollars and foreign investors were interested in Bolivia and its resources. "Although Bolivia was once the most important tin producer in the world, the collapse of international tin prices in 1985, coupled with Bolivia's expensive and inefficient production methods, have made it more expensive to operate those mines than to leave them idle."31 Prices plummeted precipitously and currently, Argentina, the chief buyer of Bolivian gas cannot afford to import it. World tin prices have been recovering slightly in 1989 but not enough to allow Bolivia to return to its former reliance on tin exports. In order to balance its accounts, Bolivia faces a constant scramble for low, interest loans and credit from multilaterial agencies, the U.S. and other foreign governments. Even the value of illegal cocaine exports is a fraction of what it once was due to a market glut in 1985 that began to push down cocaine prices. Bolivia has grown coca for centuries but did not start processing cocaine until 1987. When the coca boom began in the 1970s, Bolivians learned to convert the leaf into paste for sale to Colombian traffickers who flew it to their own country to process into cocaine. Colombian traffickers seeking lower production costs found cheap and readily available labor in Bolivia. They sent capital and technicians to help Bolivian trafficking networks set up cocaine laboratories. The Bolivians sold the refined cocaine to the Colombians, who in turn marketed it in the United States which obtains 30 percent of its supply from the Bolivians. Since 1987, Bolivia has established expensive and sophisticated cocaine laboratories. Recently, some of Bolivia's 30 trafficking organizations began breaking away from the Colombians, developing their own export routes through Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay and opening markets in Europe. Drug traffickers are becoming stronger and more powerful because of the amount of money involved. According to police reports, there are cocaine laboratories in the Beni Department that are worth between $100,000 and $1 million. Bolivia's cocaine trafficking brings in an estimated $300 million to $600 million each year and provides a livelihood for about 300,000 Bolivians.32 Moreover, since the Colombian drug trafficking crackdown in Aug. of 1989, many of the Colombian traffickers have fled to Bolivia seeking refuge. There are now more Colombians and guns than ever in the Bolivian Beni, the vast region of swamps and jungles which hide hundreds of cocaine laboratories. Drug experts said that because of the intensified war against traffickers in Colombia, Bolivian suppliers had temporarily lost their shipping contacts, causing the price of Bolivian paste to fall. They also expect that Colombia's drug cartels will soon be bidding up the price sharply as they seek to restore and resecure their links in Bolivia and Peru. Because of the trafficking crackdown, the traffickers are looking to Europe as a faster growing market than the U.S. and are basing new supply routes on Brazilian, Argentinian and Chilean air or sea links across the Atlantic rather than on well-established routes through Colombia. At the same time, traffickers in Bolivia with close ties to the Medellin cocaine cartel are raising their prices to protect themselves from an expected assault on their strongholds and both the Bolivian and Colombian traffickers have purchased surface-to-air-missiles to combat U.S.- supplied helicopters. The source of this weaponry is not clear. A Latin American informant said "It is speculated that the weapons have been purchased from Israeli arms dealers". This opinion is supported in an article published in the Jan. 26 1990 issue of El Tiempo.33 The Chapare region is the main coca-producing region in Bolivia. The Government estimates that 1,250 tons of paste are made annually in the Chapare region, then transported and refined into 400 tons of cocaine. There are some 1,000 factories in the 6,000 square miles of the Chapare region that grow coca. Bolivian and U.S. governments have focused their efforts there to substitute coca planting and interdict the illicit flow of drugs. Military aerial photographs show that there are close to 100,000 acres of coca cultivation in the area. A United Nations official estimated that 30-40 percent of the Bolivian economy is coca related. Annual drug earnings are about half of the country's legitimate exports. The campesinos process cocaine by stomping coca leaves that have been mixed with water, kerosene and sulfuric acid three different times with their bare feet. The process occurs in a plastic-lined pit measuring approximately 25 feet by 5 feet. As the stench of the rotting leaves ferment, the resulting liquid is poured out into a smaller pit where it is mixed with lime, more kerosene, and sulfuric acid to "purify" the liquid which gradually distills into a grayish paste. After the paste begins to coagulate, it is then poured through a cheesecloth and the resulting ball is wrapped in toilet paper to dry and sold. The paste sells for about $220 a kilogram (2.2 pounds). When the campesinos become tired making it, they smoke