Guerra as drogas: o Plano Colombia, as FARC, os EUA e o que aconteceu: book review

Os militares brasileiros nunca gostaram do Plano Colômbia, pois achavam que era apenas uma desculpa para a penetração americana no coração da América do Sul.
Os companheiros detestavam o Plano Colômbia pois se tratava de um ataque direto aos seus amigos das FARC, a pretexto de fazer a guerra às drogas.
Conclusão: o Brasil se autoexcluiu do processo de pacificação da Colômbia, o que para um país que pretende, ou quer, ser líder no continente é uma tremenda contradição.
Mas, contradições sempre existem em quaisquer circunstâncias, ainda que os companheiros sejam campeões nesse tipo de equívoco.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Shifter on Tate, 'Drugs, Thugs, and Diplomats: U.S. Policymaking in Colombia' [review]

Winifred Tate. Drugs, Thugs, and Diplomats: U.S. Policymaking in Colombia. Anthropology of Policy Series. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015. 304 pp. $25.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8047-9566-1; $90.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8047-9201-1.

Reviewed by Michael Shifter (Inter-American Dialogue)
Published on H-Diplo (February, 2016)

In Drugs, Thugs, and Diplomats, Winifred Tate constructs a fresh and critical interpretation of Plan Colombia, the US aid package approved by the US Congress in July 2000 which has totaled roughly ten billion dollars. As Tate rightly notes, at least in Washington, DC, the policy is often celebrated and widely deemed a great success, especially if one views it in relation to more recent, notable misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Employing a wide-ranging anthropological approach and developing a richly detailed “embedded ethnography” of the aid package (p. 15), Tate forcefully disagrees with that popular view. She buttresses her dissent with persuasive arguments that should temper the triumphalism one occasionally hears about Plan Colombia. But in fashioning a balanced and hard-headed assessment of the aid package, scholars should also recognize the package’s contribution to helping Colombia assert the democratic authority of the state. In this respect, the timing of Tate’s book is especially propitious. From all accounts, the Colombian government of President Juan Manuel Santos is on the verge of reaching a final peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which would thus bring an end to the Western Hemisphere’s only ongoing armed conflict.

The argument—hard to refute—is that Plan Colombia, for all of the flaws and distortions that Tate properly focuses on, in the end played some part in assisting the Colombian government to reverse its deterioration in the late 1990s and strengthen its capacity to apply pressure on the FARC which made successful negotiations feasible. Of course, Tate’s thorough account of the complex policymaking process behind Plan Colombia, in which she emphasizes “strategic ambiguity” (p. 137), makes it clear that the policy’s essential purpose was to fight drugs and reduce consumption in the United States through substantial security assistance (80 percent of the initial package). True, there were competing concerns and aims, some more benign and noble than others. But as a senior official of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) told Tate, “The drug thing was how to get Congress to approve resources for Colombia” (p. 155).

Based on its ability to make a significant dent in the drug problem, the aid program’s success is dubious at best, despite occasional gains. In fact, one of the main merits of Tate’s book is its penetrating and compelling critique of the “war on drugs,” declared by Richard Nixon in 1971, as an utter failure. Tate’s criticisms are particularly credible in light of her extensive fieldwork in southern Colombia, in the department of Putumayo, where coca plants were fumigated, with deleterious effects on farmers, or the “targeted population” of the aid package (p. 202). In some respects, Tate’s position on drug policy has recently been vindicated, at least politically and rhetorically, if not always reflected on the ground. Washington no longer refers to a “war on drugs” and the Colombian government has now rejected the traditional approach of spraying coca groups. Still, the US obsession with the drug war, especially in the aftermath of the Cold War, when the military was looking for new missions and asserted its political and bureaucratic interests, proved tremendously costly.

Nonetheless, by any measure, as Tate points out, in the late 1990s Colombia was besieged by increasingly powerful violent actors, not only the FARC but also paramilitary forces, organized under the United Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). The book challenges the common view that the Colombian state was absent or weak during that period. Rather, Tate argues that paramilitary groups in essence served as state proxies in various territories. For her, there is little ambiguity: “Colombian paramilitaries did the work of the state in deciding who would live or die” (p. 84). Tate’s description is bolstered by reports of a number of respected human rights groups over the years, including Human Rights Watch. But even if the paramilitaries performed such a role, that is hardly evidence of a strong or effective state. And I have spoken to officials in Washington and Bogota who were more troubled by an AUC that had grown so powerful—and was seen as out of control—than Tate seems to suggest.

