21145: Esser: Who Really Supports Cocaine Traffickers? (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

AlterNet
http://www.alternet.org

April 6, 2004

DRUG WAR BRIEFS: Who Really Supports Cocaine Traffickers?
By Kevin Nelson

This week, despite having no clear evidence, US prosecutors announce
an investigation of Jean Bertrand Aristide's alleged ties to cocaine
traffickers; meanwhile, a Peruvian court tries Vladimir Montesinos –
a 30-year CIA asset – for supplying Colombian drug traffickers with
weapons.

April 3- AFP reports: Prosecutors are investigating whether Haitian
former president Jean Bertrand Aristide took millions of dollars from
drug traffickers who moved cocaine through his impoverished nation,
it was reported.

"It's in the early stages," one law enforcement source told The Miami
Herald. "It's a bit premature to say we've got anything yet. But
you're not wrong if you say that's where we're going."

The report quoted officials in Florida and Washington as saying
investigators had been briefed on reports that relatives of Aristide
and his wife, Mildred, hold nearly 250 million dollars in European
banks. The officials added, however, that there is no indication yet
whether the funds actually exist.

Haiti's Justice Minister Bernard Gousse meanwhile said that Friday he
planned to set up a commission next week to investigate allegations
against Aristide "from misuse of government funds to human-rights
abuses."

Aristide's Miami lawyer Ira Kurzban attributed the investigation to
politics: "After kidnapping President Aristide, the Bush
administration is not content to simply end democracy in Haiti – they
need to politically assassinate Aristide."

April 4- The Scotsman reports: Vladimiro Montesinos is a legendary
figure in Latin America and is now at the centre of the most
explosive trial in Peruvian history, watched with the kind of
devotion usually only reserved for soap operas.

But the 58-year-old's latest trial, in which he is accused of
smuggling 10,000 rifles to Colombian terrorists, has also seen the US
intelligence services become embroiled in an embarrassing row about
whether the CIA not only knew what Montesinos was up to and turned a
blind eye, but have actively undermined Washington's
multibillion-dollar war on drugs by doing so.

The plot is something out of a John le Carre novel. In 1999 a shadowy
spymaster brokers an arms deal to send 10,000 AK-47 rifles to
guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

A Lebanese arms dealer, Sarkis Soghanalian, known as 'The Merchant of
Death', gets the rifles from Jordan and puts them on a Ukrainian
plane that parachutes them into the Colombian jungles controlled by
the rebels.

The payment for the consignment comes from Brazil's most feared drug
lord, Luiz Fernando da Costa, better known as 'Freddy Seashore' after
the slum from which he rose to power. He gets his payment in drugs
from the FARC, allegedly 20 tonnes of cocaine.

The story is spectacular enough, but there is another complicating
and compelling element: if not the involvement, then the knowledge of
the deal on the part of the CIA. Peruvian prosecutor, Ronald Gamarra,
after two years of investigation of the case and hundreds of
interviews, is convinced the CIA knew of the plot.

"In the trafficking of the arms to the FARC, Montesinos could have
had the support of the CIA," said Gamarra. "I don't have hard
evidence of it, but various leads indicate that it is probable."

That there have been links between the CIA and Montesinos for the
best part of 30 years is no secret. In 1976, Montesinos was expelled
from the army and put in prison for selling secrets to the CIA, when
George Bush senior held the top post at Langley.

Montesinos then put himself through law school and became the
defender of drug traffickers. But once he became former president
Alberto Fujimori's right-hand man in 1990 the relationship with the
CIA became still closer and Montesinos became known by the American
agency as 'Mr. Fix'.

Gamarra believes the CIA have something to hide, saying that the FBI
and Drug Enforcement Administration have been very co-operative in
his investigations, while the CIA has stonewalled him on everything.

His fears are supported by arms dealer Soghanalian, currently in US
custody. Soghanalian said he would not have had anything to do with
the deal had not the CIA been aware of it.

In his declaration to US authorities he said: "When I went to get the
license from the Jordanian authorities I went to [US] military
intelligence and foreign intelligence [the CIA]. I said that this was
an area very sensitive to the Americans on a political level."

His testimony is backed by the Jordanians. The AK-47s, made in East
Germany, were destined, so the Jordanians thought, for the Peruvian
army.

According to Atef Halasa, the head of protocol at the Jordanian
Foreign Ministry, his country would not have released the weapons
without informing US authorities. Halasa was reported as saying that
the American government not only knew of the deal, but that it was
authorized by the CIA.

The severity of the accusations against the CIA has sent US
authorities into panic. The FARC have long been on Washington's
terrorist list and the Colombian government is one of the largest
recipients of US military aid in the world after Israel and Egypt.
Over the years, several Americans have been killed by the Colombian
rebels, who have threatened to target US personnel in their bloody
war to seize power and establish a Marxist regime.

Indeed the FARC have three US intelligence operatives in their power,
captured after their spy plane crash landed in guerrilla territory in
February last year.

The CIA has refused to comment, except to say, "it's a matter before
the courts".

The former CIA Head of Station in Peru, Robert Gorelick, believed to
have been the linkman for the agency with Montesinos, has also
refused to testify in a Peruvian court.

Montesinos during interrogation in May 2002 said he "met an average
of two or three times a week with Mr. Gorelick".

State Department spokesman Phil Chicola, responsible for the Andean
nations, called the accusations against the CIA "the greatest
foolishness... irresponsible, black propaganda made by people that do
not know what they are talking about".

Many find it unbelievable that the CIA would have turned a blind eye
to, or actually helped with, such an order, actively undermining the
work of the US in Colombia, arming the guerrillas that Washington
describes as "narco-terrorists".

But a senior judicial source in Peru said the CIA appears to be
instigating a process to get Montesinos extradited to the US to face
some charges there, most likely in an attempt to halt the damaging
proceedings in Peru and prevent more explosive revelations.

"How can people doubt that the CIA is capable of something like
this," said a senior Peruvian judicial source on condition of
anonymity. "Did the Iran Contra scandal teach you nothing?"
.