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From: International Justice Watch Discussion List
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Margarita
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Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2000 4:03 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Usa/Hdn/Nic - Senior CIA
officials confirm that US covert action in Honduras and Nicaragua was
financed with drug money.
Derechos Human Rights
Serpaj Europe
Information
20jun00
CIA ADMITS TOLERATING CONTRA-COCAINE TRAFFICKING IN 1980'S.
In secret congressional testimony, senior CIA officials admitted that the spy
agency turned a blind eye to evidence of cocaine trafficking by U.S.-backed
Nicaraguan contra rebels in the 1980s and generally did not treat drug
smuggling
through Central America as a high priority during the Reagan administration.
"In the end the objective of unseating the Sandinistas appears to have taken
precedence over dealing properly with potentially serious allegations against
those with whom the agency was working," CIA Inspector General Britt Snider
said
in classified testimony on May 25, 1999. He conceded that the CIA did not
treat
the drug allegations in "a consistent, reasoned or justifiable manner."
Still, Snider and other officials sought to minimize the seriousness of the
CIA's misconduct - a position echoed by a House Intelligence Committee report
released in May and by press coverage it received. In particular, CIA
officials
insisted that CIA personnel did not order the contras to engage in drug
trafficking and did not directly join in the smuggling.
But the CIA testimony to the House Intelligence Committee and the body of the
House report confirmed long-standing allegations - dating back to the
mid-1980s
- that drug traffickers pervaded the contra operation and used it as a cover
for
smuggling substantial volumes of cocaine into the United States.
Deep in the report, the House committee noted that in some cases, "CIA
employees
did nothing to verify or disprove drug trafficking information, even when they
had the opportunity to do so. In some of these, receipt of a drug allegation
appeared to provoke no specific response, and business went on as usual."
Former CIA officer Duane Clarridge, who oversaw covert CIA support for the
contras in the early years of their war against Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista
government, said "counter-narcotics programs in Central America were not a
priority of CIA personnel in the early 1980s," according to the House report.
The House committee also reported new details about how a major Nicaraguan
drug
lord, Norwin Meneses, recruited one of his principal lieutenants, Oscar Danilo
Blandon, with promises that much of their drug money would go to the contras.
Meneses and Blandon were key figures in a controversial 1996 series in the San
Jose Mercury News that alleged a "dark alliance" between the CIA and contra
traffickers.
That series touched off renewed interest in contra-drug trafficking and its
connection to the flood of cocaine that swept through U.S. cities in the
1980s,
devastating many communities with addiction and violence. In reaction to the
articles by reporter Gary Webb, U.S. government agencies and leading American
newspapers rallied to the CIA's defense.
Like those responses, the House Intelligence Committee report attacked Webb's
series. It highlighted exculpatory information about the CIA and buried
admissions of wrongdoing deep in the text where only a careful reading would
find them. The report's seven "findings" - accepted by the majority
Republicans
as well as the minority Democrats - absolved the CIA of any serious offenses,
sometimes using convoluted phrasing that obscured the facts.
For instance, one key finding stated that "the CIA as an institution did not
approve of connections between contras and drug traffickers, and, indeed,
contras were discouraged from involvement with traffickers." The phrasing is
tricky, however. The use of the phrase "as an institution" obscures the
report's
clear evidence that many CIA officials ignored the contra-cocaine smuggling
and
continued doing business with suspected drug traffickers.
The finding's second sentence said, "CIA officials, on occasion, notified law
enforcement entities when they became aware of allegations concerning the
identities or activities of drug traffickers." Stressing that CIA officials
"on
occasion" alerted law enforcement about contra drug traffickers glossed over
the
reality that many CIA officials withheld evidence of illegal drug smuggling
and
undermined investigations of those crimes.
Normally in investigations, it is the wrongdoing that is noteworthy, not the
fact that some did not participate in the wrongdoing.
A close reading of the House report reveals a different story from the
"findings." On page 38, for instance, the House committee observed that the
second volume of the CIA's inspector general's study of the contra-drug
controversy disclosed numerous instances of contra-drug operations and CIA
knowledge of the problem.
"The first question is what CIA knew," the House report said. "Volume II of
the
CIA IG report explains in detail the knowledge the CIA had that some contras
had
been, were alleged to be or were in fact involved or somehow associated with
drug trafficking or drug traffickers. The reporting of possible connections
between drug trafficking and the Southern Front contra organizations is
particularly extensive.
"The second question is what the CIA reported to DOJ [Department of Justice].
