Drug-Fighting and Diplomacy Mix Like Oil and Water, U.S. Discovers

The United States is finding that drug-fighting and diplomacy mix awkwardly, if at all.

Efforts by the Reagan Administration to destroy narcotics crops and attack drug traffic in concert with Latin American and Caribbean governments have failed to achieve a significant reduction in the flow of drugs into the United States, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

At the same time, the campaign has embroiled Washington in a series of government-to-government spats stretching from the Rio Grande to the southern slopes of the Andes.

‘New Level’

“We’re in a completely new level of activity,” David Westrate, head of operations for the DEA, said in a telephone interview from Washington.

“Drug trafficking used to be a police issue. Only in recent years has it emerged as a political and diplomatic issue. That makes it much more complex.”

Even in countries where U.S. influence is paramount and American aid is the main financial prop of the local government, supposed allies occasionally turn a deaf ear to pleas from Washington to crack down on drug smuggling. Sometimes, according a series of recent reports, they abet the trade.

“There always has been, and continues to be, a factor of corruption,” Westrate said. “We go into this with our eyes wide open.”

Focus on Consumption

The difficulties of reducing drug supplies abroad have prompted U.S. officials to consider whether more steps should be taken to battle demand at home.

“We have to get in the frame of mind where consumption is not tolerated,” Westrate declared.

However, he added, the effort to destroy drugs “at the source” remains a key goal of U.S. anti-narcotics policy. The DEA operates in 45 foreign countries in programs with the host governments that include killing drug crops and investigating drug kingpins.

U.S. officials consider cocaine to be America’s leading drug problem, and South America is the sole supplier of cocaine to the United States. There have been some reports of progress against marijuana smuggling but none against heroin.

Frustration could grow about March 1, when the Administration is scheduled to certify to Congress which of the world’s countries are doing their best to fight drug traffic and which are not.

Countries deemed uncooperative may lose foreign aid and face the prospect of the United States’ vetoing help from international assistance and lending agencies, among other sanctions.

In some cases, however, the Administration is expected to consider a country uncooperative, yet still recommend against sanctions because punishment might create a bigger problem by harming U.S. national interests, both financial and military.

In a sense, the United States is faced with uncomfortable choices: to punish some countries may or may not produce better anti-drug efforts, but sanctions could bring unwanted consequences.

Mexico offers an example of the pitfalls. It is the sole Latin supplier of heroin to the U.S. market and one of the main marijuana producers, DEA sources say. It has also become an important way station for cocaine shipped north from South America.

A recent congressional report stated that drug traffic from Mexico has not been reduced despite joint Mexican-U.S. efforts to eradicate drug crops.

U.S. officials complain that corruption in Mexico hampers efforts to reduce drug traffic. Yet, while the final U.S. certification report due March 1 is expected to hold that Mexico’s narcotics-control program is deficient, it is also expected to recommend against invoking the sanctions, a State Department official has said.

Sanctions would also carry the risk of crippling Mexico’s ability to pay off its foreign debt. This development, among other consequences, would threaten the financial stability of the major American banks that have made large loans to Mexico.

Further south, drugs are a centerpiece in a political struggle in Panama, a country considered of strategic importance to the United States because both the Panama Canal and important American military bases are located there.

Panama’s de facto ruler, Gen. Manuel A. Noriega, continues to resist domestic opponents who demand that he step down and allow honest elections. The United States has sided with Noriega’s foes, and two federal grand juries in Florida have indicted Noriega on charges of drug smuggling, money laundering and racketeering.

These charges against Noriega did not come without embarrassment to the United States.

Noriega was able to produce letters of praise from the DEA, thanking him for his cooperation in heading off cocaine shipments moving through Panama.

Moreover, a chief witness against Noriega, Jose I. Blandon, the former Panamanian consul in New York, told a Senate hearing that Noriega has been on the payroll of the CIA and was occasionally let in on sensitive security matters.

No one expects the United States to certify in March that Panama is successfully fighting drugs. Yet today, few sanctions remain for the United States to invoke under the certification program. Washington has already cut off most aid to Panama because of the political turmoil there.

Controversy also dogs relations between the United States and Colombia, home of major marijuana and cocaine cultivation and trafficking operations. A U.S. campaign to persuade Colombia to try harder to arrest and extradite major drug lords has long been a sore point between the two countries.

Too High a Price

Past moves to extradite drug traffickers have resulted in political assassinations and the killing of law enforcement officers in that country, a price that many Colombians consider too high. Of 100 suspected traffickers whom the United States has sought to extradite since 1983, only about 16 were extradited from Colombia.

The United States made its most direct attack on drugs in Bolivia, an important grower of coca, the raw material of cocaine. Last year, U.S. troops were sent to Bolivia to destroy cocaine-processing labs in joint raids with Bolivian soldiers.

The raids were only partly successful, according to congressional sources and press reports. Most lab operators had already fled and moved their equipment before the soldiers arrived. The blitz did disrupt smuggling in the region for about six months, U.S. officials say.

There is little chance that such an operation will be repeated, U.S. sources add. The nationalistic uproar caused by the presence of U.S. troops in Bolivia is said by local media to have given the government there second thoughts about inviting American soldiers in again.

In the Bahamas, a common transshipment point for drugs headed for the United States, the government of Prime Minister Lynden O. Pindling has been the subject of several drug probes.

Earlier this month, an admitted marijuana smuggler testified that he paid bribes of $3 million to $5 million to Pindling between 1978 and 1981. The smuggler, George William Baron, was testifying in the Jacksonville, Fla., trial of Carlos Lehder, a suspected Colombian cocaine and marijuana trafficker.

New charges of high-level drug corruption elsewhere are cropping up at a fast pace.

For instance, U.S. officials have linked a high-ranking officer in Haiti’s army, Col. Jean-Claude Paul, to cocaine traffic. The Haitian government has declined comment on the charge.

In Honduras, which is heavily subsidized by the United States, State Department officials have also linked drug trafficking to high-level military officers.

However, it appears unlikely that the United States will take action against Honduras, which has been the staging area for U.S-backed Contras fighting Nicaragua’s Sandinista regime.

Times Mexico City bureau chief Dan Williams is at present on assignment in Panama.