The book analyzes the various ways Colombia attempted to deal with its predicament in the late 1990s. Andres Pastrana, who served as Colombia’s president from 1998 to 2002, proposed a “Marshall Plan” that would emphasize developmental objectives and programs. But at the same time the Colombian government recognized that for external aid to be effective it had to contain a significant security dimension. It would be tough to carry out serious social and humanitarian efforts in the context of such widespread lawlessness and violence, perpetrated by guerrillas and paramilitary forces. Attempting to strengthen the state’s capacity to protect its citizens, through legitimate and democratic means, seemed a sensible, if very tricky, course to pursue.

One of the most illuminating parts of the book deals with the background behind the so-called Leahy amendment to the Foreign Operations Act of 1997. Championed by Patrick Leahy, Democratic Vermont senator, the law sought to insure that US aid would not go to military units of any country that were not thoroughly vetted or credibly accused of a human rights violation. According to Tate, while the measure reflected the coming of age of the “human rights era,” it also divided the human rights community between those who opposed military aid altogether and sought to “stake utopian ethical claims” and those who were more pragmatic and focused on incremental gains (p. 65). Tate also points out a disturbing, unintended consequence of the application of the Leahy amendment in the Colombian case: that it may have given an incentive for outsourcing and encouraged the role of paramilitary forces, since they would not be subject to the demands of the law and would give the military plausible deniability.

Despite the demobilization of more than thirty thousand paramilitaries over a decade ago under the administration of Alvaro Uribe, Tate mentions, there are criminal bands, known as bacrim, that continue to engage in violence today. Some observers of the current peace process with the FARC are concerned a similar phenomenon might emerge after an agreement is signed, an issue that Tate does not address. Still, though the progress has been uneven and serious problems persist, these and other efforts have contributed to an improvement in the country’s security situation over the past fifteen years.                                   

Tate’s prodigious research enriches an understanding of the alternative visions and narratives related to Plan Colombia that are fundamental but too often overlooked in more conventional, narrowly focused treatments. The interviews with key players in the wider story, from the corridors of power in Washington, DC, to the coca fields in Putumayo, are often instructive. The book explores previously unchartered territory with skill and insight and deepens an interpretation of a policymaking process that will surely be debated for many years to come.              

Printable Version: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=44554

Citation: Michael Shifter. Review of Tate, Winifred, Drugs, Thugs, and Diplomats: U.S. Policymaking in Colombia. H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews. February, 2016.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=44554

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Como aumentar extraordinariamente o PIB do pais: sexo, drogas, corrupcao, etc - Sugestao da Economist

Epa! O PIB do Brasil vai dar um salto espetacular com essa nova metodologia...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

National accounts

Sex, drugs and GDP

Italy’s inclusion of illicit activities in its figures excites much interest

The Economist, May 31st 2014 | MILAN | From the print edition

• 

THE announcement on May 22nd by Istat, Italy’s statistical body, that from October it would include drug trafficking, prostitution, and alcohol-and-tobacco smuggling in its economic-output numbers has generated a stream of sniggering headlines. To some, it smacks of 1987, when Italy started taking account of its shadow economy, the off-the-books business which makes up about a fifth of Italian GDP. As a result, the economy grew by 18% overnight, surging past Britain to be the West’s fourth-largest economy. The event was hailed as il sorpasso (the overtaking) and the source of much national joy, until two decades of economic mismanagement sent Italy tumbling back down the league tables.

In fact, then as now, Italy was merely one of the first countries to announce its compliance with international accounting standards. Reporting illegal economically productive activity in which all parties take part voluntarily is required under EU rules known as the European System of Accounts (ESA). But as the guidelines have not so far outlined how to measure drug deals and fake cigarettes, and as such things are by their nature difficult to gauge, few countries comply. That will change from this autumn, when an update of the ESA will refresh guidelines on calculating revenues from the seedier side of the economy.

In this section

• Some like it hot
• Sex, drugs and GDP
• Risk on
• Hole in won
• Inside job
• End of the golden era
• Stickernomics
• Picking holes in Piketty

Reprints

Related topics

• Italy

Some countries already include dope and bootleg booze in their statistics: in the Netherlands, for example, cannabis sales may be counted as coffee-shop revenues. So the aim is to create greater comparability in the GDP figures of member states, in part because this is the basis on which EU funds are distributed. Though cocaine-fuelled GDP stats will in theory reduce the subsidies Italy is entitled to, it will at least push ever-so-closer to (though still very far from) meeting euro-zone rules on government indebtedness and deficits.

