The number of flights transporting tons of Colombian cocaine from Venezuela, destined for the United States, has risen sharply, according to US and foreign intelligence reports, presenting a new challenge to drug enforcement authorities at a time when cooperation with the Venezuelan government is at a record low. In 2007, authorities detected nearly 200 illegal drug flights taking off from Venezuela to interim delivery points on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola and in Central America - more than twice as many as 2003, according to the Key West-based headquarters that polices drug trafficking.
"The situation continues to deteriorate," Coast Guard Rear Admiral Joseph L. Nimmich, commander of the Joint Interagency Task Force-South, said in a recent interview about Venezuela's emergence as a key source of cocaine trafficking. Nimmich's command comprises law enforcement and military personnel, as well as liaison officers from countries across Latin America and the Caribbean.
Most of the drugs heading to the United States were produced in Colombia, which has significantly stepped up its own efforts to crack down on drug traffickers with the help of billions of dollars in US aid and training, according to Nimmich. But Colombian traffickers appear to have found a safe haven in neighboring Venezuela, whose relations with the United States continue to worsen.
Since his election in 1998, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's populist, anti-American message and close relationship with Cuba have soured relations with the Bush administration, which considers Chavez a threat to democracy in Latin America. Last year, President Bush said the Venezuelan leader was "dismantling" democracy in his country, while Chavez - who blames the United States for an attempted coup in 2002 in which he briefly stepped down - has referred to Bush as "the devil." Meanwhile, cooperation between Colombia and the United States in the fight against narcotics trafficking has simply unraveled.
In 2005, Chavez blocked the US Drug Enforcement Administration from operating inside the country; a year later, he did not replace Venezuela's liaison at Nimmich's command in Key West and the position is still vacant. Chavez also recently expelled the American ambassador to Venezuela. Members of Chavez's administration also appear to have aided Colombian rebels allied with the drug cartels. Last month, the United States froze the assets of three current and former senior Venezuelan officials for aiding the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, a main rebel group colluding with the powerful drug lords. The rebels protect the cartels in exchange for a share of the drug profits.
As a result, authorities are unlikely to stop the drug traffic out of Venezuela anytime soon. "The likelihood of closer relationships in terms of trying to address the increased flow we see out of Venezuela is not on the near-term horizon," Nimmich said.
Jim Roberts, a former US diplomat in Latin America who is a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, said, "It would take a considerable military and international police cooperation effort" to shut down the Venezuelan drug routes.
A representative of the Venezuelan government said accusations that his country has created a drug trafficking haven are "unfounded," insisting Chavez's government shares antidrug intelligence with at least 37 countries and that Venezuelan cocaine seizures have increased nearly 60 percent since 2005. "The US government's discrediting of Venezuela in the fight against drugs is a political maneuver," said Angelo Rivero Santos, a senior counselor at the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington. "Venezuela's antidrug strategy is based on a comprehensive strategy that includes prevention, drug seizures, arrest and extradition of criminals, destruction of clandestine airstrips, and the monitoring of possible drug routes."
Yet it is clear that Venezuela could be doing far more, according to several specialists. "The radar tracks don't lie," Roberts said, referring to surveillance of the drug flights originating in Venezuela. The increased trafficking out of Venezuela also goes beyond the Caribbean. An increase in drug flights from Venezuela to West Africa - a transit route for shipments headed to Europe - has also been detected, according to the Bush administration.
Trafficking by sea from Venezuela into the Caribbean is also on the rise, according to Nimmich, who is among a growing number of military and law enforcement officials who blame the damaged relationship between the United States and Venezuela for jeopardizing hard-fought gains by the United States and Colombia in the fight against cocaine trafficking.
"When [traffickers] know two countries are not talking. . . they are going to exploit that," said Jose Ruiz, a spokesman for the United States Southern Command in Miami, the military headquarters responsible for monitoring Latin America. "The traffickers are obviously going to go to places where there is less of a chance that they are going to get caught, arrested, and their drugs seized."
Representative William Delahunt, a Democrat from Quincy and a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, believes the Bush administration has unnecessarily isolated Chavez and his regime. "These relationships that are strained are often so because of poisoned personal relationships between leaders," said Delahunt, considered a Latin America specialist in the House of Representatives who in 2005 personally negotiated an agreement with Chavez to provide low cost heating oil for poor families in New England, much to the chagrin of the Bush administration.
"I am not saying we should cozy up, but we should have a working relationship," Delahunt said. "That can sometimes transform itself into a better political relationship [and] if the relationship was better, I think there would have been a different level of cooperation."
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