 |
|
VOLUME II
The Bush administration’s proposal to provide direct support
against Colombian insurgent groups as part of an intensified strike on
international terrorism and drug trafficking is the latest step in a series
of policy decisions over the last decade that have steadily increased the
scope of U.S. involvement in Colombia’s civil conflict. While U.S.
support activities have been nominally limited to the counternarcotics
mission, in practice these operations often bring Colombian security forces
into conflict with guerrillas and other armed groups.
As these counterdrug deployments have increasingly come to resemble
regular combat operations, the U.S. has encouraged greater involvement
of regular Colombian military forces in these missions. However,
many U.S. policymakers have expressed doubt about the Colombian Army’s
commitment to the drug war, complaining that the aid is often used in pure
counterguerrilla operations, sometimes with no measurable benefit against
drug trafficking.
In February 1992 – after three years of a sustained
military build-up – the U.S. and Colombia agreed to reduce the Colombian
military’s level of involvement in the drug war and redirect some $75 million
in assistance to the Colombian National Police. At the time, operational
reports from embassy officials and military attaches had begun to reflect
their concerns about the inability – and often the unwillingness – of host
government military forces to distinguish between counternarcotics and
counterinsurgency operations. The U.S. Embassy complained publicly
that the military had been using U.S. counterdrug aid to fight guerrillas.(19)
Military and economic assistance for all three Andean countries funded
under the program was further reduced in January 1993 as part of an early
Clinton administration effort to refocus the drug war to domestic programs.(20)
Military assistance to Colombia – especially under the president’s “emergency
drawdown” authority(21) – was virtually
halted for the next three years.
U.S. officials doubted that the Colombian military
would ever fully embrace the counterdrug mission, suggesting that they
often used the issue to gain access to U.S. assistance that could then
be used against the insurgents. Indeed, the Colombian military has
often tried to convince U.S. officials that these missions are indistinguishable,
and that efforts to separate the two have precluded their ability to deal
effectively with either one. Several of the documents included below
underscore this premise, portraying aerial spray operations as tantamount
to low-intensity close air support missions, during which spray aircraft
routinely take ground fire from coca farmers and guerrilla groups, and
in which well-armed military aircraft are needed to blanket the terrain
with return fire.
But U.S. intelligence reports and other declassified
documents present a somewhat inconsistent and often contradictory account
of the actual relationship between drug traffickers and guerrilla groups
in Colombia, perhaps reflecting their own organizational biases.
But these differing reports may also be indicative of the fact that insurgents
are involved at different levels of the process and to different degrees
depending on which guerrilla front is involved. Finished intelligence
reports obtained by the National Security Archive – two from the Central
Intelligence Agency (See Documents 24 and 40)
and another from the Drug Enforcement Administration (See Document
33) – all maintain that the link is not nearly as strong as Colombian
and other Andean officials indicate, suggesting that efforts to link the
two were mainly attempts by Colombian security forces get permission to
use U.S. security assistance against the guerrillas, with little or no
benefit against traffickers.
Another particularly sensitive issue – recently raised
by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and others(22)
– has been the involvement of American pilots and other personnel in the
dangerous drug crop eradication missions of the Colombian security forces.
This arrangement, under which U.S. pilots operate spray planes, search
and rescue helicopters, and security escort aircraft, puts U.S. civilian
contractors in combat situations, where direct engagement with guerrillas
and other armed groups is a frequent occurrence.
By 1996, it had become clear to U.S. officials that
the enhanced aerial herbicide application program begun in 1994 – under
which the State Department provided eradication aircraft, technical advisors,
instructor pilots, and major program funding – had not achieved its stated
goals in terms of eradication, or in terms of ultimately transferring responsibility
for these programs over to the Colombians. In August 1996 – with
relations already strained over the “decertification” of Colombia’s counterdrug
performance – the program was suspended for the second time that year,
primarily because the Colombian government refused to allow U.S. “instructor
pilots” on actual CNP eradication missions. The issue was finally
resolved in September when Colombian officials, under strong U.S. pressure,
reluctantly agreed to allow Americans to participate in these operations
(See Document 36), an arrangement that continues
to this day despite efforts to phase out the U.S. role.(23)
The controversy over the use of American civilians
in Andean counterdrug missions took center stage following the
shootdown by the Peruvian Air Force of an American missionary plane mistaken
for drug traffickers by a CIA contractor in April 2001.
In a separate incident, U.S. military and civilian contract employees allegedly
provided information that initiated and supported the 1998 bombing by the
Colombian Air Force of the town of Santo Domingo during a counterguerrilla
operation, killing 18 civilians.(24) Both issues
raise questions about the ability to monitor how U.S.-supplied intelligence
is used by host nation security forces.
