[NYTr] US says Venezuela fails in drug war; sanctions waived to maintain subversion

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Reuters - Sep 17, 2007
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN1735435020070917?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews

U.S. says Myanmar, Venezuela fall short in drugs fight

By Paul Eckert

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Myanmar and Venezuela have "failed demonstrably"
to do enough to fight illegal drugs for a third straight year, said a
U.S. report on Monday that waived sanctions on Caracas to maintain aid
for democracy programs.

The 20 countries identified as major illicit drug transit and drug
producing countries in the annual U.S. presidential report to Congress
were unchanged from 2006, but Washington said allies Afghanistan and
Colombia had made some progress.

"Burma and Venezuela have failed demonstrably during the previous 12
months to adhere to their obligations under international
counternarcotics agreements and take the measures set forth in U.S.
law," said the report, using the former name of military-ruled Myanmar.

"However, the president determined to maintain U.S. programs that aid
Venezuela's democratic institutions," it said. Countries that fail to
meet anti-drug commitments can have non-humanitarian U.S. aid programs
cut.

The report identified Afghanistan, the Bahamas, Bolivia, Brazil, Burma,
Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, India,
Jamaica, Laos, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and
Venezuela as major drug transit or major illicit drug producing
countries.

Christy McCampbell, the State Department's top drug enforcement
diplomat, said Washington still worked with Caracas despite strained
ties with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, but wanted more anti-drug
cooperation.

"We still do work with the police there and do eradication efforts. One
of our greatest concerns though is the corruption there with
narco-trafficking and it is such a transit country it's just becoming a
real hub for drugs," she said.

Myanmar, Asia's largest source of methamphetamine pills, was "very
lackluster" in interdiction and fighting corruption, said McCampbell,
deputy assistant secretary for counternarcotics.

"The country's declining poppy cultivation has been matched by a sharp
increase in methamphetamine production," she said at a news conference.

The report said one third of Afghanistan's economy remains opium-based,
fueling corruption and boosting the militant Taliban insurgency.
McCampbell said, however, that 13 Afghan provinces had become
poppy-free and northern provinces had made some headway against opium,
the raw material for heroin.

Bolivia, the world's third-largest cocaine producer, has done enough to
fight the drug trade in the past year to avoid U.S. sanctions, but had
uneven results, McCampbell said.

The Andean country met a U.S. target of eradicating at least 12,360
acres of coca, the main ingredient in cocaine, the report said. But
Bolivian President Evo Morales' "zero cocaine, but not zero coca"
policy had focused primarily on interdiction and not enough on
eradication and alternative development for growers, it said.

In response to the report, Bolivian Interior Minister Alfredo Rada told
Erbol radio the U.S. recognition of progress did not change his
government's view that the U.S. annual practice was "unilateral and
colonialist."

"It is a mechanism that is losing force in the new Latin American
context," Rada said.