cannabisnews.com: Drug Czar Nominee Walters Concerned About Colombia





Drug Czar Nominee Walters Concerned About Colombia
Posted by FoM on May 13, 2001 at 10:24:02 PT
By Michael Isikoff in Washington
Source: Boston.com
President George W. Bush's drug czar nominee John Walters has expressed some skepticism about the $7.5 billion Plan Colombia drug eradication program and the White House has ordered a policy review, Newsweek has learned. One of Walters's concerns: too much U.S. aid is going to the Colombian military, which has long been tied to the right-wing paramilitaries. "It looks like we're heavily invested in a country where the situation is destabilizing rapidly," says a senior administration official in the current issue of Newsweek. "It's enough to give everybody pause." 
For political reasons, U.S. officials have been largely content to focus on drug-trafficking by Marxist guerrillas, who have been fighting an insurgency since 1964. But as the leftists retreat, right-wing private armies -- which have grown in response to leftist threats to businessmen and farmers -- are taking their place in the prosperous drug trafficking, and the Colombian government may be looking the other way, reports Miami Bureau Chief Joseph Contreras. In the past two years, Colombia drug lord and right-wing paramilitary leader Hernan Giraldo Serna and his militiamen have joined leaders of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a loose-knit coalition of private right-wing armies, to force 20,000 Marxist guerrillas out of many key cocaine- and heroin-producing regions. Colombian intelligence sources believe Giraldo alone is the head of a burgeoning drug syndicate that accounts for $1.2 billion in annual shipments to the U.S. and Europe, Contreras reports in the May 21 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, May 14). The U.S. State Department recently put Carlos Castano, the head of the AUC movement, on its terrorist-watch list for the first time. Colombia Prosecutor General Alfonso Gomez Mendez suspects Castano and his cohorts aren't concerned. "I don't think the paramilitaries are any more worried about the [State Department list] than atheists are of excommunication," he tells Newsweek. "The important thing is arresting the paramilitary leadership." But Giraldo and his confederates in the paramilitaries have important friends within the Colombian security services. "There must be complicity on the part of those agencies that are supposed to carry out orders for their arrest," Gomez tells Newsweek. (The Pastrana administration declined to comment). America's New Drug Czar Wants to Stop the Trafficking. But Plan Colombia is Plagued With Problems. Hernn Giraldo Is One. By Joseph Contreras In the foothills of the snow-capped Sierra Nevadas in northeastern Colombia, the Kogi Indians whisper his name in fear. Along the docks of the Caribbean port city of Santa Marta, gangsters speak with awe of his 400-man private army. But everyone knows that when it comes to Hernn Giraldo Serna, it's usually best not to know too much. The gangsters quietly recall, for instance, that in 1999 Giraldo ordered the brutal murders of four construction workers, whose bodies were then cut to bits with a chain saw. Their offense? They had built a special basement to store his multimillion-dollar cache of cocaine, and they knew where it was. Giraldo personifies a disturbing new trend in Colombia's huge narcotics industry: right-wing paramilitary leaders fighting to take control of the country's coca fields. In the past two years Giraldo and his Los Chamizos (Charred Tree) militiamen have joined leaders of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a loose-knit coalition of private right-wing armies, to force 20,000 Marxist guerrillas out of many key cocaine-and heroin-producing regions. Colombian intelligence sources now estimate that 40 percent of the country's total cocaine exports are controlled by these right-wing warlords and their allies in the narcotics underworld. These sources believe Giraldo alone is head of a burgeoning drug syndicate that accounts for $1.2 billion in annual shipments to the United States and Europe. That puts him among the country's top five cocaine traffickers. Some Colombian intelligence officials believe that Giraldo, the son of a dirt-poor cattle rancher, may one day rival the late Medellin-cartel kingpin Pablo Escobar in both wealth and power. Yet when it comes to right-wing drug lords, American policymakers -- and even some counternarcotics officials -- are rarely accused of knowing too much. In a recent interview, two of Washington's top drug warriors in Bogot said they had never heard of Giraldo. That admission goes to the core of a key problem with Washington's multibillion-dollar program to staunch the export of heroin and cocaine from Colombia. For political reasons, U.S. officials have been largely content to focus on drug-trafficking by Marxist guerrillas who have been fighting the government since 1964. (Targeting the guerrillas is the central aim of Washington's chief ally, Colombian President Andres Pastrana, and his $7.5 billion Plan Colombia to cut drug production in half.) But as the leftists retreat, right-wing private armies -- which have grown in response to leftist threats to businessmen and farmers -- are prospering, and the Colombian government may be looking the other way. The Bush administration is just beginning to grapple with these issues. Last week Bush nominated hard-liner John Walters as his new drug czar. Walters helped design drug-interdiction efforts in the Andean region for the first Bush administration. But Newsweek has learned that even Walters has expressed some skepticism about Plan Colombia, and that the White House has ordered a policy review. One of Walters's concerns: too much U.S. aid is going to the Colombian military, which has long been tied to the right-wing paramilitaries. "It looks like we're heavily invested in a country where the situation is destabilizing rapidly," says a senior administration official. "It's enough to give everybody pause." In recent weeks the State Department has seemed to shift tack on the paramilitaries. At the end of April it included Carlos Castano, head of the AUC paramilitary movement, on its terrorist-watch list for the first time. The significance of the decision was diminished somewhat because the AUC was placed in a second-tier category of "other terrorist organizations" that are deemed not to be direct threats to U.S. citizens or companies. But some Colombian officials suspect that Castano and his cohorts couldn't care less either way. "I don't think the paramilitaries are any more worried about the (State Department list) than atheists are of excommunication," said Prosecutor General Alfonso Gomez Mendez. "The important thing is arresting the paramilitary