As the documents below illustrate, aerial eradication
operations place U.S. and Colombian pilots in combat situations, often
involving the use of ground troops, close air support and armed search
and rescue helicopters. Recently, FARC guerrillas forced down a U.S.
government helicopter returning from an anti-drug mission, killing five
Colombian police officers who were defending the wreckage. In a February
2001 incident American civilian contractors(25)
aboard a search and rescue helicopter traded fire with FARC guerrillas
after a Colombian police helicopter was shot down during a counterdrug
mission.(26) Monthly Narcotics Reports from
the Embassy’s Narcotics Affairs Unit (See Document
41) confirm media reports indicating that U.S.-piloted aircraft
are routinely hit by ground fire while on these missions.(27)
Such accounts highlight the dangers that pilots and crewmembers face during
these operations, and the very real possibility that an incident resulting
in the death or capture of a U.S. citizen might drag the U.S. into a direct
confrontation with Colombian guerrilla groups.(28)
Note: The following documents are in PDF format.
You will need to download and install the free Adobe
Acrobat Reader to view.
| Document
17 |
|
 |
Central Intelligence Agency, “International Narcotics Situation
Report,” January 1991, Excerpt, Secret, 9 pp. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information Act Release to the National
Security Archive |
Despite some notable achievements in 1990, the CIA estimates
that the Colombian government “remains protective” about the role of its
military forces in the drug war. The report notes that Colombian
military chiefs were pleased to have planned and conducted the spectacular
May 1990 raid on the remote Petrolera cocaine processing complex without
the support of the U.S., although, the document adds, “they did depend
on U.S.-supplied intelligence, training and equipment.” Significantly,
CIA believes that “the military’s primary mission will almost certainly
continue to be counterinsurgency,” a condition that will “limit the near-term
availability of this resource for counternarcotics operations.”
| Document
18 |
|
|
Defense Intelligence Agency, Intelligence Information Report,
“COLAR Finds Opium Poppies,” April 11, 1991, Classification Excised, 2
pp. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information Act Release to the National
Security Archive |
Discoveries of poppy fields in Colombia were still relatively
rare in 1991, as this heavily-excised intelligence report regarding the
discovery of poppy cultivations by Army’s Ninth Brigade indicates.
Comments from the reporting U.S. military official note that in locations
where poppy cultivation has been reported in Colombia “guerrilla groups
are always involved.”
| Document
19 |
|
|
U.S. Embassy Colombia cable, “Colombian Army Second Division
Commander Requests USG Assistance: Reconnaissance and Eradication of ELN
Coca Cultivations,” May 2, 1991, Confidential, 5 pp. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information Act Release to the National
Security Archive |
Emphasizing the link between guerrillas and drug cultivation,
the commander of the Colombian Army’s Second Division requests overhead
reconnaissance and other technical assistance from the U.S. to help with
the manual eradication of coca fields believed to be associated with the
National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla group. Embassy officials
comment that the use of Colombian National Police (CNP) aircraft may result
in “greater information exchange with the Colombian National Police on
ELN narcotics activities.”
Under guidance issued in 1998, the U.S. restricted
the sharing of guerrilla-related intelligence with Colombian security forces
unless such information was directly related to planning counternarcotics
operations. New guidelines issued in 1999 relaxed these restrictions
to permit the disclosure of intelligence on what one U.S. official characterized
as guerrilla “threats to counter-narcotics forces.”(29)
| Document
20 |
|
|
Defense Intelligence Agency, Intelligence Information Report,
“DIJIN Guerrilla Analysis,” August 23, 1991, Classification Excised, 5
pp. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information Act Release to the National
Security Archive |
Among other items, this document stresses that FARC involvement
in poppy cultivation – which had recently become a top priority for the
Colombian government – “must receive the full attention of all intelligence
agencies.” According to the report, guerrillas “are clearly and undeniably
involved in narco trafficking.”
| Document
21 |
|
|
Defense Intelligence Agency, Intelligence Information Report,
“Drug Cultivation and Guerrilla Support,” December 11, 1991, Classification
Excised, 6 pp. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information Act Release to the National
Security Archive |
This DIA report provides a chart describing what is thought
to be a close association between narcotics-related facilities and the
presence of guerrilla fronts in Colombia. The nature of the relationship
is so integrated, the report asserts, “it is not possible to differentiate
exactly which the Army units are attacking.” Because of this ambiguity,
the Army “has been carrying out simultaneous operations against the two
threats” since 1982. The Colombian military, the author suggests,
argues for U.S. counternarcotics assistance on the presumption that “the
narco guerrilla relationship makes it impossible to combat narcos without
fighting the guerrillas at the same time.”
| Document
22 |
|
|
Defense Intelligence Agency, Intelligence Information Report,
“Fifth Artillery BN, Order of Battle, Guerrilla Activity,” March 11, 1992,
Classification Excised, 6 pp. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information Act Release to the National
Security Archive |
Until recently there were no Colombian military units dedicated
exclusively to counternarcotics operations.(30)
Most, like the battalion discussed in this document, had a number of other
missions, including counterinsurgency operations and, in the case of the
Fifth Battalion, artillery support. As the document describes, the
unit patrols its area of operations (AO) to “pursue guerrillas, destroy
narcotics fields, or establish a presence which will deny guerrillas an
operating area.”
