VENEZUELA/US: Bilateral rows undermine war on drugs

Analysis

Until the Venezuelan government announced in early August that it was suspending joint operations with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), cooperation on counter-narcotics enforcement was the only area where bilateral relations were firm and successful (see VENEZUELA/US: Mutual aggression sours relations - July 27, 2005). There has been no gradual deterioration of cooperative efforts or any single 'trigger incident' that has led the US government to arrive at its current position that Venezuela is an unreliable partner in the war on drugs.

Problem of geography. The security threat posed by narcotics in Venezuela stems from the fact that the country is positioned between Colombia, the world's largest cocaine producer (see LATIN AMERICA: Andean drug production rises - June 24, 2005), with which Venezuela shares a 2,200-kilometre border, and the United States, the world's largest consumer of illicit drugs. This has made Venezuela an important trafficking country, with cocaine, heroin and cannabis entering from Colombia via the Pan American Highway, the Orinoco River and the Guajira peninsula. From Venezuela, these drugs are transported to the United States and Europe by speedboats, ocean and air freight. Small amounts are trafficked through and out of the country by mule.

Given this geographic context and the volume of drugs flowing through Venezuela, the progress made by the government of President Hugo Chavez in interdicting supplies is impressive. Enforcement efforts have also limited a potentially devastating overspill of coca and opium poppy cultivation and cocaine and heroin manufacture from Colombia. A UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) overflight of suspected cultivation and production areas conducted in 2004 identified only a few small fields under narcotic plant cultivation in the Serrania de Perija mountain range on Venezuela's northwestern border with Colombia. Despite concerns that counter-narcotics efforts in Colombia would lead to the displacement of manufacturing laboratories into Venezuela, fewer than five were detected.

US criticisms. The US government has only moved to criticise Venezuela's counter-narcotics record over recent months (see VENEZUELA: Military manoeuvres stir arms race fears - April 26, 2005). It now maintains that Venezuela has failed to work effectively with the DEA and the government has allowed the country to become a haven for terrorists and drug traffickers. This position contradicts all previous reports by US counter-narcotics agencies. In its March 2005 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, the US Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs stated that: "The Government of Venezuela has a strong record on interdicting the transport of cocaine, heroin, and other drugs." Since the Chavez government assumed power, there have been record seizure rates for narcotics.

Moreover, according to the 2005 report:

• Venezuelan counter-narcotics officials conducted successful operations to intercept precursor chemicals, with 15 seizures totalling 410 tonnes of chemicals in 2004.
• Several important extraditions were made from Venezuela to the United States following enforcement operations in Venezuela, including Venezuelan heroin trafficker, Luis Alberto Ibarra, and one of Colombia's most wanted traffickers, Jose Maria Corredor Ibague. Caracas contravened the Bolivarian Constitution in extraditing Alberto Ibarra.
• Close co-operation between Venezuela and US counter-narcotics officials resulted in the break-up of the Hasbun trafficking network and Ibarra trafficking organisation, with 30 kilograms of heroin and nine couriers seized at US airports following surveillance work and information sharing by Venezuelan officials.
• Caracas's counter-narcotics record has been good in terms of reducing domestic demand for drugs. All private companies with more than 200 employees are required to donate 1% of their profits to the country's highly successful public awareness and demand reduction programmes, and the Chavez administration and private sector have donated large sums of money to domestic drug education programmes. The Venezuelan National Commission against the Illicit Use of Drugs (CONACUID) set out its five-year National Drug Control Plan in 2002 with support from Washington.

Weak points. The prime areas of Venezuelan-US cooperation have been interdiction, administration of justice, chemical control, money laundering control and public awareness. In two of these areas -- the administration of justice and money laundering control -- the United States has identified significant problems. However, a US embargo would do little to help Venezuela address these limitations in its enforcement capabilities. In terms of the judiciary, delays in processing cases and corruption within the security sector have impeded the speedy execution of criminal justice. The administration has moved to address these twin problems, as underscored by the recent restructuring of the national intelligence agency, DISIP, following the escape of Corredor Ibague from DISIP headquarters after he paid 3 million dollars in 'freedom money' to DISIP agents.

In the case of money laundering, problems may be overstated. Although Venezuela is a narcotics transit country, it is not a regional financial centre and the small domestic banking sector is already subject to tight controls intended to prevent money laundering, which were established in 1997. All financial institutions are required to register suspicious transactions over 2,350 dollars with the National Financial Intelligence Unit (UNIF), which began operations in June 1998 and was significantly expanded in 2004. Moreover, there are no banking secrecy laws, further facilitating laundering investigations. However, there is considerable US discontent regarding the delay in passing the Organised Crime Bill, first introduced in the legislature in November 2002. This would allow for standard US counter-narcotics practices such as the submission of wire tapping evidence in court and prosecution for laundering and trafficking on the basis of intelligence and without physical evidence.

Suspension of cooperation. Caracas has cited a number of reasons to justify the suspension of historically productive ties with the DEA:

• It claims to have evidence demonstrating that US government officials employed as DEA agents are engaged in intelligence gathering, with the intention of destabilising the Chavez administration. The Venezuelan government is acutely sensitive to the operations of US officials in the country, specifically since the release of US government documents indicating that the Bush administration and CIA were aware of the 2002 coup attempt against Chavez. The recent restructuring of the US intelligence system, with the Director of National Intelligence now overseeing the work of the CIA, FBI and DEA, has raised concerns that the work of these three agencies in Venezuela now overlaps.
• Venezuela also claims that DEA officials have routinely violated national laws in their counter-narcotics operations. Caracas is specifically critical of alleged DEA participation in drug trafficking as part of attempts to infiltrate criminal gangs. Interior and Justice Minister Jesse Chacon has also argued that Venezuelan counter-narcotics operations have been disrupted or handicapped by DEA activities.

Washington has dismissed these explanations for the suspension of working relations. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli has claimed that the allegations are intended to deflect attention from the Venezuelan government's deficient record of co-operation.