cigarettes laced with the paste, chew coca leaves or drink cheap alcohol mixed with Coca-Cola.34 Bolivia's resources for fighting this drug war are limited. "Four years after the Bolivian Government implemented austerity measures to halt hyper-inflation of 24,000 percent, the Bolivian economy remains fragile."35 Unemployment in 1989 was more than 60 percent. Although the inflation rate hovered at 12-15 percent economic growth remained low and foreign investment was almost nonexistent. Only coca was and is a booming crop. By the end of 1989, Bolivia eradicated only 3,200 of an estimated 123,000 acres of coca. The eventual desired result of the struggle against drug trafficking is to disturb the coca market along with its derivatives and reduce profits through the resulting scarcity of the product. As this struggle gradually succeeds, those engaged in planting and harvesting coca will seek alternative sources of income, either by planting other products or seeking other jobs. However, the high profits from cocaine have made the Bolivian and Peruvian governments reluctant to move against it and few farmers have been willing to switch to other crops. Some Bolivian farmers have taken United States and Bolivian money, offered as an inducement for destroying coca plots and cultivating other crops, and moved to remote fields to plant more coca. In the Upper Debacle in Latin America Huallaga Valley in Peru the farmers have virtually halted the cultivation of any other crop. The election of Bolivian President Paz Zamora (Aug. 6, 1989) was the third consecutive such election without military intervention. But the 1982-85 government of Mr. Paz's predecessor, Herman Siles Zuazo, ended in a chaotic economic situation that threatened to incite the military to intervene again. Mr. Paz, who heads the Movement of the Revolutionary Left, a Social Democratic group, pledged to maintain stability after taking office on Aug. 6th 1989 and continue the austerity measures of the previous government. These measures include a wage freeze and lower government spending to combat a 1985 annual inflation rate of 25,000 percent. The rate has since dropped to 12 percent and the economy is expected to grow by 2.5 percent in 1990 after years of decline. The inflation rate fell from 26,000 percent to 10 percent in 1988, and in 1987 the economy grew for the first time since 1980. Growth of the gross domestic product is estimated at 3.5 percent in 1989.36 Mr. Paz initiated a tough orthodox economic program that freed the exchange rate, initiated a successful tax collection system, promised to depend on free enterprise for development and set out to eliminate the immense fiscal deficit.37 This program brought Bolivia out of economic chaos in 1985. At his inaugural address, President Paz Zamora said hé would "fight against the threat of drug trafficking" while preserving "the sovereignty, development and wellbeing of our people."38 He added that he would seek more financial aid from the United States and other cocaine consuming countries to help the peasants switch to crops other than coca. In his election campaign, Paz Zamora asserted that the U.S. put too much emphasis on the policing and interdiction of drug producing and trafficking and not enough on rural development and the opening of markets for legal agricultural products.39 Mr. Paz's approach is to place less emphasis on the growers submitting their crops to eradication. He emphasizes larger payments to encourage the farmers to destroy their own coca crops, change crops, or move. Shortly after his inauguration, however, Mr. Paz Zamora refrained from mentioning his policy involving the presence of several dozen Drug Enforcement Administration agents who help the Bolivian police in drug raids, nor did he mention whether assistance by the U.S. military forces would be accepted in the destruction of the drug laboratories. In the past the U.S. had been providing money for eradication of the coca plants but had shied away from direct financing of crop substitution and relocation programs because it might seem to be bribing peasants not to plant coca. The U.S. provides other development aid to Bolivia ($593 million in the fiscal year of 1988) but condi tions it on progress in the eradication program.40 By 1989, 8,400 acres of coca had been eradicated since an eradication agreement was signed with the United States in 1987. The Paz Government has proposed without success a program of road construction, electrification and other basic installations that would cost $350 million to $50 million. It also asked for preferential treatment in the U.S. for fresh products that might be produced in the coca areas. Unable to get U.S. support, Bolivia made plans to call an international donor conference to seek increased aid from Europe and international agencies. The Bolivian newspaper "El Diario" reported on Jan. 11, 1990 that for the first time the United States had agreed to give the Bolivian idea of alternative development priority treatment during the high-level negotiations on drug traficking that was to be held Jan 10-14 41 in Santa Cruz and again at the presidential "summit" in Cartagena on the 15th of February 1990. The Bolivian strategy is receiving serious international consideration as a solution to the problem. The Latin American countries which either produce the raw materials or serve as cocaine processing points have a great distaste and fear of any possible imposition of the traditional U.S. use of force. They are eager to find alternative economic and national enhancing solutions to the drug cultivation and trade in addition to the present means of repression and prevention.42 Colombia Medellin and Cali are the two major cities in Colombia where the world's largest cocaine trafficking organizations are located. More than a million hectares of land are in the hands of the drug traffickers which precipitated the new Colombian phrase: "los narcos estan comprando el pais" 43 (the drug traffickers are buying the country). Numerous investigations concerning the influx of narco-dollars into the Colombian economy was headed by Oscar Borreo, president of the Fedelonjos Organization. The findings from these investigations revealed that for the last 10 years the narco-traffickers have invested money in real estate in both the urban sectors and the rural areas. Between 1979 and 1988, the purchase of real estate, urban lots and farms had amounted to about $5.500 million. The percentage of that money that was invested with narco-dollars is uncertain but the amount invested in real estate equaled one-third of Colombia's external debt. Colombia is very concerned about the traffickers buying millions of acres of prime farm and ranch lands. Jorge Enrique Vargas, the deputy director of the Department of National Planning, portrays the cocaine money as an unwelcome factor that distorts the Colombian economy and threatens agrarian reform programs that have been implemented over the last 25 years. Factors adversely affecting the reforms include an increase of violence by dispossessed campesinos who without land have few possibilities for satisfying their basic needs and the return to the tradition of land being concentrated in the hands of the few. More than 1/2 million campesino families do not own land. In the last few years narco dollars have fostered an acceleration of land ownership that is concentrated in the hands of the few which is diametrically opposed to the goals of the reform. In the last 5 years, millions of dollars in "hot money" was used to purchase a little over 1 million hectares in the virgin and most fertile regions of the country. That amount of land is greater than the 919 thousand hectares acquired over the past 25 years as part of Colombia's agrarian reform program. At the rate the land is being purchased, narco-traffickers will have purchased approximately 250 thousand hectares in 1989, doubling the amount of land targeted for distribution among the campesinos by Incora, the agrarian reform organization. The government could do nothing to counteract or prevent this trend towards the concentration of land in the hands of the few which now belong to the mafia.44 The traffickers are buying large tracts of land in the Colombian region called the "Red Zone" in the department Arauco. The guerrillas have their encampments there and political violence in the area has accelerated because of it. The soil is very fertile and the traffickers want it. However, this area had been previously designated or selected for agrarian reform because of its remote location and fecundity. To get this land, the traffickers will pay any price in money, cattle, or life. Approximately 20 massacres of peasants had been recorded in 1988 and were attributed to providing security services to the narcotrafficantes. Guerrillas of the ELN (Ejercito de LiberaciOn Nacional) and of the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) are a new indication of the ties between the insurgency movements and the drug traffickers.45 The ELN is a pro-Cuban National Liberation Army that began in the 1970s but did not gather strength until the 1980s. It has between 500 to 1,000 people and is the most violent, fanatical, and destructive guerrilla group in Colombia. It financed itself in the 1980s by blackmailing multinational companies that operated under association contracts with the state petroleum firm, Ecopetrol, in the oil-rich region of northern Colombia. However, in the last 3 years, ELN has launched a series of attacks on oil wells and the main oil pipeline causing enormous damage to the national economy. The ultra-militant ELN said that democracy is "not the revolutionary way"46 and that any deviation from the armed struggle is betrayal. They have assassinated community leaders, agrarian reform officials, schoolteachers, and anyone else associated with Pres. Barco's plans to develop and bring peace to Arauca. During the first week of February 1990 the army bombed two Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC) campsites near La Uribe region where they had been operating for more than 15 years. This area (prior to the bombings) was the bastion for their main headquarters which housed the chiefs of staff for FARC's eastern bloc. They had also been