According to the document, Fifth Battalion officers
have complained to their U.S. counterparts about recent cuts in aid for
the Colombian Army – cuts resulting from concerns that counterdrug assistance
was being diverted to fight the guerrillas.(31)
The officers explained that “by fighting the insurgents they were fighting
narcotraffickers as the two had become tightly linked.”
| Document
23 |
|
|
U.S. Transportation Command, “USTRANSCOM DISUM 076,” April
18, 1992, Secret, 10 pp. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information Act Release to the National
Security Archive |
Although herbicides were used against marijuana crops for a
period in the mid-1980s, Colombia had resisted U.S. pressure to use them
against other drug crops until January 1992, when the government approved
procedures for the aerial application of glyphosate against marijuana and
poppy cultivations (at the time coca cultivation – as opposed to processing
– occurred largely in Peru and Bolivia and was not a significant crop in
Colombia). Aerial fumigation operations began in mid-February 1992.
Barely two months after the program got underway,
this document reports an incident in which U.S. officials aboard a Colombian
police helicopter during a poppy fumigation operation found themselves
in the midst of a firefight with FARC guerrillas. According to the
document, “U.S. counternarcotics officials were observing the fumigation
operation from the helicopter, which was providing routine air cover, at
the time of the incident.” In response to shots from the ground,
the police helicopter – with U.S. officials on board – “directed covering
fire at the suspected FARC position,” coordinating its operations with
a Colombian Army unit in the area. “In all,” the document states,
“the helo fired some 2,500 rounds.”
| Document
24 |
|
|
Central Intelligence Agency, “Narco-Insurgent Links in the
Andes,” July 29, 1992, Secret, 8 pp. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information Act Release to the National
Security Archive |
This report from the CIA’s Counternarcotics Center examines
the relationship between narcotics traffickers and guerrilla groups in
Colombia and Peru and assesses the implications of this relationship for
U.S.-funded counterdrug programs in the region.(32)
The report finds that guerrillas are indeed associated with the Andean
drug trade, but nevertheless warns that the use by Andean security forces
of counterdrug aid for counterinsurgency purposes would not produce a measurable
result against trafficking.
The report cites a number of ways in which traffickers
and insurgents collaborate. The insurgents, for example, are believed
to be involved in the protection of “key trafficking infrastructure” and
have also become “more directly involved in the transportation of drugs.”
In Colombia, the report continues, guerrilla groups have made inroads in
the burgeoning heroin trade, providing protection and also engaging in
cultivation of poppy fields. The insurgents are also thought to use
their trafficker connections to obtain weapons.
But the report also stresses that the relationship
is one “characterized by both cooperation and friction.” Many traffickers
resent the “revolutionary taxes” imposed by the guerrillas and some “have
turned to corrupt military and police forces for protection” against guerrilla
groups. The report adds, “many traffickers would probably welcome,
and even assist, increased operations against insurgents.”
The CIA is skeptical of Andean government claims
that “funding counterinsurgency operations with counternarcotics aid would
lead to major gains against traffickers.” Moreover, the CIA believes
that “officials in Lima and Bogotá, if given antidrug aid for counterinsurgency
purposes, would turn it to pure antiguerrilla operations with little payoff
against trafficking.”
The report does suggest, however, that “long term
improvements in rural security,” extending the reach of counterdrug forces
“by allowing them to use forward basing in areas formerly controlled by
guerrillas,” might improve counternarcotics effectiveness down the road.
| Document
25 |
|
|
U.S. Southern Command, “USSOUTHCOM Counterdrug Daily OPSUM/INSUM,”
February 25, 1993, Secret, 3 pp. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information Act Release to the National
Security Archive |
One way the U.S. has aided Colombia’s counterinsurgency campaign
is through the provision of intelligence, ostensibly for counternarcotics
purposes, but often supporting operations in which guerrillas are also
targeted. Information on these combined missions, as indicated in
this summary of intelligence operations supported by U.S. Southern Command,
is often freely passed between U.S. and Colombian officials.
The document includes a section (see second page)
pertaining to a Colombian Army counterdrug operation in the Valle de Cauca,
a mountainous region near the city of Cali that was then a primary focus
of counternarcotics efforts in Colombia. The report boasts that the
“catalyst” for these operations was intelligence provided by the U.S. Military
Group (Milgp), noting that “six of the seven targets hit in the first three
phases were provided by our intel.” The Milgp also reports that Colombian
Army officials involved in the operation have “shared with the Milgp their
opinion that guerrillas are providing protection for the drug labs.”
