On the eve of a major conference on drug problems in the Western Hemisphere, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday that jailing people for personal drug use constitutes a human rights violation and called for abolishing criminal penalties. "To deter harmful drug use, governments should rely instead on non-penal regulatory and public health policies," the organization said in a statement released at a news conference in Guatemala, where the annual general assembly of the Organization of American States this week will focus on the drug policies of member governments. "Subjecting people to criminal sanctions for the personal use of drugs, or for possession of drugs for personal use, infringes on their autonomy and right to privacy." [continues 399 words]
Farmers Would Be Paid Not to Grow Crop The U.S. and British governments plan to spend millions of dollars over the next two months to try to persuade Afghan farmers not to plant opium poppy, by far the country's most profitable cash crop and a major source of Taliban funding and official corruption. By selling wheat seeds and fruit saplings to farmers at token prices, offering cheap credit, and paying poppy-farm laborers to work on roads and irrigation ditches, U.S. and British officials hope to provide alternatives before the planting season begins in early October. Many poppy farmers survive Afghanistan's harsh winters on loans advanced by drug traffickers and their associates, repaid with the spring harvest. [continues 1056 words]
The United States has contributed "zilch" to Mexico's efforts to combat the nations' joint problem with criminal narcotics gangs, Mexico's new ambassador to Washington said yesterday. "We are going to need significantly more in cooperation from the United States," Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan said, including increased aid and intelligence and stepped-up U.S. efforts to stop the southward flow of weapons, laundered money and chemicals for the production of methamphetamines. Save & Share ArticleWhat's This?DiggGoogledel.icio.usYahoo!RedditFacebook [continues 504 words]
U.S.-Backed Efforts at Eradication Fail Opium production in Afghanistan, which provides more than 90 percent of the world's heroin, broke all records in 2006, reaching a historic high despite ongoing U.S.-sponsored eradication efforts, the Bush administration reported yesterday. In addition to a 26 percent production increase over past year -- for a total of 5,644 metric tons -- the amount of land under cultivation in opium poppies grew by 61 percent. Cultivation in the two main production provinces, Helmand in the southwest and Oruzgan in central Afghanistan, was up by 132 percent. [continues 822 words]
President Bush this week used his authority to exceed congressional limits on the number of U.S. military personnel allowed to be in Colombia, sending as many as 150 additional specialized troops to assist in the rescue of three American civilians believed to be in the hands of guerrillas since their plane crashed in a rebel-held area last week, senior administration officials said. For the moment, officials said, the troops' mission is to provide additional intelligence and guidance to Colombian military forces trying to locate and rescue the Americans and their captors in a mountainous jungle region about 220 miles southwest of Bogota. Asked whether U.S. forces would attempt a rescue themselves, an official said, "We would have the capacity to do that." [continues 880 words]
Attorney General John D. Ashcroft yesterday unsealed drug-trafficking indictments against three members of Colombia's violent right-wing paramilitary forces, including paramilitary chief Carlos Castano, in an announcement U.S. officials said was timed to coincide with new Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's first official visit to Washington. Ashcroft said at a news conference that the paramilitary United Self- Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, were not the "freedom fighters they claim to be" but "criminals . . . who poison our citizens and threaten our national security." He noted that the AUC was on the State Department's Foreign Terrorist Organization list, and praised Uribe's "leadership and commitment . . . to proceed vigorously against drug traffickers and terrorists wherever they are found." [continues 1008 words]
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell certified yesterday that the Colombian armed forces have met the congressionally mandated requirements to suspend and prosecute alleged human rights violators and to sever their ties with right-wing paramilitary forces accused of civilian massacres and other rights abuses. Certification was required before the Bush administration could spend any of the $104 million approved for the Colombian military in the 2002 budget. U.S. and Colombian officials had warned in recent weeks that they were curtailing counter-narcotics activities in the southern part of the country because no money was available. [continues 497 words]
Some Wary of Counter-Terrorism Plan Two foreign policy issues that traditionally evoke passion on Capitol Hill -- Northern Ireland and Colombia -- were joined yesterday in a rancorous House hearing that erupted in allegations of bad faith and hidden agendas. "The purpose of this committee hearing is not to determine facts, but to rubber-stamp" conclusions already drawn by staffers working for the House International Relations Committee, chaired by Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), charged Rep. William D. Delahunt (D-Mass.). [continues 711 words]
A 5-year-old Colombian girl traveling alone on a commercial flight from Bogota to New York last week was discovered carrying more than two pounds of heroin concealed in her luggage, according to U.S. Customs Service officials. Although officials cited numerous cases of unaccompanied minors apprehended smuggling illegal drugs, they said Monday that this was believed to be by far the youngest child. "Sending a 5-year-old girl alone on a plane to smuggle heroin represents a new low -- even for drug traffickers," said Joe Webber, the Customs special agent in charge for New York. [continues 353 words]
Pastrana, Bush Ask a Skeptical Congress to Lift Restrictions Another difficult and controversial foreign policy issue is about to crowd onto President Bush's already overflowing plate, as Congress takes up his plan for a major expansion of U.S. involvement in Colombia's guerrilla war. Hearings scheduled to stretch into next month began last week on the proposal to stop restricting U.S. military aid to Colombia's fight against cocaine and heroin production and export. The restrictions were designed to keep the United States from becoming directly involved in South America's oldest guerrilla conflict. But the Bush administration maintains that left- and right-wing insurgents fighting the Colombian government and each other are both drug traffickers and terrorists whose activities threaten not only Colombia but the stability and security of Latin America and the United States. [continues 1079 words]
