01 March 2007
World Community Shares Vision on Threat Caused by Illegal Drugs
State Department issues annual report on global drug trade
Washington -- International partners working with the United States to fight the illicit drug trade share a “clear vision” about the need to meet that challenge “head on,” says U.S. State Department official Anne Patterson.
Speaking at a March 1 briefing to release the State Department’s 2007 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR), Patterson said U.S. partners in the anti-drug fight include countries “whose developing economies and democratic institutions are threatened” by illicit drugs, “which mortgage the future of their people and their environment.”
Patterson, assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs, pointed to several countries that are having success confronting the drug trade, particularly Colombia. That Andean nation, she said, is “starkly different from the mid-1990s, when the country was reeling from drug cartels and insurgent violence.”
Colombia continues to attack the drug trade and the terrorist organizations that profit from it, said Patterson, who served as U.S. ambassador to Colombia from 2000 to 2003.
Although coca cultivation persists in Colombia, she said, “aggressive eradication” resulted in the destruction of what could have become billions of dollars of cocaine on U.S. streets. The coca plant is used to make cocaine.
Patterson also singled out Mexico for praise, saying that the administrations of President Felipe Calderón and his predecessor, Vicente Fox, have “cracked down” on drug traffickers “more than any previous” Mexican governments. In cooperation with the United States, the Mexican government has seized drugs, eradicated illegal crops and extradited “some of Mexico’s most notorious traffickers,” said Patterson.
She also said Iran is playing a “very positive role” in fighting the Afghan opium trade, by being active in interdicting shipments of the crop from Afghanistan.
The Iranians view the opium trade as a “major social and law enforcement problem” and have been the “most aggressive,” by far, of Afghanistan’s neighbors in interdicting the Afghan opium crop, said Patterson.
DRUG CHALLENGE IN AFGHANISTAN, BOLIVIA, VENEZUELA
The 24th annual INCSR cites Afghanistan, Bolivia and Venezuela as being particular problems in the drug trade. The report, issued in two volumes, said the resurgence of Afghan opium cultivation has increased the flow of heroin to Europe, Russia and the Near East, which “undermines those societies and the consolidation of democracy and security in Afghanistan.”
Patterson said cultivation of the opium poppy in Afghanistan increased by an “alarming” 59 percent, making the 2006 crop the largest on record. Of particular worry, she said, is the Taliban’s involvement in the drug trade. Patterson said the Taliban leaders publicly have linked themselves to poppy cultivation, and drug profits now support elements of the Taliban and fund attacks on U.S. and international troops in Afghanistan. The opium poppy is used to manufacture heroin.
Patterson attributed much of the poppy problem in Afghanistan to the fact the Afghan government “doesn't have control of [its] territory.” Cultivation of opium poppies soared in 2006 in two Afghan provinces -- Helmand and Kandahar -- “because there is basically a lack of law enforcement and control,” said Patterson.
Regarding Venezuela, Patterson said that nation’s “permissive and corrupt environment” led to more drug trafficking, fewer seizures and an increase in suspected drug-transport flights. From 2005 to 2006, she said, Venezuela saw a 167 percent increase in aerial cocaine trafficking to the island of Hispaniola, which contains Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Patterson said that Venezuela did a “great job” for years on counternarcotics enforcement. That nation was “one of the best in the entire” Western Hemisphere, she said, but “frankly that's all stopped.”
The United States still has some anti-narcotics programs with Venezuela, said Patterson, adding that “we want to work with the Venezuelans … but we just haven't gotten very far in recent years.”
Bolivian President Evo Morales advocated increased legal cultivation and the “industrialization” of coca, said Patterson. She said that even though Bolivia met its goal in 2006 of eradicating 5,000 hectares of coca, this represents the lowest level of eradication in 10 years. Industrialization refers to allowing cocaine’s primary ingredient to be used in the manufacture of such goods as medicine, toothpaste, shampoo, liquors and food. (See related article.)
MONEY LAUNDERING
The INCSR’s second volume is devoted to money laundering and terrorist financing. Patterson said that even though money laundering long has been “intertwined” with the drug trade, the global community has become more aware since the September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States of “terrorists using underground systems to move money and transfer assets.”
The report said that focusing on money laundering “is one of the most valuable tools law enforcement has to combat international crime.” A focus on money laundering, said the report, “can accomplish what many other law enforcement tools cannot” in attacking such threats as narcotics trafficking, alien smuggling, intellectual property theft, corruption and terrorism. (See related article.)
The full text of the INCSR and Patterson’s prepared remarks are available on the State Department Web site.
(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