Insee, France’s statistical body, estimates that the ESA’s update will lead to an increase in French GDP of 3.2%— equivalent to a couple of years’ growth at current rates. But little of that is due to an uptick in debauchery: the accounting rule update also reclassifies research and development as an investment rather than a cost, among other things which will attract rather less public attention.

Britain’s Office of National Statistics was due to release its estimate of the new rules’ impact as The Economist went to press. Italy is still working on its figures, but the treasury says effects will be negligible. Gian Paolo Oneto, director of Istat’s national-accounts department, admits that tracking such activities is a difficult business, but notes that Italy was a pioneer in estimating the shadow economy: the methodologies it introduced before the sorpassosubsequently became a point of reference.

Enrico Giovannini, a professor of economic statistics at the University of Rome and a former Istat president, quips that non-statisticians often suggest that measuring happiness and well-being is a tricky task. His response: “Have you ever tried to measure GDP?”

From the print edition: Finance and economics

Wikileaks paraguaio nao previu as eleicoes: nao se pode acertar tudo...

WIKILEAKS: DEA infiltrou agentes em círculo de Cartes para investigar lavagem de dinheiro

ePublica, 22/04/2013

Horácio Cartes, o presidente eleito no Paraguai pelo partido Colorado no último domingo, foi investigado pela DEA, a agência anti-drogas americana, como traficante de narcóticos e dono de um grande esquema de lavagem de dinheiro internacional, baseado na tríplice fronteira – Brasil, Argentina e Paraguai. Em 2009, seu grupo chegou a ser infiltrado por agentes da DEA em uma operação secreta batizada de “Coração de Pedra”.

Um documento diplomático da embaixada americana em Buenos Aires, de 5 de janeiro de 2010, vazado pelo WikiLeaks, descreve os pormenores da operação policial. O objetivo era “interromper e desmantelar a operação de tráfico de drogas e lavagem de dinheiro na área da tríplice fronteira entre Argentina, Paraguai e Brasil, e em outras partes do mundo”.

À época em que o documento classificado como “confidencial – não para estrangeiros” foi escrito, a investigação havia “estabelecido ligações entre tráfico de drogas, lavagem de dinheiro e outras organizações criminosas”, tendo como alvo específico Horácio Cartes. Sete agências do governo americano trabalharam na investigação, incluindo o escritório da DEA em Buenos Aires, a equipe de investigação financeira da força-tarefa de crime organizado e a divisão de confisco de dinheiro lavado do Departamento de Justiça – contando com o apoio do Banco Central (Federal Reserve Bank), da Procuradoria-Geral dos Estados Unidos, e da divisão de controle de bens estrangeiros do Tesouro Americano.

O documento cita uma investigação sobre lavagem de dinheiro no banco Amambay, de propriedade de Cartes. Após uma investigação inicial, Cartes foi designado como “Alvo Organizacional de Prioridade Consolidada” (CPOT, na sigla em inglês). Para o governo americano, nomes incluídos na lista de Alvo Organizacional de Prioridade Consolidada, editada todo ano pelo Departamento de Justiça, representam “as organizações mais significativas de tráfico de drogas internacional que ameaçam os Estados Unidos”.

Infiltrando o grupo de Cartes – com identidade falsa

“Usando a estratégia de aproximação para alvejar o comando internacional e os centros de controle dessas organizações criminosas baseadas na Tríplice Fronteira, agentes enfocaram as atividades investigativas em um esforço para desenvolver essa investigação com o objetivo de apresentar um agente disfarçado da DEA ao CPOT designado Horacio CARTES”, explica o documento. “Através da utilização de uma fonte colaboradora da DEA em Buenos Aires e outros funcionários da DEA disfarçados, agentes se infiltraram no empreendimento de lavagem de dinheiro de Cartes, uma organização a qual se atribui a lavagem de uma grande quantidade de dinheiro dos Estados Unidos, gerada por meios ilegais, inclusive por meio da venda de narcóticos da Tríplice Fronteira para os Estados Unidos”.