The document adds that “all intel gathered,” presumably to include information
on the guerrilla groups involved, “is being freely shared” between the
two governments.
| Document
26 |
|
|
Defense Intelligence Agency, Intelligence Information Report,
“General Jose Serrano, Director of the National Police Anti-Narcotics Division,
Discusses the Antinarcotic Police’s Current Efforts and Status,” March
5, 1993, Classification Excised, 5 pp. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information Act Release to the National
Security Archive |
Among other comments at a meeting of police attaches, Gen.
Jose Serrano, the director of Colombia’s anti-narcotics police, asserts
that the drug war has become Colombia’s most pressing problem, adding that
the guerrillas are now so deeply involved in the drug trade that one cannot
consider the narcotics problem separately from the guerrilla threat.
Serrano’s emphasis on the drug threat is no surprise
given his status as the country’s chief anti-drug official, and his linkage
of the narcotics trade to the guerrillas may reflect his desire to defend
his organization’s mission and budget at a time when the army’s counterguerrilla
units were becoming increasingly involved in counterdrug operations.
The document’s author does not speculate about Serrano’s
motives, but is struck by the “difference of opinion when the army and
the police talk about the guerrilla issue.” While the police “put
all guerrilla activity in with the narco’s” [sic], military officials “see
an association between the narcos and the guerrillas but do not exclusively
group them as one.”
| Document
27 |
|
|
U.S. Embassy Colombia, “More Ground Fire Disables Two CNP
[Colombian National Police] Aircraft in Opium Poppy Eradication Campaign,”
June 22, 1993, Unclassified, 4 pp. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information Act Release to the National
Security Archive |
This cable reports a number of hits on Colombian National Police
(CNP) poppy eradication aircraft during May and June 1993. According
to the document the ground fire is believed to have come from FARC guerrillas.
“The effectiveness of the ground fire and multiple hits on aircraft indicates
the ambushers are using automatic weapons,” the cable notes, adding that
poppy growers and other farmers are not organized enough to carry out such
attacks. “The concerted attack on eradication aircraft suggests some
other, more organized force is responsible.”
It is also reported that the CNP is preparing to
execute “helicopter-transported ground raids against selected sites in
the area as a deterrent to future ambushes.”
| Document
28 |
|
|
Defense Intelligence Agency, Intelligence Information Report,
“Neiva – Drug Spraying Operations,” November 23, 1993, Classification Excised,
4 pp. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information Act Release to the National
Security Archive |
This report covers anti-poppy operations in the area around
Neiva in the mountains of southern Colombia.
While Colombians feel that “actually visiting the
site of narcotics cultivation” is the most efficient counterdrug strategy,
it is also the most dangerous. Aerial spray operations, on the other
hand, are “the easiest way to continue the eradication program without
facing a well-armed narco-guerrilla enemy.” These missions, the document
notes, “are often subject to random ground fire from automatic weapons.”
| Document
29 |
|
|
Defense Intelligence Agency, Intelligence Information Report,
“Smuggling Trends in the Department of Huila,” December 1, 1993, Classification
Excised, 4 pp. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information Act Release to the National
Security Archive |
This report briefly describes the heroin production process
in the Colombian department of Huila – then a major source of opium latex
– from cultivation through the various stages of processing and refining.
According to the document, independent growers control much of the process,
while major drug cartels do not generally become involved until the stage
where morphine is refined into heroin.
The report also downplays the participation of insurgent
groups in the process, noting that guerrilla involvement largely “focuses
on the extortion of the peasants growing the poppy plants and producing
the [opium] latex,” and that “there is little evidence that the guerrilla
groups are physically protecting poppy fields.” The report also notes
that attacks against eradication forces – which are frequently attributed
to guerrilla forces – “are more instigated by the growers themselves and
not by hired guerrilla protectors.”
| Document
30 |
|
|
Defense Intelligence Agency, Intelligence Information Report,
“Anti-Narcotic Police Operations in the Department of Huila,” December
2, 1993, Classification Excised, 5 pp. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information Act Release to the National
Security Archive |
This report covers the activities of Colombian police counternarcotics
units in the poppy growing regions of Huila Department. According
to the document, the anti-narcotic police are “designated as deployable
personnel aboard the police helicopters while flying combat air support
for the Turbo Thrush crop spraying aircraft.” The police forces act
as “door gunners” and also as “ground attack troops” as the situation demands.
According to the cable, the “real or perceived guerrilla threat” discourages
the police from carrying out ground operations without helicopter support.
| Document
31 |
|
|
Defense Intelligence Agency, Intelligence Information Report,
“Narcotic Cultivation Sites in the Department of Arauca,” December 14,
1993, Classification Excised, 3 pp. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information Act Release to the National
Security Archive |
This document describes what were then relatively small-scale
coca cultivation activities in the department of Arauca in Colombia’s eastern
plains.
