 |
| Photo GOL: Coca plant, Catatumbo, Colombia. |
The issue of illicit drugs is once again on the agenda. The USA has just decertified Colombia, or more precisely its president, for the lack of results in the war on drugs as such and the crops used to make them: opium poppy and coca leaf. We have also recently seen, how the Orange Stain in Chief of Washington ordered blowing up small Venezuelan vessels using, without any proof, the excuse that they were drug traffickers’ boats.
Drugs have always been of use for military and imperial manoeuvres. It is often forgotten that the British Empire carried out not one, but two, wars against China to fight for the rights of its drug traffickers to export opium from India to China for consumption by the Chinese working class. The first war took place between 1839 and 1842 and the second war, in which France also took part, was between 1856 and 1860. China ended up legalising opium to favour the European drug traffickers and banks and gave control of Hong Kong to the British and agreed to pay reparations to the drug traffickers.
Following that, the USA tried to establish good political and economic relations with China and as part of its strategy pushed a campaign to restrict the sale of drugs in the world, in particular opium. So, in 1909 the first international drug control conference was held in Shanghai and later in 1912 the Hague Convention was signed. Over the years they went ahead with other international anti-drug measures, although they excluded alcohol and tobacco from any discussion on the matter. Rather than a debate on public health it was an issue of economic power with a moralistic discourse. Any similarity to the current set up is just history repeating itself, something we should never lose sight of.
The USA has deployed its military in many parts of the world using a moralistic discourse on drugs. Under Nixon they did it in Turkey, the first president to adopt a clearly militarist tone on drugs and the founder of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) a body that has plagued the world and the USA itself with misery. They went on to do it in Afghanistan, Panama, Colombia and now Venezuela. We shouldn’t pay any attention to the Yankee discourse, but rather bear in mind at all times the long history of their “drug” wars and their impacts.
Now Donald Trump’s government, which is not that different from previous governments on the issue, i.e. the past was the same, has just published a report on the compliance of various governments with UN drug treaties. Of course, the report is the Yankee government’s and not the UN’s, but its starting point are the UN treaties, compliance with which is mandatory for all countries in the world. So, Trump, or rather the usual suspects have named certain countries as drug producing or transit countries and it is in this context that he decertified Colombia.
He states that Colombia does not meet its obligations, but absolves the state’s armed forces and the mayors, amongst others.
Colombia’s security institutions and municipal authorities continue to show skill and courage in confronting terrorist and criminal groups, and the United States values the service and sacrifice of their dedicated public servants across all levels of government. The failure of Colombia to meet its drug control obligations over the past year rests solely with its political leadership.[1]
It is clear that he wants to accuse a political representative and not the state as such. Of course, Petro is not to blame for the rise in coca crops, or at least he is no more responsible than previous presidents. It is due to many economic factors, such as the free trade agreements, changes in production in the countryside and the very nature of the Colombian economy which can’t be fixed from one day to the next. However, he does bear political responsibility. Through his programme for Total Peace he lumped together armed political groups such as the ELN and the drug trafficking paramilitary groups, such as the Gulf Clan. He then went on to narcoticise his discourse on the armed conflict, speaking of the ELN as large scale drug traffickers and invented or rather revived the phrase the Drug Trafficking Board (Junta del Narcotráfico) an expression designed to evoke the corniest images from Hollywood B Movies. It is not surprising that Trump takes that discourse and speaks of a narcoticised country, as Petro also says it is.
The putrid Colombian right wing, never willing to seem less troglodyte than Petro on issues of drugs pulls out its Ace, the magic card of Hezbollah alleging there is an alliance between the ELN, Hezbollah and large drug traffickers and of course the government of Maduro. The aim is to say that the enemies of the US in the Arab world are to be found in Colombia and Venezuela and should be militarily attacked.
Petro has never wanted to acknowledge the reality of drug trafficking in the country. He began his presidency with grandiose statements on drugs and the need to change the strategy and prohibitionist discourse. His proposals have been erratic and mistaken and even contradictory. Whilst he talks of a change in paradigm he implements old schemes for crop substitution, he says no to aerial fumigation with glyphosate and then authorises its manual application. In a recent speech he took issue with the simplistic US position to put forward his own equally simplistic position. According to Petro, the coca crops in the country have been on the rise since 1993 due to the mafia and paramilitary influence in those governments.[2] Whilst it is true that paramilitaries have been an important factor in the expansion of the crops, it doesn’t explain why the crops increased. But Petro as clueless as he is, gives us a clue he doesn’t notice: the year 1993.
What happened? Well in 1992, the neoliberal Cesar Gaviria took the presidency and began the economic aperture and the countryside went into crisis. Even the text of Plan Colombia acknowledged that 700,000 hectares were lost between 1995 and 1999 supposedly due to their lack of competitivity.[3] Under the government of Petro’s current ally Ernesto Samper the neoliberal measures were strengthened, so that when Pastrana and later Uribe came to power they inherited not just an economic model but a power relationship with the countryside and also with the northern colossus on the issue of drugs. Under Uribe they invested heavily in monocultures and cash crops, i.e. the so-called agribusinesses and they continued to impoverish the countryside. It is worth pointing out that Petro is also opting for monocultures and cash crops. It is easy to talk of paramilitaries when the root problem is the economic model, the free trade treaties and of course to push to turn Colombia into not so much a banana republic, but a republic of four or five main crops to supply international markets.