leadership." Giraldo has already been arrested once -- to no avail. That was in 1989, when he was still trafficking in marijuana. Giraldo had been convicted for the massacres of 20 unionized banana-plantation workers, crimes for which he got a 20-year prison sentence. Undercover police agents snatched him just outside Santa Marta and brought him to Bogot to face charges. But apparently the case was never followed up, and before long Giraldo was back in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. The mustached, hard-drinking drug lord switched to cocaine as his primary export commodity in 1992. Since then Giraldo's hit men have continued to kill suspected guerrilla sympathizers and trade-union members. In 1995 members of Giraldo's private army kidnapped a wealthy local businessman named Ambrosio Plata and demanded $1 million in ransom for his release. According to Colombian intelligence sources, Giraldo ordered Plata shot and then carved up his body with a chain saw after the ransom money was delivered. He abducted the victim's widow, Pilar, three years later and summarily executed her upon receipt of a $5 million ransom payment. A major in the Colombian Army's anti-kidnapping squad met a similar fate in 1999 when he tried to collect a $150,000 fee from Giraldo for having guarded a 3,000-kilogram consignment of cocaine. Over the years Giraldo has amassed a formidable network of properties and money-laundering businesses in the Santa Marta area. Colombian intelligence sources say he owns dozens of homes and farms, a fish-exporting business and a posh hotel. Generous donations to port authorities, police officials and politicians ensure that Giraldo's narcotics shipments sail unhindered from the sparsely populated coastline east of Santa Marta. Prosecutor General Gomez argues that Giraldo and his confederates in the paramilitaries must have important friends within the Colombian security services. "There must be complicity on the part of those agencies that are supposed to carry out the orders for their arrest," says Gomez. (The Pastrana administration declined to comment.) The Colombian government recently has tried to look tough by launching some rare Army strikes against right-wing militias. But no one expects Giraldo himself to be captured or killed any time soon. Abetted by ranchers and police who advise him about the arrival of outsiders, Giraldo can easily vanish into the remote valleys of the Sierra Nevadas on foot or by mule. "He has informants working throughout the region who radio him when the authorities are coming in," says one Colombian intelligence official. "That gives him ample time to flee into the mountains and avoid capture." Then again, that may just be a convenient excuse for letting Giraldo roam free. And it may just give the Bush administration added justification to retreat from Plan Colombia. Notes: Drug Eradication Program; White House Ordered Policy Review - Right-Wing Drug Lord With Ties To Paramilitary Groups - Colombia Government - Ousting Leftists - Taking Over Drug Trade Complete Title: Newsweek: Drug Czar Nominee Walters Concerned About Billion-Dollar Colombia -- http://www.newsweek.com/Soure: Boston.comAuthor: Michael Isikoff in Washington Published: May 13, 2001Copyright: 2001 Boston Globe Electronic Publishing, Inc. Website: http://www.boston.com/Feedback: http://www.boston.com/help/feedback.shtmlRelated Articles & Web Site:Colombia Drug War Newshttp://www.freedomtoexhale.com/colombia.htmBush Signals Shift in Drug War Emphasishttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9678.shtmlBush Nominates Drug-Policy Chiefhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9677.shtml
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Comment #4 posted by kaptinemo on May 14, 2001 at 06:10:33 PT:
He's worried about being 'Somalia-ed'
Ascroft's concern for events in Colombia is hardly that of someone worried about the human cost of our intervention down there.It's the fear of the same 'mission creep' that ensnared the first 6 months of the Klinton Administration and gave it a humiliatingly public black eye.If you recall, the Georgie Prime had gotten the US involved in the 'humanitarian aid' to Somalia. It was one of the last things he did as Prez. Knowing, because people who had lived and worked in the area had warned him officially, that doing so would endanger all those assigned to the area. Personally, I think he did it to spite Klinton. But the problem is, as always, the pols are quick to send someone else into the jaws of death..especially when it's not their hides that risk getting vented. Having completed that part of the job, the mission began to change into 'nation building', which required the removal of the warlords there. They are still there...and American servicemen, Army Rangers, some of the best of our best, were sacrificed in the effort - which accomplished nothing but make undertakers smile.That's what Ashcroft really fears. The Klinton Administration has made a mess of things in the entire Andean region and left it for Georgie Too to get all dirtied up in. Just like Georgie Prime did to Klinton in Somalia. For Ashcroft, this is the political equivalent of sticking one's head into a beehive. Apparently, he could care less about the cost that the rebels, the paras, and the various other players are exacting upon the campesinos; they are still spraying their poisons, down there. But what worries him is the fact that in the process, another Bowers Incident or even worse could happen on his watch. Something to give DrugWarriors another(!) public black eye.
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Comment #3 posted by dddd on May 13, 2001 at 12:43:13 PT
as if this was something new
It's hard to believe that this is all of a sudden being realized.I think the top brass in the military/cia at the highest level arecomplicit(sp?),in the whole sham.This whole fiasco was designedto milk billions from American taxpayers,and not having to accountfor it.It is a corporate conspiracy to secure vast oil reserves,andthe cocaine is gonna keep on flowing,but it will be from other US sponsored cartels...............dddd 
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Comment #2 posted by J.R. Bob Dobbs on May 13, 2001 at 12:24:06 PT
Where'd that extra six billion come from?
>>the $7.5 billion Plan Colombia  Last I remember, it used to be "the $1.3 billion Plan Columbia". When did it jump so high? Is this the actual cost, as opposed to the budget? Or is this just another example of a prohibitionist who can't remember a simple number?
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Comment #1 posted by MikeEEEEE on May 13, 2001 at 12:16:29 PT
Concerned
He should be concerned, failed plans usually fail, the drug war is a perfect example.
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