While coca (and increasingly heroin) production are
emerging problems in Arauca, the document asserts that the biggest problem
for Colombian security forces “is combatting the numerous guerrilla factions
existing in the region.” The report asserts that insurgent groups
“are involved in the drug business more so from the trafficking side of
the house.” The insurgents, the report adds, participate in the drug
trade “more so to get the means to buy arms, ammunition, and explosives
than for the mere accumulation of wealth.”
| Document
32 |
|
|
Defense Intelligence Agency, Intelligence Information Report,
“Guerrilla Activity in the Department of Cauca,” February 26, 1994, Classification
Excised, 4 pp. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information Act Release to the National
Security Archive |
This intelligence report examines guerrilla forces active in
the Department of Cauca, a mountainous region in southern Colombia.
The document notes that attacks against Colombian National Police forces
are a main objective of the insurgent groups “because they are more susceptible
to quick strikes for lack of manpower and are essentially unable to wage
a concentrated counter attack without the backing of the Army.”
Most of the guerrilla groups are believed to be financing
at least some portion of their operations through an association with the
narcotics trade, but the document adds that “there is little indication
that the various guerrilla factions are cultivating their own fields and
coordinating their own processing and delivery systems.”
| Document
33 |
|
|
Drug Enforcement Administration, Drug Intelligence Report,
“Insurgent Involvement in the Colombian Drug Trade,” June 1994 |
|
Source: Freedom of Information Act Release to the National
Security Archive |
This finished intelligence report from the South American Unit
of the DEA’s Strategic Intelligence Section refutes the frequent claims
made by Colombian and some U.S. officials that guerrilla groups are deeply
involved in virtually all stages of the drug trade and have become, in
essence, the “country’s third drug cartel.”
The DEA finds that, “Despite Colombian security forces’
frequent claim that FARC units are involved directly in drug trafficking
operations, the independent involvement of insurgents in Colombia’s domestic
drug production, transportation, and distribution is limited.” The
report adds that “no credible evidence indicates that the FARC or ELN has
directed, as a matter of policy, that their respective organizations directly
engage in independent drug production or distribution,” and also that “neither
the FARC nor the ELN are known to have been involved in the transportation,
distribution, or marketing of illicit drugs in the United States or Europe.”
Moreover, the DEA finds that the relationship between
insurgents and traffickers “is characterized by both cooperation and conflict,”
noting that the groups “do not have the same objectives,” and are thus
unlikely to form anything more than “ad hoc ‘alliances of convenience.’”
DEA “does not anticipate … that the insurgents will ever challenge the
cartels’ domination of Colombia’s illicit drug trade.”
| Document
34 |
|
|
U.S. Embassy Colombia cable, “OV-10’s for the Colombia Aerial
Eradication Program,” September 19, 1996, Confidential, 3 pp. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information Act Release to the National
Security Archive |
In the midst of a dispute over whether Colombia would allow
U.S. pilots aboard counternarcotics spray operations (see Document
35), the State Department began preparations to deliver for the
first time an OV-10 “Bronco” aircraft to Colombia for use in these missions.
According to Boeing, the producer of the OV-10, the Bronco is designed
specifically for “anti-guerrilla operations, helicopter escort, close air
support, armed reconnaissance, and forward air control.”(33)
While the State Department would prefer the aircraft
to be flown by an American pilot, the Embassy finds this possibility “highly
unlikely given the [Colombian government] adversity to direct American
pilot participation.” Nevertheless, the Embassy supports giving the
OV-10 to the Colombians, mainly because Colombia “continues to demonstrate
it will commit military forces directly to counternarcotics activities.”
According to the cable, the bigger, more secure Broncos would be an essential
upgrade for the counterdrug forces “as the narco-guerrillas continue to
target and score against eradication aircraft.”
| Document
35 |
|
|
State Department cable, “NAS/GOC Aerial Drug Eradication
Program,” September 25, 1996, Unclassified, 8 pp. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information Act Release to the National
Security Archive |
In 1994, the Colombian Ministry of Defense approved a program
called Operation Splendor, an effort to wipe out all coca and poppy cultivation
in Colombia through aerial fumigation with the chemical herbicide glyphosate.
The program was halted twice in 1996 for several reasons, but primarily
because Colombia was not willing to allow U.S. “instructor pilots” to fly
on actual eradication missions with the Colombian National Police (CNP).
This issue, as much as any other, helps explain why the U.S. “decertified”
Colombia’s cooperation with U.S. counterdrug programs in March 1996, resulting
in the cutoff of many kinds of assistance not related to narcotics.
This cable sent to the U.S. Embassy in Colombia maps
out a strategy for negotiating this issue with the Colombians. According
to the document, the absence of U.S. pilots on these missions has made
it “impossible to train a competent CNP crew force.” The State Department
questions “how much more we are willing to spend on an effort that is not
producing adequate results,” and where U.S. pilots are not “allowed to
perform their full range of duties.”