exploiting an emerald mine there for some time. During this period, a military operation dismantled three camps shared by the ELN and FARC. 15 hectares of coca were found near the site of the three camps. It is believed that there are more coca plants camouflaged by dense vegetation in the area. Colonel Raman Santander, the commander of the military operation, said that during the fighting it was evident that a FARC column participated in the clashes in support of the ELN guerrilla fighters. Inside the rebels barracks were found five sets of field equipment, two Claymore bombs, six guided explosive charges, ELN and FARC bracelets, police uniforms, 77 copies of FARC bylaws, notebooks containing information on the structure of the combat cadres of the organization, and abundant ammunition.47 Twenty miles away from the camps, the army discovered a drug processing kitchen which contained 150 kg of coca paste, two bundles of permanganate, and three 55 gallon containers containing chopped-up coca leaves. In Medellin the drug cartel has pursued a political strategy, too, through its public statements in the name of the "Extraditables". Following the effective retaliation by President Barco's officials against drug trafficking in August of 1989, the traffickers offered a deal: in exchange for abandoning their outlaw ways, the traffickers wanted "constitutional and legal guarantees." They sought to stop the government from trying to capture and extradite them to face narcotics charges in the U.S. Because the traffickers have succeeded in intimidating the Colombian justice system with assassinations and bribes, the elimination of extradition would be tantamount to amnesty. Mr. Barco's government will not To demonstrate good faith, the traffickers turned over an immense laboratory complex on Feb. 11, 1990 to show their desire to quit the cocaine business and live in peace with their illicit fortunes. The complex, located near the Panamanian border, was shown to a group of 20 or more Colombian journalists. The laboratory produced 20 tons of cocaine a month or the equivalent of more than two-thirds of Colombia's estimated total production of 325 tons in 1989. President Barco began the war against the major drug lords Gacha, Pablo Escobar Gaviria, and the three brothers of Medellin's Ochoa family in August 1989. His offensive was ignited when the cartel (mob) hit men assassinated the presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galdn. Since then, the leaders of Colombia's coke cartels have gone into hiding, forfeiting lush estates and bank accounts. Nevertheless, Gacha and the gang remained immensely powerful. Their drug operations and trafficking had only been slightly hampered and their profits were still enormous. From mid August to December 1989 (sometimes referred to as the "season of terror"), the cartel members killed 187 civilians, set off 265 bombs and destroyed more than $500 million worth of property. To counteract the violence during that same period, the government made 497 arrests, 9 suspects were extradited to the U.S., and $250 million in property, weapons and drugs were confiscated:The Colombian police after 5 months of their campaign against the traffickers captured planes, hundreds of properties, fleets of cars, and in December of 1989 gunned down Jose Rodriguez Gacha, the most violent of the leaders of the Medellin cocaine organization. The Colombian national police is the country's chief antidrug agency. A special unit within the agency, the "Elite Corps", has the task of capturing drug bosses. Another police group, involved with an operation called "Red Moon", seeks out and destroys jungle laboratories believed to produce more than 550 pounds of cocaine a week, that bring in about $800,000 from U.S. purchases.48 According to United States officials, despite the efforts of the police and special units, there has not been a reduction in the flow of cocaine to the U.S. An estimated 85 percent of the cocaine consumed in the U.S. is still coming from Colombia.49 Defying and retaliating against United State's involvement and cooperation with the Colombian "drug crackdown" (which included seizure of their aircrafts and properties in addition to the U.S./Colombian extradition agreement and recent U.S. death penalty for drug traffickers), Gacha's organization planned to introduce American drug users to basuco, a partly processed coca plant that is later mixed with ether to purify it into cocaine. Basuco, which is just as addictive as crack but also possesses the additional quality of causing brain damage, has long been used by poor Colombians and the coca stomping Bolivian and Peruvian campesinos. Prior to Gacha's death at the hands of the authorities in Dec. 1989 a cartel source said: "Gacha thinks basuco will be very popular among poor Americans. He blames America for the injury his business has suffered and wants to punish the U.S."50 Though the escalation of violence is intimidating and eroding Barco's popular support throughout the country, Colombian officials contend that the season of terror is proof that their battle is taking its toll against the intended