From there we look at what is being said about Venezuela. Whilst Trump talks of the non-compliance of Petro, in the case of Venezuela he states categorically, without any proof that Maduro is a drug trafficker.
In Venezuela, the criminal regime of indicted drug trafficker Nicolás Maduro leads one of the largest cocaine trafficking networks in the world, and the United States will continue to seek to bring Maduro and other members of his complicit regime to justice for their crimes. We will also target Venezuelan foreign terrorist organizations such as Tren de Aragua and purge them from our country.[4]
Petro also narcotisised his discourse, his difference with Trump is around who is to blame. Petro speaks of a supposed international board and Trump speaks of whatever he feels like, referring to the same facts as Petro. There is now circulating in Washington a draft bill which would give Trump the power to declare war on cartels or rather any entity he considers a cartel and the countries that give them shelter.[5] Up till now Trump has murdered 17 people on three vessels and not much is known about the incidents and there is not even any evidence they were really trafficking drugs. These are international crimes and contrast with the attitude taken by the authorities usually charged with intervening in drugs cases. Following these murders, the US Coast Guard and the Navy intercepted a boat in the Caribbean and released all involved after confirming that they did not have any drugs on board.[6] If Trump had attacked that boat, he would now be talking of having killed drug traffickers.
The Venezuelan government condemned the murders and Maduro accused Trump of trying to start a war. No wonder. Trump directly accused Maduro of being a drug trafficker and when it suits them, they are more than capable of using this as an excuse to invade or overthrow governments. It doesn’t matter whether they are democratic or not, nor whether the accusations are true either, but rather whether the government serves their interests. That is why they never overthrew Uribe, despite the intelligence reports that accused him of being Drug Trafficker No. 82[7] and that several high-ranking military and police officers including his Aide de Camp, Mauricio Santoyo were imprisoned for drug related crimes in the US. Uribe was an ally and as such untouchable. Noriega in Panama, however, was another thug whose record included rape, murder and torture and when he ceased to be important to the USA, they invaded the country and overthrew him, offering as an excuse his role in drug trafficking. The former ally and CIA collaborator was no longer of use to them. It doesn’t matter whether the accusations against Venezuela and Maduro are true or not. The USA is not interested in the matter; it is just an excuse. Though it is worth pointing out that Venezuela is not immune from the phenomenon of drug trafficking and it acknowledges this and has taken measures against it.
In March of this year two ruling party mayors in the department of Zulia were arrested and a drugs network was dismantled with 5.4 tonnes of cocaine confiscated.[8] In April they moved against a further five mayors, two of them from opposition parties, in the same department of Zulia.[9] Drugs have permeated various sectors of the Venezuelan economy, both government and opposition sectors. That the opposition is involved is never waved about as an argument against that sector, despite the high-level links. It is not for nothing that Juan Guaidó met with known Colombian criminals.
Petro should denarcotisise his discourse. It is likely that Trump will order some attack on Venezuela, be it an invasion, a coup, the murder of Maduro or simply bomb various places to cause chaos in the country and Maduro’s exit. Such actions obviously represent a danger to Venezuela, but also to Colombia. Remember that in his report on decertification all the blame is laid on one person: Petro. It is stupid, but regardless of its lack of veracity, it serves as an excuse for greater interference in the country.
These are crazy and dangerous times and the Yankee fascist madness may bring us to war in Latin America. It might seem improbable to some, but so did the war in Ukraine and nobody thought that not only would the West allow the Zionists to commit a genocide, but that the entire West would be complicit in it and that the genocide would be live streamed. The idea of a terrorist action by the US against Venezuela is not out of the world. Now, more than ever with the Orange Stain in power, any type of act is possible.
References
[1] See Dept of State (2006) Presidential Determination on Major Drug Transit or Major Illicit Drug Producing Countries for Fiscal Year 2026.
[2] See.
[3] Plan Colombia (1999). Plan For Peace, Prosperity, And The Strengthening Of The State p.9 (English version. There were differences between the English and Spanish versions of the text)
[4] Dept. of State (2025) Op. Cit.
[5] New York Times (19/09/2025) Draft Bill Would Authorize Trump to Wage Drug Trafficking War. Charlie Savage & Robert Jimison.
[6] Ibíd.,
[7] Camargo V, S. (2008) El Narcotraficante No. 82. Universo Latino. Spain.
[8] Noticias Venevisión (14/03/2025) Detienen a dos alcaldes por presunta vinculación con una red de narcotráfico en Zulia.
[9] Notitarde (05/04/2025) Estos son los cinco nuevos alcaldes detenidos por vinculación al narcotráfico y paramilitarismo en Zulia.
[2] See.
[3] Plan Colombia (1999). Plan For Peace, Prosperity, And The Strengthening Of The State p.9 (English version. There were differences between the English and Spanish versions of the text)
[4] Dept. of State (2025) Op. Cit.
[5] New York Times (19/09/2025) Draft Bill Would Authorize Trump to Wage Drug Trafficking War. Charlie Savage & Robert Jimison.
[6] Ibíd.,
[7] Camargo V, S. (2008) El Narcotraficante No. 82. Universo Latino. Spain.
[8] Noticias Venevisión (14/03/2025) Detienen a dos alcaldes por presunta vinculación con una red de narcotráfico en Zulia.
[9] Notitarde (05/04/2025) Estos son los cinco nuevos alcaldes detenidos por vinculación al narcotráfico y paramilitarismo en Zulia.
No comments