International Drug Control

U.S. international drug control policy is driven largely by domestic politics. The vast majority of U.S. politicians perceive that they have little to gain by questioning the U.S. "war on drugs" in Latin America but much to lose if they do not look "tough on drugs." As a result, each election year produces a myriad of legislation toughening U.S. drug laws and pouring more taxpayer dollars into costly eradication and interdiction efforts abroad, despite the fact that to date these programs have failed, by any measure, to diminish the flow of illicit drugs into the United States.

Drug production and trafficking do present a serious threat to Latin American countries, eroding local governments and institutions by stimulating corruption, fueling political violence and common crime, and skewing local economies. But present U.S. international drug control policies are, in fact, doing more harm than good. Militarized antidrug efforts undermine regional trends toward democratization and demilitarization and put U.S. assistance into the hands of human rights violators. Rather than taking advantage of the end of the cold war to redefine and limit local military roles, the U.S. government is expanding those roles. Insisting that militaries become involved in internal counternarcotics programs endorses local militaries in maintaining internal public order—precisely when Latin American governments are trying to keep local forces in the barracks—and strengthens the military at the expense of civilian institutions. U.S. insistence on the adoption of draconian antidrug legislation erodes the very civil liberties that fledgling Latin American governments have sought to construct to keep restless militaries and intelligence services in check.

Ironically, while elected civilian governments became the norm throughout the region, support for Latin American military and police forces actually increased as the drug war replaced the cold war as the primary vehicle for the U.S. military to maintain and strengthen ties with its Latin American and Caribbean counterparts. A recent study undertaken by the Latin America Working Group reveals a plethora of Defense Department channels for providing military aid and training to regional forces, all in the name of fighting drugs. These programs lack adequate congressional oversight mechanisms and are therefore extremely difficult to track.

In addition, the foreign aid budget assigned to international drug control efforts nearly tripled over the course of the 1990s. In contrast, U.S. economic assistance to the region was cut by two-thirds. For fiscal year 1998, the U.S. Congress appropriated $293 million for development assistance (not including food aid and ESF) for all of Latin America and the Caribbean, as compared to $230 million for international narcotics control programs, the vast majority of which are carried out in Latin America and the Caribbean. Over and above this amount is the funding allocated by U.S. intelligence agencies for counternarcotics operations; the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has also utilized the drug issue as its meal ticket for maintaining large operations in the Latin American region. For fiscal year 1999, Congress allocated $261 million for international narcotics control and then passed an additional spending bill that included $510 million in anti-narcotics related security assistance for both U.S. and local forces.

Cold War Relic
Counternarcotics aid is provided to forces responsible for some of the worst human rights violations in the hemisphere today. In Peru, the nefarious National Intelligence Service (SIN)—responsible for death squad activity, ongoing harassment of opposition politicians, journalists, and human rights activists, and continuous setbacks to democracy—receives economic as well as political support from U.S. officials who publicly praise SIN's counternarcotics efforts. In Mexico, Washington helped set up, finance, and train an elite army special forces unit in counternarcotics tactics. Not surprisingly, that unit was subsequently involved in counterinsurgency campaigns and is widely implicated in drug-trafficking-related corruption. Moreover, the General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress, has documented how some U.S. counternarcotics assistance was diverted to counterinsurgency efforts in Chiapas.

U.S. Military & Economic Aid to World Regions (millions of $U.S.) * Newly Independent States of the former Soviet Union. Source: USAID Congressional Presentation, FIscal Year 1999, Summary Tables.

In Mexico, the line between counternarcotics and counterinsurgency may be blurry; in Colombia, that line has been obliterated. In Colombia, the so-called "narco-guerrilla" threat is used to justify increased counternarcotics aid and an expanding role for U.S. military and intelligence forces. In a throwback to the cold war, the country with the worst human rights situation in the hemisphere today, Colombia, receives more U.S. security assistance than any country in the region. The Pentagon is engaged in a range of activities in Colombia, including the provision of military equipment and hardware, training, and intelligence-gathering. Also under consideration, according to senior U.S. officials, are additional military training and support, and the provision of advanced helicopters and of more sophisticated intelligence-gathering and communications equipment. The Clinton administration is thus headed down the slippery slope of greater involvement in the hemisphere's most brutal counterinsurgency campaign.

The U.S. war on drugs is characterized by yet another cold war relic: the big stick approach. Mandated by Congress in 1986, the annual "certification" process provides Congress with the opportunity to criticize both the administration and countries such as Colombia and Mexico for failing to do enough to keep drugs out of the hands of U.S. children. Each year, the administration must produce a list of major drug-producing or drug-transit countries, which are then rated for their antinarcotics efforts. Unless granted a "national security waiver," countries that are not certified face mandatory sanctions, including suspension of all U.S. assistance (with the exception of humanitarian aid and antinarcotics assistance), "no" votes on IFI loans, and possible trade sanctions. This unilateral, score-card approach by the world's largest consumer of illicit drugs angers Latin Americans across the political spectrum and strains bilateral relations, undermining cooperation and, ironically, other U.S. government interests.

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