targets. "'We are winning,' insists General Miguel Maza Marquez, who as head of the DAS (Department of Administrative Security) directsthe government's offensive against the traffickers. The chieftans no longer live comfortably. They are in the mountains. The best proof that they are cracking is the level of madness to which they have sunk."51 However, some factions in the gov rnment and some community leaders outside of it are aying that the traffickers' offer may be a real opportunity to explore ways to end the violence and that this in turn Might provide an opening for dealing with the drug trafficking problem.52 On Jan. 15, 1990, Alfonso López Michelsen, a former Colombian President issued a statement suggesting that the traffickers might be treated leniently if they freed their hostages and stopped drug trafficking, murdering, and bombing. The statement was also signed by two other former presidents, the leader of the leftist Patriotic Union Party and the Archbishop of Colombia. The following day, the Extraditables issued a statment suggesting they had been defeated, adding that they "only desired peace, tranquility and democracy for our fatherland and our people". A few days later they had released Mr. Alvaro Diego Montoya Escobar, son of the Secretary General of Colombia 53 and four other hostages, including Patricia Echavarria, a sister of the husband of one of Mr. Barco's daughters. Barco's war is not primarily intended to keep the rest of the world safe from Colombian drugs. He views the narco-traffickers primarily as a threat to his country and thus devotes fewer resources to destroying the Cali clan than the other cartels. General Maza said, "In 1984 we didn't have a clear idea of the dimension of the problem We didn't realize that they had our society practically under control. They are killing Colombia. We have to resolve this problem first. Then we can take part in the world fight."54 The government holds Gacha and Escobar responsible for most of Colombia's recent violence. By contrast, Bogotd considers the Rodriquez Orejuela mob from Cali to be the whitecollar criminals who would rather make money than notoriety. While less prone to violence, the Cali organization does its share to sustain the drug networking system for it is the second major cartel in Colombia which controls the cocaine market in New York and other major American cities. Cali, a tropical city of more than 1 million people, was founded 450 years ago. It's racial mix is comprised of blacks from the coast, Indians from the hills, whites descended from the Spanish conquistadores, and a large mestizo population that shares the heritage of all three groups. The Liberal Party machine has made Cali one of Colombia's more efficiently run cities. Its fortunes have always been linked to agriculture, especially sugar cane. However, the traditional pattern of campesinos tending small plots of family land has now become largely replaced by big agribusiness concerns that own huge chunks of the valley. After Medellin, Cali is Colombia's most violent city. But there is none of the public chaos, bombings, kidnappings, and assassinations that characterize the Medellin cartel. It is here that the cocaine traffickers and the society at large have come to a profitable coexistence. The Colombian government's "total war" against the drug trade has barely touched the Cali cartel which is believed responsible for at least a third of the cocaine shipped to the United States. Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, head of the Cali cartel and known as "the chess player", came from humble origins. He began his career as a messenger for a pharmaceutical company. Later he ran his own businesses which included a drug store and allegedly used his facilities to process cocaine on the side. Rodriguez Orejuela and his "associate" Jose Santacruz Londono were among the 11 remaining on the "most wanted" list for cocaine-related charges in the U.S. Santacurz is still listed. Both men were leaders of a broad-based trafficking pyramind, controlling supply and distribution routes for cocaine, contacts in the U.S., money-laundering operations and a complex infrastructure.55 Colombian and U.S. officials estimate that the Cali group produces up to 200 tons of cocaine a year for export to the U.S. Moreover, even after Barco's crackdown, Rodriguez Orejuela carried on business as usual without the authority's relentless pursuit as was carried out against the Medellian drug lords. While the Cali traffickers have men under arms, they have not assembled the private armies that Medellin leaders Escobar and Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha put together. They also have invested heavily in legitimate enterprises — drug stores, radio stations, real estate, the soccer team America, and a string of sleazy motels. "Whether the Cali establishment wants to live with the traffickers or not, it does. The traffickers are responsible for a lot of philanthropy and there are a lot of architects, doctors, dentists, engineers, and lawyers who work for them." said Alvaro Camacho, a Cali sociologist who has studied the cartel and