To support the U.S. position, the State Department
cites a successful marijuana eradication campaign in Colombia piloted largely
by Americans in the 1980s, and the presence of U.S. pilots on “other fixed-wing
aircraft(34) in the same operating areas within
Colombia as the spray aircraft.” The cable also notes that U.S. pilots
“are trained to fly under adverse conditions including hostile fire.”
The U.S. position explicitly rejects a Colombian proposal to allow American
pilots to fly only “in safe areas,” since it will not result in the full
eradication of drug crops and “will not provide optimum training and evaluation
for the Colombian pilots.”
The Embassy is to offer the Colombians three options: 1) To accept
American instructors alongside Colombian pilots; 2) to allow third-country
nationals to act as instructor pilots; or 3) to “go it alone.”
| Document
36 |
|
|
U.S. Embassy Colombia cable, “NAS/GOC Aerial Drug Eradication
Program,” September 26, 1996, Confidential, 13 pp. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information Act Release to the National
Security Archive |
In an emotional meeting with the Colombian defense minister
and two officials from the Colombian National Police (CNP), U.S. Ambassador
Myles Frechette explained the conditions under which the State Department
would restart the drug crop eradication program suspended in August (See
Document
35).
According to Frechette, the reaction from the Colombians
“varied between anger, indignation, and outrage” in the case of Colonel
Gallego, the CNP counternarcotics chief, who at times had “tears running
down his cheeks.” The Colombians, Frechette reports, told him that
it was “imperative to begin spraying coca immediately … so as not to give
the narcos and the guerrillas, who had inspired the peasant demonstrations,
the belief that by arranging demonstrations they could stop or even slow
down the drug eradication program.”
Frechette explains that after listening to the three
options, the Colombian defense minister felt he had no choice but to “reluctantly”
recommend the use of the U.S. pilots, despite what he noted would be a
difficult position to defend before the Colombian legislature. For
his part, Frechette was “amazed to see the Colombians give way so easily.”
| Document
37 |
|
|
U.S. Embassy Colombia cable, “Expanded Aerial Interdiction:
Implementation Plan,” October 7, 1996, Unclassified, 9 pp. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information Act Release to the National
Security Archive |
This cable describes the phases by which the aerial eradication
program – suspended since August 1996 – will be reintroduced in Colombia
with the participation of U.S. pilots.
In the initial phase of the program, missions are
to be carried out using three operational strategies: “combined interdiction/eradication
operations, combined Colombian Army ground support/security for eradication
flights, and aerially escorted operations without ground support.”
Among the “critical details” to be addressed by State Department officials
is “the use of [Colombian National Police] gunners on the U.S. rescue helicopters.”
Over the years, the presence of Colombian gunners on U.S.
aircraft has involved American personnel in several firefights, including
the 1992 incident discussed in Document 23, and again in February 2001
(mentioned in the introduction to this section).
| Document
38 |
|
|
U.S. Embassy Colombia cable, “Aerial Eradication Division
Resumes Spray Operations: Tactics, Training, and What to Expect,” February
7, 1997, Confidential, 6 pp. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information Act Release to the National
Security Archive |
Building on success from the previous year’s “Operation Conquest”
(See Documents 44 and 45),
and bolstered by new tactics and Colombia’s reluctant acceptance of U.S.
spray pilots (See Documents 35 and 36),
the Embassy’s Narcotics Affairs Section (NAS) briefs State, Defense, intelligence
and other officials on recent aerial eradication missions in Guaviare Department.
The document highlights the hazards of ground fire in U.S.-piloted eradication
operations, and indicates the high level of coordination among U.S. counterdrug
officials, Colombian police, and Colombian Army ground forces during these
dangerous missions.
NAS reports that the spray teams have made tactical
shifts “in an effort to thwart continued hits from ground fire.”
The most recent operations, however, have been carried out in low threat
areas since the departure of the Army’s Second Mobile Brigade (a unit later
denied U.S. assistance after one of its intelligence officers was implicated
in the July 1997 massacre of civilians at Mapiripán(35)).
Until recently, the brigade was part of what NAS considered to be the proper
mix of eradication support forces: “close helicopter support, coupled with
[Colombian Army] support on the ground.” The document also indicates
that American search and rescue (SAR) units have also been integrated into
the team.
NAS believes that the departure of the Second Mobile
Brigade “may be a factor in the number of hits received” by spray aircraft,
adding that the Embassy had asked Colombian police to request the return
of the brigade “until the eradication task force achieves it goal of maximum
eradication of coca fields in that department” [sic]. NAS feels that
the request “will ensure the [Colombian government] commitment to keep
the [Colombian Army] fully engaged in areas of operation.”
| Document
39 |
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U.S. Embassy Colombia cable, “Successful Visit by ONDCP
[Office of National Drug Control Policy] and INL [State Department Bureau
of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs] Staff,” July 31,
1997, Confidential, 11 pp. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information Act Release to the National
Security Archive |
This cable summarizes the visit to Colombia by a team from
the
Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and the State Department’s
Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL).
