Pubdate: Tue, 14 Aug 2001
Source: WorldNetDaily (US Web)
Copyright: 2001 WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.worldnetdaily.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/655

PARAGUAY DRUG TRADE AND U.S. AMERICAN FACILITIES, PERSONNEL AT GREATER RISK

Strafor Global Intelligence Update

The United States is bolstering its counter-drug, intelligence and military 
presence in Paraguay, a country that has become a smuggling center for 
Colombian and Bolivian drug traffickers. But the increased U.S. presence 
makes American facilities and personnel there vulnerable to attacks not 
only from criminal gangs but also from Arab extremists living in Paraguay.

Since January, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has doubled the size of its 
office in Paraguay's capital, Asuncion. U.S. Special Forces are training 
Paraguayan soldiers in anti-drug operations that closely resemble 
counter-insurgency operations, while hundreds of U.S. soldiers recently 
spent four months in Paraguay on an official "training exercise" in an area 
heavily used by Colombian, Brazilian and Bolivian drug traffickers.

The moves are part of a U.S. effort to expand its counter-drug, 
intelligence and military presence in Paraguay, an increasingly lawless 
state with a fragile economy, wobbly democratic institutions and deeply 
ingrained corruption.

But Washington will not be able to stop the spread of international 
criminal groups in Paraguay and may face increased attacks not only from 
criminal gangs but also from Arab extremists living in Paraguay if the 
Israeli-Palestinian conflict escalates into all-out war. Paraguay has long 
been a home to Arab extremists linked to Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.

The goal of the Bush administration is to build an effective surveillance 
and interdiction firewall across a major southern route in Paraguay that 
Colombian and Bolivian drug traffickers use to export cocaine to the United 
States and Europe.

But the U.S. effort comes when Paraguay's political institutions are 
increasingly at risk of being overwhelmed by powerful international 
criminal organizations.

Crime syndicates from Colombia, Brazil, China, Lebanon, Italy, Russia, 
Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Ghana are known to be operating in Paraguay. Many 
of these groups are believed to be associated with corrupt Paraguayan 
business executives, politicians and military officers tied to the ruling 
party, according to U.S. law enforcement and intelligence sources. 
Officially, Washington's dispatch of billions of dollars in 
counter-narcotics aid to Colombia is designed to avoid direct U.S. 
involvement in Colombia's civil war. There are supposed to be just 500 
military and 300 civilian U.S. personnel in Colombia. But in reality, the 
U.S. government is circumventing the limit; by autumn there will probably 
be about 2,000 Americans stationed in the Andean region. The influx of 
Americans calls into question the potential success of U.S. aid and poses 
risks for these personnel.

The rebel conflict in Colombia is escalating, as insurgents have responded 
with some of their heaviest resistance to date to the U.S.-supported Plan 
Colombia counter-drug offensive. U.S. military and civilian personnel have 
become a primary target for the increasingly aggressive guerrillas, who 
have threatened retaliation against the United States inside and outside 
Colombia. Paraguay has been a democracy in theory since Gen. Alfredo 
Stroessner's 35-year military dictatorship was toppled in a 1989 coup led 
by then army chief Gen. Lino Oviedo. But the same political party that 
backed Stroessner, the Colorado Party, continues to rule Paraguay today.

The past 12 years have been the longest period of civilian rule in 
Paraguay's 190-year history. But economic growth has not improved under 
democracy, and political instability and corruption have intensified.

Since 1989 there have been four failed coup attempts against Paraguay's 
civilian governments, including another led by Oviedo in 1996.

Oviedo has been a central protagonist in bloody internal power struggles 
within the Colorado Party that threaten the country's weak political 
institutions and which could trigger a fifth military coup attempt at any 
time. He is now under house arrest in Brazil and is resisting efforts to 
extradite him to stand trial for the assassination of then Vice President 
Luis Maria Argana in 1998.

Oviedo could likely expect more lenient treatment on his return to Paraguay 
if Vice President Julio Cesar Franco succeeds in forcing out unpopular and 
ineffectual President Luis Gonzalez Macchi and installing himself as the 
country's leader.

Franco was elected with the backing of Oviedo's supporters in a breakaway 
faction of the Colorado Party. Meanwhile, Brazil's government is anxious to 
be rid of Oviedo because of his suspected involvement in drug trafficking 
and other organized criminal enterprises, as well as his alleged leadership 
of corrupt military officials.

Over the past decade, Paraguay's insertion into the global economy has 
attracted international criminal syndicates and terrorist organizations 
that view the country as a safe location from which to conduct their 
illegal operations.

As a result, Paraguay today is a strategic South American hub for 
international drug trafficking, arms smuggling, money laundering and 
counterfeiting, among other global crimes.

Most of the crimes take place in Ciudad del Este, a lawless city of between 
150,000 and 300,000 residents located at the confluence of Paraguay's 
borders with Argentina and Brazil, in an area called the triple frontier. 
Ciudad del Este is also a regional center for drug trafficking and arms 
smuggling.

The U.S. State Department estimates that Paraguay moves 10 metric tons of 
cocaine annually to Europe and the United States. Other estimates, however, 
range up to 40 metric tons annually.

Paraguay also produces some of the highest-grade marijuana on the continent 
and exports most of it to Brazil, which now ranks as the largest consumer 
market in Latin America for cocaine, heroin, marijuana and so-called "club 
drugs" such as Ecstasy.

Criminal gangs in Paraguay also have ties to Colombia's largest rebel 
group. Paraguayan officials last year arrested a Colombian citizen in 
Ciudad del Este as he tried to arrange a cocaine-for-weapons swap on behalf 
of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Links between crime syndicates in Ciudad del Este and the FARC date from 
the mid-1990s at least, when Oviedo protected Brazilian drug trafficker 
Fernandinho Beira Mar, who was captured in southern Colombia last April 
while accompanied by FARC rebels.

In addition to the prevalence of international gangs, the Bush 
administration also has reason to be concerned about the longtime presence 
in Paraguay of Arab extremists linked to Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.

Last year Paraguayan officials arrested a Lebanese national in Ciudad del 
Este who was subsequently linked to a clandestine Hezbollah cell believed 
to have bombed Israel's Embassy and a Jewish community center in Argentina 
in 1992 and 1994.

In April this year, the State Department warned that the governments of 
Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina are not capable of preventing Islamic 
terrorist actions that could originate from Ciudad del Este.

If the Israeli-Palestinian conflict escalates into all-out war, these 
terrorist groups could launch attacks against Israeli and U.S. targets in 
South America.

The growing U.S. security presence in Paraguay may provide U.S. officials 
with more timely intelligence about drug trafficking, terrorist activities 
and other illegal activity in that country. But it won't safeguard 
Paraguay's economy and political institutions from being hijacked by 
international crime syndicates.

As Paraguay becomes increasingly lawless, organized criminal gangs and 
terrorists will find it easier to operate with impunity and will pose a 
growing threat to regional stability.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart