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Article;
Drugs, Guns, and Money
US in Colombia

by Dan Kovalik
Recently, the RAND National Defense
Research Institute published a report
entitled, "Arms Trafficking and Colombia."
As RAND explains, the report is based on
federally-funded research "supported by
the Office of the Secretary of Defense,
the Joint Staff, the unified commands, and
the defense agencies . . . ." What RAND
found is fascinating, while at the same
time likely disappointing to these
"sponsors" as well as the NRA which just
held its national convention here in
Pittsburgh.

Colombia has the highest murder rate in
the world -- 77.5 deaths per 100,000
inhabitants. To put this in context, if the
U.S. had the same murder rate, we would
suffer approximately 230,000 murders per
year as compared to the 18,000 a year we
now endure. And, according to Colombia's
own National Police, 85% of Colombia's
murders are committed with small arms.
Colombia has more than 3 million illegal
small arms in addition to 1 million legal
ones. RAND concludes that the
proliferation of small arms is fuelling the
violence in Colombia. As RAND concludes,
"small arms proliferation remains among
the most serious of the country's
problems" and is one of the chief factors
contributing to the violence and
instablility in Colombia -- a country
suffering from intense violence and a
decades-long civil war involving the the
Colombian military and its paramilitary
allies (organized under the umbrella
known as the AUC) on the one side, and
two chief guerilla groups, the ELN and the
FARC on the other. RAND concludes that
the AUC, ELN and FARC -- all designated
as "terrorists" by the U.S. State
Department -- depend upon their very
survival and growth on a ready supply of
arms, particularly small arms. As the
report states, "[s]ustained access to
weapons and ammunition supplies is
crucial to . . . to each group's
organizational strength, power and
influence."

And, RAND concludes that armed groups
in Colombia have a ready supply of small
arms to continue the war and that small
arms trafficking has "contributed to the
escalation of violence in Colombia,
revealing an important dynamic between
weapons trafficking and political
violence." Even more ominously, the
Rand study concludes that "small arms
transfers have had a negative impact on
regional stability in Latin America. Ready
access to weapons has helped to both
entrench and empower guerilla and
parmilitary forces in Colombia. Not only
has this situation threatened the security
ofthe fourth-largest economy in Latin
America, it has also triggered highly
deleterious cross-border flows of
refugees, drugs and violence that have
already had a negative impact on Panama,
Venezuela, Brazil, Peru and Ecuador."

What is most striking about this report,
and which should cause great concern
among U.S. citizens and policy makers is
RAND's conclusions about how these
small arms have been made and continue
to be made available. Thus, RAND relates
that a large portion of the arms being
shipped into Colombia are coming from
"Cold War-era weapons stockpiles in
Nicarauga, Honduras, [and] El Salvador."
And, of course, these stockpiles largely
came from the United States to begin
with. Indeed, the Rand report notes that a
large portion of these "Cold War-era
weapons," including 20 to 75 thousand
pounds of small arms and ammunition,
were provided to various Central
American governments illegally by the
U.S. government through what is now
known as the "Iran-Contra Affair." The
Rand report notes that "[m]any of these
weapons are still available throughout
Latin America" and are making there way
into Colombia, with disastrous effects.
Indeed, the Rand report concludes that
the small arms delivered to Central
America illegally through the "Iran-Contra
Affair" "consitute an important component
of Latin America's black market."

As the reader may recall, the "Iran-Contra
Affair," some refer to it as a "scandal,"
involved the Regan Administration's
illegally and secretly providing financial
and military support to the Nicaraguan
Contras after Congress had expressly
cut-off and forbidden any aid to the
Contras. This support to the Contras was
in turn funded by illegal sales of arms to
Iran, which at the time was designated a
"terrorist" state by the U.S., and to which
arms sales were therefore prohibited.
Finally, as the Senate Committee Report
on Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign
Policy (chaired by Senator John F. Kerry)
reported, "it is clear that individuals who
provided support for the Contras were
involved in drug trafficking, the supply
network of the Contras was used by drug
trafficking organizations, and elements of
the Contras themselves knowingly
received financial and material assistance
from drug traffickers." In short, as RAND
reports, this illegal and secret guns,
money, and drugs scheme carried out by
high-ranking officials of the Reagan
administration are being felt today
throughout Latin America, and in
Colombia in particular, in tragic ways.

Next, RAND concludes that the three
armed groups in Colombia all obtain arms
from the Colombian military itself. To wit,
as RAND explains, the ostensibly left-wing
ELN and FARC obtain arms from the
military through theft and force, and the
right-wing AUC paramilitiaries through
voluntary donations by the military which
collaborates with these paramilitaries.
What is most significant about this is that
the U.S. is providing assistance to the
Colombian military at record levels.
Colombia, which is received over $2.5
billion in military aid from the U.S. since
the year 2000 is now the 3rd largest
recipient of U.S. military aid in the world.

In short, RAND has concluded that the
U.S.'s military assistance is finding its way
into the hands of designated "terrorist"
groups. And, in the case of the AUC
paramilitaries, this military assistance is
being voluntarily offered to these
terrorists. Indeed, the U.S. government is
quite aware of this fact, with the U.S. State
Department reporting in its 2002 and 2003
human rights reports on Colombia that
the military cooperates with the
paramilitaries in a number of way, but
most notably by "providing them with
weapons and ammunition, and joining
their ranks while off duty."

This is quite disconcerting for at least 2
reasons. First, while the U.S. is claiming to
be fighting terrorism in Colombia, the AUC
is undeniably the biggest perpetrator of
terror in Colombia. Indeed, the
well-respected Colombia Commission of
Jurists has concluded that the
paramiltiaries are responsible for 80 to
85% of the political assassinations in
Colombia. Second, the AUC is also the
single biggest drug trafficker in Colombia,
accounting for 40% of Colombia's drug
trafficking according to our own Drug
Enforcement Administration ("DEA"). And,
not surprisingly, the AUC uses its drug
proceeds to continue purchasing
weapons -- again, in large part from the
caches of arms dumped into Latin
American through the "Iran-Contra Affair."
The conclusion is unmistakable. As RAND
itself states, much to the chagrin of its
federal sponsors, the U.S. has, by the
above, "fanned the flames of the violence
in Colombia." And, it continues to do so
through continued military assistance for
Colombia. In terms of the moral and policy
implications, the U.S. must now act to stop
fueling this conflict in Colombia by, at a
minimum, ending military aid to Colombia,
prohibiting its allies from continuing to
provide arms to Colombia (again, arms
which largely came from the U.S. to begin
with), and demand that the Colombian
state and military cease their supplying of
the paramilitaries and other criminal
groups with arms necessary for these
groups' survival.

Daniel Kovalik is a Labor & Human Rights
Lawyer living in Pittsburgh