This article explains how the contractors hired by the US government for Plan Colombia are smuggling heroin in the US — and how all US agencies consulted on the issue have refused to give any useful information. It ends describing the trouble that this case is creating in the US Congress. Maybe some media in your country would like to take up the issue — especially the media that has been critical of Plan Colombia in the past.
thanks to MDHG (mdhg@xs4all.nl) from Amsterdam for this posting
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Pubdate: Tue, 03 Jul 2001
Source: The Nation Online
Copyright: 2001, The Nation Company
Website: http://www.thenation.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/285
Author: Jason Vest
Note: Posted as an exception to MAP's web based source policies.
DYNCORP'S DRUG PROBLEM
Could the State Department's antidrug contractors in South America possibly
be dabbling in narcotics trafficking? A key part of the US's $1.3 billion
contribution to Plan Colombia--the scheme that will supposedly expedite the
end of Colombia's civil war--calls for the use of private contractors (as
opposed to actual US military assets) to fly airborne missions against both
the fields that grow coca and poppy and the labs that process them. While
some contractors, like Aviation Development Corporation of Montgomery,
Alabama, fly surveillance missions for the CIA, those that fly on retainer
for other US government agencies are a bit more expansive in their missions.
Consulting giant DynCorp's private pilots in the Andes fly everything from
fixed-wing fumigation runs to helicopter-borne interdiction missions
ferrying troops into hot spots. If you take DynCorp's word for it, any
notion of the organization's being involved in drug trafficking is
ludicrous. "Whether or not you believe this, we are a very ethical
company," said a senior DynCorp official, who insisted on being quoted off
the record. "We take steps to make sure the people we hire are ethical."
Yet the existence of a document that The Nation recently obtained (under
the Freedom of Information Act) from the Drug Enforcement
Administration--combined with the unwillingness of virtually any US or
Colombian government agency to elaborate on the document--has some in
Washington and elsewhere wondering if, like virtually every other entity
charged with fighting the drug war, DynCorp might have a bad apple or two
in its barrel. According to a monthly DEA intelligence report from last
year, officers of Colombia's National Police force intercepted and opened,
on May 12, 2000, a US-bound Federal Express package at Bogota's El Dorado
International Airport. The parcel "contained two (2) small bottles of a
thick liquid" that "had the same consistency as motor oil." The communiqu
goes on to report that the liquid substance "tested positive for heroin"
and that the "alleged heroin laced liquid weighed approximately 250 grams."
(Freebase heroin, it bears noting, is soluble in motor oil, and can
therefore be extracted without much trouble.)
But perhaps the most intriguing piece of information in the DEA document is
the individual to whom it reports that the package belonged:an unnamed
employee of DynCorp, who was sending the parcel to the company's Andean
operations headquarters at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida. More
interesting still is the reluctance of DynCorp and the government to
provide substantial details in support of their contention that this
situation isn't really what it seems. According to DynCorp spokeswoman
Janet Wineriter,the viscous liquid that the Colombians tested was not, in
fact, laced with heroin; it was simply "oil samples of major aircraft
components" that DynCorp technicians are required to take and send to the
US "on a periodic basis." Explaining that the drug test was conducted "with
apparently faulty equipment" that produced "an incorrect reading,"
Wineriter could not specify what testing procedures or equipment were used.
She identified her source for the explanation as Charlene A. Wheeless,
DynCorp's Vice President for Corporate Communications.
Unable to cite any source other than Wheeless ("I'm assuming when someone
passes along this information that it's accurate"), Wineriter told The
Nation to call the Colombian National Police and the State Department for
further details. The State Department liaison with DynCorp did not return
phone calls, and when the Colombian National Police in Bogota were
contacted, an official informed The Nation that the CNP would not comment
on the matter, referring all queries to the DEA. A DEA spokesman in
Washington said the matter was not a DEA case, and referred calls to the US
Embassy in Bogota.
It took six days for the embassy to produce a terse, 143-word response to
The Nation's queries--a response that echoed, but did not mirror,DynCorp's
account. The embassy did confirm that the vials of oil are "routinely
shipped to DynCorp facilities at Patrick AFB for analysis related to proper
maintenance" of aircraft, and confirmed that "several aircraft motor oil
samples" were confiscated by Colombian police who used "NARCOTEX equipment
[and] detected the presence of heroin in unspecified amounts." Unlike
Dyncorp, the embassy did not blame the test results on a false positive
caused by faulty equipment; what's odd is that the embassy has no idea what
ultimately became of the seized oil. "The samples seized at the airport
were sent to the CNP's Forensic Institute for further analysis, but the CNP
did not subsequently pursue the matter with the U.S. Embassy or DynCorp
personnel in Colombia," the embassy said, adding that the embassy has
"asked the CNP to clarify the status of any investigation of this matter."