written extensively on violence in Colombia.56 Over the last two years the Cali and Medellin cartels have been warring against each other. In one notorious incident, Cali operatives tried to kill Escobar by bombing his apartment building. Some observers believed that the conflict ended with the start of the government's anti-drug campaign in August 1989 but there are signs that the fight is still going on. In a letter written to "El Tiempo" in mid January 1990, Escobar accused the Cali cartel of providing authorities with information that led them to the Medellin leader Rodriguez Gacha, who was killed in a shootout in Dec. 1989. He said the informant was "the navigator", who works for the Cali group. "They pretend not to be violent" Escobar wrote about the Cali cartel, "while at the same time they have slashed and kidnapped dozens of innocent [Medellin] citizens who happened to be visiting Cali." The letters written to the press from Rodruguez and Escobar indicate that with their recent offer to surrender their arms and get out of the cocaine trade, the Extraditables do not speak for the Cali Cartel. While the Colombian military is active in the search for Escobar and Ochoa, it has played virtually no role in trying to find the Cali cartel leaders. However, a U.S. specialist said that the government's action has kept the Cali cartel from expanding significantly by picking up the slack created by the disruption of the Medellin operations. Other sources say the Cali group is busy refining its business operations. Faced with stricter controls on the chemicals used to process finished cocaine, the Cali cartel reportedly has pioneered the use of more easily obtained substitutes. The narcotraffickers hate President Barco for they know that if he can catch them he will extradite them to face U.S. judges even though the government and economists estimate that $1.5 billion of drug trafficking profits circulated in the Colombian economy in 1989. That amount accounted for 20 percent of the country's total export earnings. The income from cocaine in 1989 was three times the $1.2 billion expected from the sale of Colombian coffee for that same year. The drug trade is highly lucrative and by some estimates as many as 300,000 of Colombia's 32 million people may be directly or indirectly employed in the cocaine business and as many as 1.2 million may benefit from the proceeds. The Colombian government and some economists say that a sudden halt to the drug trade (which yielded $4 billion in 1989) would throw the country into a deep recession that might run four or five years. "If the narcotics trafficking stoppped suddenly" said Fernando Tenjo Galarza of the Department of Naitonal Planning "it would be like having a coffee crisis and oil crisis at the same time." An economist said "I think we would see a very deep recession. It could be disastrous if you don't manage it In Colombia the law states that only the president may extradite suspects. Barco has proven to be a man of substance and determination from his adamant stance against the traffickers in addition to his successful economic policies. He has encouraged the import of "know-how," guaranteed flows of capital and profits, cut tariffs and generally liberalised the economy. The result has been a boom in oil wells, coal mines, and manufacturing industries. Colombia no longer depends primarily on exporting coffee. In 1984 exports were worth $3.5 billion, of which coffee contributed well over half. In 1988 coffee exports were slightly down, but total exports were worth more than $5 billion.58 However, Colombia says it needs better prices for its coffee and fewer restriction on its exports of freshly cut flowers and textiles to the United States. Under pressure from American coffee manufacturers for more advantageous prices and different mixes of beans, the United States has resisted reaching an international coffee agreement on price supports. World coffee prices have plunged and Colombia says it will lose about $500 million a year unless the agreement is restored. The breakdown in the International Coffee Agreement, signed by 74 producing and consuming countries to regulate coffee prices by controlling the quantity of exports, resulted from those demands made by the United States. The U.S.'s decision not to continue to negotiate caused the recent sharp drop in international coffee prices. "The agreement, which had maintained order in the world market for the past 27 years, aimed at supporting a base price for coffee beans of $1.20 a pound. After suspension of the quotas, the world price toppled to 85 cents, and remains around these levels today."59 It is apparent that there is a contradiction in the manner in which the United States is trying to help Colombia fight a drug war. On one hand the U.S. is willing to give financial and military aid to combat trafficking yet at the same time the U.S. is penalizing Colombia with trade actions impeding their economic independence because of competing domestic American interests. American trade policies are squeezing Colombia's earnings and making its war against cocaine trafficking more difficult. |