Andean Anti-Drug Plan Called a Failure : Cocaine war: U.S. auditors say the effort to halt the narcotics flow from 3 South American nations isn’t working.

The Bush Administration’s two-year effort to cut off the cocaine supply from three South American countries has been badly managed and has produced few results, government auditors said Wednesday in a searing indictment of the Andean anti-drug strategy.

Reporting on anti-drug efforts in Peru, Bolivia and Colombia, auditors from the State Department and General Accounting Office also told the House Government Operations Committee that the plan has failed to turn around those countries’ heavy dependence on the cocaine trade.

“We are spending billions of dollars and getting very little for it,” said Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), chairman of the panel’s subcommittee on legislation and national security.

His contention was disputed, however, by Melvyn Levitsky, assistant secretary of state for international narcotics matters, who oversees the program. While acknowledging that “some mistakes” have been made, he said, “We have been very successful and are continuing to improve.”

The five-year, $2.2 billion plan, approved by Congress in 1989, was intended to attack the drug problem in Peru, Bolivia and Colombia by disrupting and dismantling trafficking organizations, cutting ties between traffickers and coca growers and providing assistance, military or otherwise, to local forces in those Andean countries.

In Bolivia, field operations are poorly coordinated, the use of the Bolivian military is unnecessary and overall management is insufficient, said Sherman M. Funk, the State Department inspector general who conducted the audit for that country. But he acknowledged “very significant improvements” in Bolivia’s efforts against drug producers and traffickers, including the government’s willingness to work with U.S. officials.

Bolivia will receive $830 million in U.S. anti-drug aid between 1990 and 1994 for law enforcement, military training and equipment, and economic development, the report states.

“If we are going to try to be successful, it ain’t going to happen overnight. We are going to have to restructure the entire economy of Bolivia,” Funk said. His report said that the coca industry accounts for 15% of Bolivia’s gross domestic product and employs 15% of the nation’s workers.

In Colombia, Frank C. Conahan, assistant comptroller general of the GAO’s national security and international affairs division, found that the government has not ensured that aid is being used for counter-narcotics purposes and not for counterinsurgency activities. It is difficult to draw a line between such activities in Colombia, however, because many insurgents are involved in the drug trade, the report said.

The United States plans to give Colombia $119 million in anti-drug aid in fiscal 1991.

In the case of Peru, Conahan said, it is unlikely that U.S. programs will be effective “until Peru overcomes serious obstacles beyond U.S. controls.”

The report says that although law enforcement aid to Peru increased by $9 million from 1989 to 1990, the amount of coca leaf seized decreased from 500 metric tons in 1988 to 39 metric tons in 1990. Peru’s anti-drug aid is set at $104 million for fiscal 1991.

Among the obstacles to success in Peru, Conahan said, are the government’s lack of control over its military and police units, lack of coordination and cooperation between military and police and political instability caused by rebels.