Many questions remain about the CNP interception of the DynCorp package in
Bogota last year. While there's nothing unusual about sending aircraft oil
samples to DynCorp's main base in the US, DynCorp's assertion thatpoorly
calibrated drug testing equipment caused a false positive has experts
scratching their heads--as does the US Embassy's description of the testing
itself.
When asked to specify what, exactly, "NARCOTEX equipment" is and what
testing methodologies it uses, an embassy official responded that he had
"no idea." A veteran DEA agent said he had "never heard of anything called
NARCOTEX," and after a hard round of research, staffers at the
International Association of Chiefs of Police's Drug Recognition Experts
Section told The Nation they couldn't find evidence of any drug testing
technology with the name. And according to a number of scientists with
backgrounds in chemical testing and opiate research, the information
provided by DynCorp and the US Embassy in Bogota isn't nearly enough to
ascertain independently just what was in those bottles seized by the
Colombian police.
Peter Facchini, a University of Calgary biochemist and leading expert on
opiates, notes that any number of several types of tests may or may not
have been conducted, and without knowing specifics or lab protocols, it's
impossible to render a scientific conclusion. But, he and others add,it's
unlikely that any testing apparatus would errantly identify something as
heroin in motor oil. Drug tests for coca and opiates look for the presence
of alkaloids--and alkaloids, says Facchini, aren't naturally present in
fuel oils. "I can't imagine any reason there should be even a trace of an
alkaloid in aircraft oil or motor oil--that doesn't make any sense at all,"
he says.
Thomas Tullius, chair of Boston University's chemistry department (and
author of the study refuting the US government's claim of possessing
reliable evidence that the al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan was
producing nerve gas), also finds DynCorp's explanation curious. "Maybe
there is something in motor oil that might cross-react, but I would be
surprised to find that true," says Tullius. "This is like the al-Shifa
thing--people aren't telling you precise methods used or numbers found."
And according to Adam Isacson, senior associate and Latin America
specialist at the Center for International Policy, DynCorp and State's
handling of the situation doesn't exactly inspire confidence. "It sounds
like they have no idea what the outcome of this case was, and it doesn't
look like they have much of a burning desire to find out what happened,"
observes Isacson. "They have an interest in sweeping this under the rug.
They don't want anything to derail Plan Colombia, and key to that is the
willingness to let contractors operate in almost complete secrecy. Anything
that raises questions is to be avoided like the plague--they don't want
people to think about DynCorp, because then people might actually look at
the whole policy."
Which is what critics of Plan Colombia are hoping will happen over the next
few weeks. On June 27, the Foreign Operations Subcommittee of the House
Appropriations Committee began crafting next year's overseas budget
package, which includes funding for the Andean Counterdrug Initiative, a
measure that essentially expands Plan Colombia to neighboring Peru,
Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Brazil and Panama. While the Bush
Administration has requested more money for development assistance, the
bulk of the money still goes to military assistance (71 percent, in
Colombia's case), and there is continued financing for the fumigation and
manual eradication of coca and poppy crops that DynCorp carries out under
contract for State.
A number of amendments have been offered to the appropriations bill that
would do everything from imposing a moratorium on fumigation to reining in
US military spending in the Andes, and activists are hopeful that some of
these amendments may actually pass. While the Republican ranks are full of
proud drug warriors, even some conservatives--such as House Government
Reform Committee Chairman Dan Burton--are growing increasingly leery of
DynCorp's operations; Burton is reportedly so irked by what he sees as lack
of the contractor accountability that he's considering taking legislative
action himself. Democratic Representative Jan Schakowsky, meanwhile, is
championing a bill that would impose a ban on the use of private military
contractors like DynCorp, citing everything from State's intransigence in
answering Congressional queries to the possibility of the US's getting more
involved in a foreign war that is conducted largely out of the public eye.
"All these concerns reinforce my views that the US should immediately
terminate its contract with DynCorp and all other private companies
conducting sensitive, military-like operations in the Andean Region,"says
Schakowsky."Reports that DynCorp employees have been implicated in drug
trafficking, the very thing they are paid to help prevent, only strengthens
my conviction that outsourcing is the wrong policy. It's frustrating for
reporters, but outrageous for members of Congress not to have access to
information about US involvement in the Andean region and how taxpayer
dollars are being spent--most of the information we have is from
investigative news reports that raise more questions than answers."
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake
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