The Committee was concerned about the CIA's record in reporting and following
up
on allegations of drug activity during this period. ... In many cases, it is
clear the information was reported from the field, but it is less clear what
happened to the information after it arrived at CIA headquarters."
In other words, the internal government investigations found that CIA officers
in Central America were informing CIA headquarters at Langley, Va., about the
contra-drug problem, but the evidence went no farther. It was kept from law
enforcement agencies, from Congress and from the American public. Beyond
withholding the evidence, the Reagan administration mounted public relations
attacks on members of Congress, journalists and witnesses who
were exposing the crimes in the 1980s.
In a sense, those attacks continue to this day, with reporter Gary Webb
excoriated for alleged overstatements in the Mercury News stories. As a result
of those attacks, Webb was forced to resign from the Mercury News and leave
daily journalism. No member of the Reagan administration has received any
punishment or even public rebuke for concealing evidence of contra-cocaine
trafficking. [For details on the CIA's internal report, see Robert Parry's
Lost History.]
Besides confirming the CIA's internal admissions about contra-drug trafficking
and the CIA's spotty record of taking action to stop it, the House committee
included in its report the Reagan administration's rationale for blacking out
the contra-cocaine evidence in the 1980s. "The committee interviewed several
individuals who served in Latin America as
[CIA] chiefs of station during the 1980s," the report said. "They all
personally
deplored the use and trafficking of drugs, but indicated that in the 1980s the
counter-narcotics mission did not have as high a priority as the missions of
reporting on and fighting against communist insurrections and supporting
struggling democratic movements.
"Indeed, most of those interviewed indicated that they were, effectively
speaking, operating in a war zone and were totally engaged in keeping U.S.
allies from being overwhelmed. In this environment, what reporting the CIA did
do on narcotics was often based on one of two considerations: either a general
understanding that the CIA should report on criminal activities so that law
enforcement agencies could follow up on them, or, in case of the contras, an
effort to monitor allegations of trafficking that, if true, could undermine
the
legitimacy of the contras cause."
In other words, the CIA station chiefs admitted to the House committee that
they
gave the contras a walk on drug trafficking. "In case of the contras," only
monitoring was in order, as the CIA worried that disclosure of contra-drug
smuggling would be a public relations problem that "could undermine the
legitimacy of the contra cause."
The House report followed this CIA admission with a jarring - and seemingly
contradictory - conclusion. "The committee found no evidence of an attempt to
'cover up' such information," the report said. Yet, that "no cover-up"
conclusion flew in the face of both the CIA inspector general's report and the
report by the Justice Department's inspector general. Both detailed case after
case in which CIA and senior Reagan administration officials intervened to
frustrate investigations on
contra-connected drug trafficking, either by blocking the work of
investigators
or by withholding timely evidence.
In one case, a CIA lawyer persuaded a federal prosecutor in San Francisco to
forego a 1984 trip to Costa Rica because the CIA feared the investigation
might
expose a contra-cocaine tie-in. In others, Drug Enforcement Administration
investigators in Central America complained about obstacles put in their path
by
CIA officers and U.S. embassy officials. [For more details, see Lost History.]
In classified testimony to the House committee, CIA Inspector General Snider
acknowledged that the CIA's handling of the contra-cocaine evidence was
"mixed"
and "inconsistent." He said, "While we found no evidence that any CIA
employees
involved in the contra program had participated in drug-related activities or
had conspired with others in such activities, we found that the agency did
not deal with contra-related drug trafficking allegations and information in
a consistent, reasoned or justifiable manner."
Even in this limited admission, Snider's words conflicted with evidence
published in the CIA inspector general's report in October 1998. That report,
prepared by Snider's predecessor Frederick Hitz, showed that some CIA
personnel
working with the contras indeed were implicated in drug trafficking. The
tricky word in Snider's testimony was "employees," that is, regular full-time
CIA officers.
Both the CIA report and the House report acknowledged that a CIA "contractor"
known by the pseudonym Ivan Gomez was involved in drug trafficking. In the
early
1980s, the CIA sent Gomez to Costa Rica to oversee the contra operation.
Later,
Gomez admitted in a CIA polygraph that he participated in his brother's drug
business in Florida.
In separate testimony, Nicaraguan drug smuggler Carlos Cabezas fingered Gomez
as
the CIA's man in Costa Rica who made sure that drug money went into the contra
coffers.
Despite the seeming corroboration of Cabezas's allegation about Ivan Gomez's
role in drug smuggling, the House committee split hairs again. It attacked
Cabezas's credibility and argued that the Gomez drug money could not be
connected definitively to the contras. "No evidence suggests that the drug
trafficking and money laundering operations in which Gomez claimed involvement
were in any way related to CIA or the contra movement," the House report said.