The Americans were there to tour areas and facilities associated with U.S.-supported
counterdrug programs.
The visit came only two days after the conclusion
of the massacre at Mapiripán, in which Colombian Army-backed paramilitary
forces killed dozens of civilians. Among the facilities toured during
the trip was the Colombian Army Special Forces training base at Barrancon,
located only a short distance from the airfield at San Jose del Guaviare
from which the paramilitaries launched their attack on Mapiripán.
The trip also came during a period when the legal
status of the “Convivir” civilian self-defense forces established by the
government in 1994 was under review in the Colombian court system.
Under the program, the government armed a network of civilians to act as
rural militias against rebel forces. Human rights groups had criticized
the program for involving civilians in Colombia’s armed conflict and for
alleged links between the Convivirs and illegal paramilitary groups.
Noted in the cable are the comments of a Colombian official at Barrancon
who provided “a verbal defense of the Convivir public defense forces,”
which he compared to “the hired sheriffs of the calvary [sic] of the wild
west.”
The team visited recently sprayed coca fields, and
was briefed by a Colombian National Police (CNP) official who highlighted
the dangers associated with the eradication program, telling the Americans
that crop dusting planes are hit by ground fire “roughly every three days.”
Despite the danger, Colonel Gallego of the Anti-Narcotics Police said that
the CNP did not need help from the Army, which in any case lacked the mobility
necessary to support the eradication missions. Gallego told the team
that the Army “sometimes offer help just to demonstrate involvement and
then ask for resources.”
| Document
40 |
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Central Intelligence Agency, Intelligence Report, “Colombia-Venezuela:
Continuing Friction Along the Border,” October 1, 1997, Secret, 14 pp. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information Act Release to the National
Security Archive |
Alarmed by an increase in kidnappings, extortion, and attacks
on its military outposts, the Venezuelan government in 1997 had become
increasingly concerned about Colombia’s apparent inability to reign in
guerrilla activity along the Venezuelan border.(36)
The report, from the CIA’s Office of Asian Pacific
and Latin American Analysis, assesses what the issue has meant for Colombia-Venezuela
bilateral relations, and discusses the possible implications of the dispute
for U.S. policy in the region. Analysts conclude that the diplomatic
problems engendered by the dispute might complicate U.S. counterdrug and
other programs and could perhaps even “force the US to assume a greater
role in the border problem.” The CIA predicts that both countries
are likely to ask the U.S. to intervene, “ostensibly to interdict the narcotics
flow … by providing military equipment and technical support that could
be used against the insurgents.”
| Document
41 |
|
|
U.S. Embassy Colombia, “NAS [Narcotics Affairs Section]
Bogotá Monthly Narcotics Report: August – November,” December 3,
1997, Unclassified, 21 pp. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information Act Release to the National
Security Archive |
Among many other issues addressed by this report from the embassy’s
Narcotics Affairs Section (NAS) is the recent arrival of six U.S. government-owned
UH-1H helicopters “to be exclusively assigned to security escort in the
aerial eradication program” (see page 6). According to the document,
these helicopters, which have been armored and equipped with machine guns,
“will be piloted by U.S. contract pilots.” The cable characterizes
these missions as “possibly the most dangerous flying in the so-called
drug war.”
Underscoring the perils of these missions, the document
reports a number of incidents in which U.S. or Colombian aircraft were
hit by ground fire during the previous month of counterdrug missions (see
page 14). On one occasion, Colombian police attempting to rescue
a downed helicopter “came under heavy fire from guerrillas and ended up
blowing the aircraft instead of leaving it for the guerrillas.” U.S.
and Colombian-owned aircraft suffered a total of 68 ground fire incidents
in 1997 according to NAS statistics.(37)
| Document
42 |
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|
U.S. Embassy Colombia cable, “Request for Training Plan
and Phaseout Timeline for DynCorp Operations in Colombia,” April 22, 1998,
Unclassified, 4 pp. |
|
Source: Freedom of Information Act Release to the National
Security Archive |
Citing the “heightened threat from guerrilla forces,” the Embassy
requests that the State Department’s Bureau for International Narcotics
and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) prepare a plan to initiate the “phase
out” of American pilots from the drug crop eradication program in Colombia.
Under contract with INL, U.S. citizens employed by DynCorp – a Virginia-based
company – have been flying and otherwise supporting counternarcotics missions
over Colombia since November 1996.