A partir daí, o plano teria três etapas. Primeiro, os agentes iriam se aproximar de William Cloherty, lobista de Cartes em Washington e diretor da Tabacos USA Inc., de propriedade do recém-eleito presidente paraguaio. “Acredita-se que Cloherty tenha uma perspectiva histórica de operações de tabaco entre o Paraguai e os Estados Unidos e, mais diretamente, informações que digam respeito à produção e venda de tabaco e à movimentação de dinheiro obtido com o negócio de Cartes”. Depois, seria a vez de “apresentar um segundo agente disfarçado a Cartes” e a seus representantes Osvaldo Gane Salum – que também é do partido Colorado – e Juan Carlos Lopez Moreira – que atualmente encabeça a equipe de transição do governo. O agente infiltrado portaria documentos falsos, como relata o documento: “Para cumprir com essa tarefa, os documentos do agente disfarçado precisam ser obtidos. Isso será realizado nas próximas semanas por membros envolvidos na investigação”.

A DEA utilizaria “técnicas de investigação básicas, como entrevistas, debriefings, verificações de registros e possíveis encontros de agentes disfarçados”. O objetivo final era “interromper e desmantelar a organização de tráfico de drogas de Cartes”.

Phillip Morris e British Tobacco contra Cartes

A intrincada e custosa operação “Coração de Pedra” foi planejada em um belo resort na cidade do Panamá durante 3 dias – entre 6 e 9 de dezembro de 2009.

O encontro foi realizado para compartilhar informações entre as agências citadas e empresários do ramo de tabaco – e coordenar um plano de “ataque”. Além das agências envolvidas – incluindo agentes da DEA de Assunção, Lima e Buenos Aires – estavam representantes das empresas líderes do mercado americano: Ewan Duncan, Terry Hobbs e Richard Pandohie, da British American Tobacco; Russell, da Reynolds American; Derek Ogden, da Imperial Tobacco; e Dave Zimmerman e Mike Grogan, da Phillip Morris USA.

A seguir, o documento traz dados sobre Cartes, “chefe da organização de lavagem de dinheiro”, e sobre pessoas ligadas a ele que também deveriam ser investigadas, como a empresa Tabacos USA, INC, cujos sócios são, além do presidente paraguaio, sua irmã Sarah Cartes e William Cloherty– esse, também “lobista”. Também são listados os sócios diretos de Cartes, Osvaldo Gane Salum e Juan Carlos Lopez Moreira, qualificados como “membros da organização criminosa envolvida na importação de cigarros falsificados da América do Sul para o território continental dos EUA”.

O texto finaliza dizendo que os escritórios da DEA em Assunção e Buenos Aires “irão continuar a trabalhar juntamente com todos os outros escritórios interessados em desenvolver agressivamente essa investigação”.

Não há infomações sobre o desfecho da operação Coração de Pedra e o governo americano não se pronunciou sobre o caso.

O cartel de Sinaloa bate à porta

Outro documento do WikiLeaks levanta uma suspeita ainda mais preocupante sobre o novo presidente do Paraguai. Trata-se de um despacho da embaixada de Assunção de 15 de outubro de 2008, intitulado “O rei da efredrina é preso no Paraguai”. O documento confidencial relata que a agência anti-narcóticos paraguaia – que é financiada e treinada pela DEA americana – havia detido três cidadãos mexicanos, incluindo o suposto líder do tráfico de efedrina do cartel de Sinaloa, maior cartel de drogas mexicano na atualidade.

Segundo o documento, o mexicano Jesus Martinez Espinosa, que já era investigado pelo governo argentino pela morte de três empresários ligados ao tráfico de efedrina, foi preso juntamente com dois outros mexicanos membros do cartel, Jorge Almanza Guzman e Leobardo Gaxiola, depois que o último foi pego no aeroporto de Assunção com 5,6 quilos de efredrina escondido em pacotes de chá.

Martinez, preso em seguida no hotel em que estava na capital “disse às autoridades que tinha planos de investir no Paraguai em parceria com um empresário paraguaio chamado Cartes, mas se recusou a dar mais informações”, segundo o documento. “Ele disse que estava planejando investir no setor turístico, em uma cadeia de restaurantes, e importação-exportação de carros americanos”.

Após a prisão, Jesus Martinez Espinosa foi extraditado para a Argentina, onde foi condenado, no ano passado, a 14 anos de prisão por tráfico de efedrina.

Procurado pelo jornal ABC Color, Horacio Cartes negou que seja ele o empresário mencionado no documento do Wikileaks. Também afirmou que, depois do vazamento, reuniu-se com os embaixadores de países da América do Sul para exlicar que todas a suas atividades são legais. Ele disse que procurou a embaixada americana, e saiu de lá “satisfeito”. 

Questionado repetidamente pela imprensa nacional e internacional sobre possíveis vínculos com narcotráfico, o empresário nega veementemente.