LIMA, Peru - President Bush and President Alejandro Toledo of Peru pledged Saturday to join in what Toledo called "a war without quarter" against terrorism and drug trafficking in the Andean region. "We are partners not just through conviction," Toledo said at a news conference with Bush. "But we ourselves have experienced the effects of terrorism here for 20 years," including the explosion Wednesday of a 100-pound car bomb across from the U.S. Embassy that killed nine people and wounded 30. [continues 1007 words]
President Bush and President Alejandro Toledo of Peru pledged today to join together in what Toledo called "a war without quarter" against terrorism and drug trafficking in the Andean region. "We are partners not just through conviction," Toledo said at a news conference with Bush. "But we ourselves have experienced the effects of terrorism here for 20 years," including the explosion Wednesday of a 100-pound car bomb across from the U.S. Embassy that killed nine people and wounded 30. [continues 1240 words]
A federal grand jury in the District has indicted three members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and four other South Americans on charges of conspiring to import cocaine into the United States, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said yesterday. Ashcroft, who took the unusual step of holding a news conference to announce the unsealing of the 11-day-old indictment, said it demonstrated "more clearly than ever the evil interdependence between the terrorists that threaten American lives" and drug trafficking. [continues 488 words]
WASHINGTON A series of bold attacks by Colombia's leftist guerrillas and a newly tough response by President Andres Pastrana have begun to shift long-standing resistance on Capitol Hill to expanded U.S. military involvement there, encouraging Bush administration officials who believe Colombia should be included in the administration's counterterrorism efforts. Since January, forces of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia have hijacked a domestic airliner, kidnapped leading political figures and targeted major national electrical and water installations. The police have charged the group with torturing and killing a Colombian senator, whose body was found in a ravine outside Bogota. Colombia's 40 years of warfare have been characterized by spectacular brutality that has left tens of thousands dead. It is considered the kidnapping capital of the world - in 1999, a separate leftist group burst into Mass at a Medellin church and marched the congregation into the mountains as hostages. [continues 461 words]
Bush Officials Seek More Funds for Counterterrorism There A series of bold attacks by Colombia's leftist guerrillas, and a newly tough response by President Andres Pastrana, have begun to shift long-standing resistance on Capitol Hill to expanded U.S. military involvement there, encouraging Bush administration officials who believe Colombia should be included in the administration's counterterrorism efforts. Since January, forces of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, have hijacked a domestic airliner, kidnapped leading political figures and targeted major national electrical and water installations. Police have charged the FARC with torturing and killing a Colombian senator whose body was found yesterday in a ravine outside Bogota. [continues 710 words]
Worries Grow About Bumper Crop With the harvest due to begin next month, preliminary estimates are that Afghanistan is about to produce a "substantial amount" of opium poppy, perhaps approaching the near-record levels immediately before the Taliban government banned cultivation 18 months ago, a U.S. official said yesterday. "The challenges are enormous," said Rand Beers, assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs. With little time left, he said, the United States is considering providing financial and other incentives to farmers to plow under their fields before harvest, an admittedly difficult undertaking since much of the cultivation is in the most lawless parts of Afghanistan. [continues 674 words]
The Bush administration hopes to begin providing the Colombian military with sophisticated intelligence information on guerrilla insurgents within "a matter of days," authorized in part under a presidential anti-terrorism directive adopted after Sept. 11, administration officials said yesterday. In a statement issued last night after it was cleared with the traveling White House in China, the State Department said, "We are looking at specific ways to continue to support the Government of Colombia during this difficult period." It cited "increased terrorist attacks" in recent weeks by the guerrilla Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. [continues 559 words]
$98 Million Requested For Military Training, Equipment. The Bush administration's fiscal 2003 budget request for $98 million in new Pentagon training and equipment for the Colombian military marks the first step in a wider initiative to move U.S. involvement in the war-racked South American nation beyond counternarcotics assistance, administration officials said yesterday. The money, over and above a request for $731 million in Andean regional assistance to continue anti-drug aid programs, would be drawn from foreign military financing funds, most often used to provide U.S. military aid to allies in the Middle East. Since Sept. 11, additional money from the account has been authorized for anti-terrorism activities in Uzbekistan, Turkey and the Philippines. [continues 615 words]
U.S. and Colombian law enforcement officials yesterday announced the breakup of what they described as a major network of drug money-launderers, the first significant result of a stepped-up program of U.S. training and financial cooperation between the two governments. In raids Monday and Tuesday, agents arrested 29 people in the United States, most of them believed to be Colombian nationals, and eight people in Colombia. They are expected to be extradited here under federal indictments issued in New York's southern district. As part of the two-year undercover investigation, officials seized more than $8 million in cash and hundreds of pounds of cocaine. [continues 360 words]
Greater Aid for War Against Leftist Guerrillas Sought The Bush administration is considering expanding U.S. counternarcotics assistance to Colombia to give more aid to that country's counterinsurgency war against leftist guerrillas, according to administration officials. Proposals under high-level discussion include increased intelligence sharing on guerrilla activities around the country and training of an additional battalion of Colombian troops to serve as a rapid-reaction force protecting vital infrastructure, including pipelines used by U.S. oil companies, against guerrilla attack. [continues 914 words]
