InfoBrief--May 4, 2006

US Current Affairs and Media

• Senator Grassley Questions Effectiveness of Plan Colombia In a stern letter drafted to John Walters, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) requested clarification regarding the “price, purity, and availability of cocaine and heroin in the United States, and how they correlate to the achievements of Plan Colombia.” Senator Grassley, chairman of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, expressed concern that recent statements made by the ONDCP regarding progress in the so-called Drug War may have been substantiated with “data not intended for such purposes” with the intention of creating “a rosier but not necessarily more accurate, picture of the current situation.” As an example, the letter calls into question an April 14th press release by the ONDCP, in which the office claims an eight percent reduction in coca cultivation in 2005 in areas that were also evaluated in 2004. Sen. Grassley’s letter calls this assertion “potentially misleading,” as the percentage is based only on data collected from heavily-sprayed areas, and does not take into account the ability of drug traffickers to adapt to pressures on their operations. “This year's news about Colombia's cultivation suggests that areas subject to spraying have witnessed reductions in cultivation, but overall cultivation continues to rise as a likely result of coca being grown in new areas not being targeted by eradication.” Conflicting statements made by government officials, potentially inappropriate use of data, and the ONDCP’s inability to follow up and implement recommendations by outside observers are additional concerns voiced in the Senator’s letter. The Senator requested a formal response from Director Walters by tomorrow, May 5th.

  Click here for the complete text of Senator Grassley's letter, provided by the Center for International Policy's Colombia Project.

• U.S. Office on Colombia Distributes Hilldrop on DAS Scandal The U.S. Office on Colombia sent a congressional mailing to all members this week, detailing recent accusations that Colombia’s Administrative Department of Security (DAS) had illegally collaborated with paramilitaries and drug traffickers. The DAS reports directly to the Colombian Presidency, playing a role that combines the functions assigned to the FBI, the CIA, and the ICE (immigration) in the U.S. News reports and testimony from former DAS officials charge that Jorge Noguera, former DAS Director, has aided paramilitary forces in a number of ways. This includes calling off operations to capture known paramilitaries and drug traffickers facing charges, destroying files containing results of investigations against these same individuals, and offering them state-financed protection, including the use of an armored car meant only for Colombian President Álvaro Uribe. Noguera is also accused of plotting and executing electoral fraud in Colombia’s northern department of Magdalena, an area under the heavy influence of the Northern Bloc paramilitary group headed by notorious AUC leader Rodrigo Tovar Pupo, alias, “Jorge 40.” Additionally, Semana news magazine reports that the DAS gave lists with the names of union leaders, opposition leaders, activists and academics to paramilitaries in the northern region of Colombia. The scandal surfaced last October when a DAS sub- director brought the testimony of former DAS agents to the attorney-general’s office (Fiscalía), leading to Noguera’s termination. He is not currently facing any formal accusation by the government, though he remains under investigation. Noguera currently resides in Milan, Italy, where he was appointed to the post of Colombia’s consul by President Uribe.

  Click here for Adam Isacson's detailed account of the DAS scandal