While praising the work performed by the DynCorp
pilots, Embassy officials believe that the presence of the Americans “has
become a force protection issue,” and recommend the development of a plan
“for ending DynCorp support that is reasonable and viable, and can forestall
sudden [Colombian government] decisions.” The Embassy suggests a
“Colombianization plan” that would phase-out the DynCorp personnel as Colombian
police are trained to take over the tasks themselves. Such a plan
would also “lower the U.S. profile in the country,” according to the cable.
Despite the effort to withdraw the American pilots,
DynCorp pilots are today flying more crop dusting, security escort and
search-and-rescue missions than ever. Under a contract with INL,
DynCorp has as many as 335 employees in Colombia – up from around 50 in
April 1998 – about half of whom are Americans.(38)
Notes
19. Joseph B. Treaster, “U.S. and Colombia Reduce
Army’s Role in Drug Battle,” The New York Times, February 27, 1992.
20. Douglas Jehl, “U.S. Is Cutting Aid to Latin
Drug War,” The New York Times, March 25, 1993.
21. Section 506 of the Foreign Assistance Act
allows the president to “draw down” material and funding from existing
U.S. stocks for transfer into security assistance programs. Section
506(a)(2) has been used frequently to fund counterdrug programs in Latin
America. See Adam Isacson and Joy Olson, Just the Facts, 1999
Edition: A Civilian’s Guide to U.S. Defense and Security Assistance to
Latin America and the Caribbean (Washington, D.C.: Latin American Working
Group, 1999), p. 138.
22. http://www.house.gov/schakowsky/press2001/pr07_24_2001colombia.html
23. See, for example, Ibon Villelabeitia, “Just
a job, pilots call dusting of coca crop; Colombians label Americans lawless,”
Reuters, August 19, 2001.
24. T. Christian Miller, “A Colombian Town Caught
in a Cross-Fire; The bombing of Santo Domingo shows how messy U.S. involvement
in the Latin American drug war can be,” Los Angeles Times, March
17, 2002.
25. The civilian contractors were employed by
DynCorp – a private military out-sourcing company based in Virginia.
26. Jeremy Mcdermott, “US Crews Involved in Colombian
Battle,” The Scotsman, February 23, 2001; Julian Borger, “A plane is shot
down and the US proxy war on drug barons unravels,” The Guardian (London),
June 2, 2001.
27. See, for example, Juan Forero, “Role of U.S.
Companies in Colombia Is Questioned,” The New York Times, May 18,
2001.
28. “U.S. chopper destroyed to thwart rebels,”
The
Seattle Times, January 25, 2002.
29. United States General Accounting Office,
Drug Control: Narcotics Threat From Colombia Continues to Grow, GAO/NSIAD-99-136,
June 1999; Juanita Darling and Ruth Morris, “Concerns Grow About U.S. Military
Aid to Colombia; Controversy: American Officials Insist the Aim is to Fight
Drugs. Critics Fear Agenda Includes Battling Rebels,” Los Angeles Times,
August 17, 1999.
30. The first of three counternarcotics battalions
was unveiled in December 1999.
31. Grant military assistance for the Colombian
military (excluding training) was substantially lower in fiscal year 1992
(around $30 million) than it had been the previous two-year period (during
which it had received over $120 million), but this to some extent reflected
a U.S. policy shift in favor of the Colombian National Police which received
$24 million in grant assistance in 1992 (compared to only around $16 million
in the previous two years). For information on U.S. security assistance
for Colombia see The Federation of American Scientists Arms Sales Monitoring
Project, http://www.fas.org/asmp
32. Created in 1989, reports from the Counternarcotics
Center represent the fusion of intelligence information from multiple government
agencies involved in the counterdrug mission. See Jeffrey T. Richelson,
The
U.S. Intelligence Community (Boulder: Westview Press, Fourth Edition,
1999), pp. 28-29; The name was changed to the Crime and Narcotics Center
in 1994, reflecting an expansion of its mission to include international
organized crime.
33. http://www.boeing.com/companyoffices/history/bna/ov10.htm
34. It is unclear what “other fixed-wing aircraft”
means. Presumably, it refers to U.S. Customs Service, Department of Defense,
Drug Enforcement Administration, or Central Intelligence Agency aircraft
involved in counterdrug surveillance or other activities.
35. Juan Forero, “Colombia Massacre’s Strange
Fallout,” The New York Times, February 23, 2001.
36. See, for example, “Settlers head south, Colombia
way: Insurgents and drug traffickers prompt Venezuela to act in border
area,” Financial Times (London), October 29, 1997.
37. U.S. Embassy Colombia cable, “NAS Bogotá
Monthly Narcotics Report: Dec – Mar,” April 17, 1998.
38. Andrew Selsky, “American pilots in Colombia
drug war say they're not mercenaries,” Associated Press, August 17, 2001;
Juan Tamayo, “Anti-drug pilots decry image of lawlessness: 'We're not Rambos,'”
The
Miami Herald, August 23, 2001.
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