What the report leaves out is that one reason for this lack of proof was that
the CIA prevented a thorough investigation of Ivan Gomez's drug activities by
withholding the polygraph admission from the Justice Department and the U.S.
Congress in the late 1980s. In effect, the House committee now is rewarding
the
CIA for torpedoing those investigations.
In one surprise disclosure, the House committee uncovered new details about
the
involvement of Nicaraguan drug smuggler Oscar Danilo Blandon in trafficking
intended to support the contras financially. Blandon, a central figure in the
Mercury News series, said he was drawn into the drug business because he
understood profits were going to the contra war.
In a deposition to the House committee, Blandon described a meeting with
Nicaraguan drug kingpin Norwin Meneses at the Los Angeles airport in 1981. "It
was during this encounter, according to Blandon, that Meneses encouraged
Blandon
to become involved with the drug business in order to assist the contras,"
the House report stated.
"We spoke a lot of things about the contra revolution, about the movement,
because then he took me to the drug business, speaking to me about the drug
business that we had to raise money with drugs," said Blandon. "And he
explained
to me, you don't know, but I am going to teach you. And, you know, I am going
to
tell you how you will do it. You see, you keep some of the profit for you, and
some of the profit we will help the contra revolution, you see. ... Meneses
was
trying to convince me with the contra revolution to get me involved in drugs.
Give a piece of the apple to the contras and a piece of the apple to him."
Blandon accepted Meneses's proposal and "assumed the money he had given
Meneses
was being sent by Meneses to the contra movement. However, Blandon stated that
he had no firsthand knowledge that this was actually occurring," the House
report said.
Though Blandon claimed ignorance about the regular delivery of cocaine cash to
the contras, other witnesses confirmed that substantial sums went from Meneses
and other drug rings to the contras. A Justice Department investigation
discovered several informants who corroborated the flow of money.
One confidential informant, identified in the Justice report only as "DEA
CI-1,"
said Meneses, Blandon and another cohort, Ivan Torres, contributed drug
profits
to the contras.
Renato Pena, a money-and-drug courier for Meneses, also described sharing drug
profits with the contras, while acting as their northern California
representative. Pena quoted a Colombian contact called "Carlos" as saying
"We're
helping your cause with this drug thing... We're helping your organization a
lot."
The Justice report noted, too, that Meneses's nephew, Jairo, told the DEA in
the
1980s that he had asked Pena to help transport drug money to the contras and
that his uncle, Norwin Meneses, dealt directly with contra military commander
Enrique Bermudez.
The Justice report found that Julio Zavala and Carlos Cabezas ran a parallel
contra-drug network. Cabezas said cocaine from Peru was packed into hollow
reeds
which were woven into tourist baskets and smuggled to the United States. After
arriving in San Francisco, the baskets went to Zavala who arranged sale of the
cocaine for contra operatives, Horacio Pereira and Troilo Sanchez. Cabezas
estimated that he gave them between $1 million and $1.5 million between
December
1981 and December 1982.
Another U.S. informant, designated "FBI Source 1," backed up much of Cabezas's
story. Source 1 said Cabezas and Zavala were helping the contras with proceeds
from two drug-trafficking operations, one smuggling Colombian cocaine and the
other shipping cocaine through Honduras. Source 1 said the traffickers had to
agree to give 50 percent of their profits to the contras.
The House report made no note of this corroborating evidence published in the
DOJ report.
The broader contra-cocaine picture was ignored, too. The evidence now
available
from government investigations over the past 15 years makes clear that many
major cocaine smuggling networks used the contra operation, either relying on
direct contra assistance or exploiting the relationship to gain protection
from
U.S. law enforcement.
Sworn testimony before an investigation by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass, in the
late
1980s disclosed that the contra-drug link dated back to the origins of the
movement in 1980. Then, Bolivian drug lord Roberto Suarez invested $30 million
in several Argentine-run paramilitary operations, according to Argentine
intelligence officer Leonardo Sanchez-Reisse.
The Suarez money financed the so-called Cocaine Coup that ousted Bolivia's
elected government in 1980 and then was used by Argentine intelligence to
start
the contra war against Nicaragua's leftist government. In 1981, President
Reagan
ordered the CIA to work with the Argentines in building up the contra army.
According to Volume Two of the CIA report, the spy agency learned about the
contra-cocaine connection almost immediately, secretly reporting that contra
operatives were smuggling cocaine into South Florida.
By the early 1980s, the Bolivian connection had drawn in the fledgling
Colombian
Medellin cartel. Top cartel figures picked up on the value of interlocking
their
operations with the contras. Miami-based anti-Castro Cubans played a key
matchmaker role, especially by working with contras based in Costa Rica.
U.S. agencies secretly reported on the work of Frank Castro and other
Cuban-American contra supporters who were seen as Medellin operatives. With
the
Reagan administration battling Congress to keep CIA money flowing to the
contras, there were no high-profile crackdowns that might embarrass the
contras
and undermine public support for their war.
No evidence was deigned good enough to justify sullying the contras'
reputation.
In 1986, for example, Reagan's Justice Department rejected the eyewitness
account of an FBI informant named Wanda Palacio. She testified that she saw
Jorge Ochoa's Colombian organization loading cocaine onto planes belonging to
Southern Air Transport, a former CIA-owned airline that secretly was flying
supplies to the contras. Despite documentary corroboration, her account was
dismissed as not believable.
Another contra-cocaine connection ran through Panamanian Gen. Manuel Noriega,
who was recruited by the Reagan administration to assist the contras despite
Noriega's drug-trafficking reputation. The CIA worked closely, too, with
corrupt
military officers in Honduras and El Salvador who were known to moonlight as
cocaine traffickers and money-launderers.
In Honduras, the contra operation tied into the huge cocaine-smuggling network
of Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros. His airline, SETCO, was hired by the Reagan
administration to ferry supplies to the contras. U.S. government reports also
disclosed that contra spokesman Frank Arana worked closely with lieutenants in
the Matta Ballesteros network.
Though based in Honduras, the Matta Ballesteros network was regarded as a
leading Mexican smuggling ring and was implicated in the torture-murder of DEA
agent Enrique Camarena.
The CIA knew, too, that the contra-cocaine taint had spread into President
Reagan's National Security Council and into the CIA through Cuban-American
anti-communists who were working for two drug-connected seafood companies,
Ocean
Hunter of Miami and Frigorificos de Puntarenas in Costa Rica. One of these
Cuban-Americans, Moises Nunez, worked directly for the NSC.
In 1987, the CIA asked Nunez about allegations tying him to the drug trade.
"Nunez revealed that since 1985, he had engaged in a clandestine relationship
with the National Security Council," the CIA contra-drug report said. "Nunez
refused to elaborate on the nature of these actions, but indicated it was
difficult to answer questions relating to his involvement in narcotics
trafficking because of the specific tasks he had performed at the direction of
the NSC."
The CIA had its own link to the Frigorificos/Ocean Hunter operation through
Felipe Vidal, a Cuban-American with a criminal record as a narcotics trafficke
r.
Despite that record, the CIA hired Vidal as a logistics coordinator for the
contras, the CIA report said. When Sen. Kerry sought the CIA's file on Vidal,
the CIA withheld the data about Vidal's drug arrest and kept him on the
payroll
until 1990.
These specific cases were not mentioned in the House report. They also have
gone
unreported in the major news media of the United States.
Now, with the Democrats on the House Intelligence Committees joining with
their
Republican counterparts, the official verdict on the sordid contra-drug
history
has been delivered - a near full acquittal of the Reagan administration and
the
CIA. The verdict is justified as long as no one reads what's in the
government's
own reports.
[Source: The Consortium - By Robert Parry - 08jun00]
----------------------------------------------------------------- Human
Rights in Honduras [mainly in Spanish]
http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/honduras/informes.html Human Rights Defenders
in Honduras
http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/cemexico/honduras.htm Escrito de
acusación del Fiscal Especial de Derechos Humanos de Honduras en el
que imputa a Billy Joya Amendola y otros integrantes del Batallón de
Inteligencia 3-16 (Indictment against Captain Billy Joya Amendola and other
members of the 3-16 Intelligence Battalion) [SPA/ESP]
http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/espana/doc/joya/fiscal.html Honduras: CIA and
Argentine military responsible for repression [SPA/ESP]
http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/honduras/doc/cia1.html The Aguacate military
base or the coordination of terror in Latin America.[SPA/ESP]
http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/honduras/doc/aguacate.html Excerpts from
Selected Issues Relating to CIA Activities in Honduras in the 1980s.
http://www.seas.gwu.edu/nsarchive_new/index.html - Question of the impunity
of perpetrators of human rights violations (civil and
political). Revised final report prepared by Mr. Joinet pursuant to
Sub-Commission decision 1996/119. [E/CN.4/Sub.2/1997/20/Rev.1 ]
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu4/subrep/97sc20r1.htm --
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