Red Cocaine by Joseph Douglass part 31

CHAPTER ELEVEN                                                    133

FIXING             THE RESPONSIBILITY

The US drug scourge has been blamed on social unrest, unemployment, capitalist deca- dence, and the traffickers' lust for profits, which are most readily available in the United States. The drug plague is a demand problem, officials from the producing nations claim'. If it were not for demand, there would be no plague. But, is this correct, or is the supply side of the equation equally, if not more, to blame? Consider a few 'coincidences'.

Two sources of data assembled during the early 1970s show the growth in narcotics- related deaths and addiction in New York and San Francisco. Figure 4 below summarises recorded deaths from drug abuse in New York City in successive years between 1930 and

1969. Figure 5 on page 135 gives details of addicts in the Haight-Ashbury subculture in San Francisco covering the years 1935-68. The consequences of the controlled launch of the narcotics war against the West are immediately apparent.

Both series show a precipitous jump in 1949-50, which is precisely when the Com- munist Chinese international narcotics trafficking strategy was organised and launched.

YEAR	Reported deaths	YEAR	Reported deaths
1930	23	1950	56
1931	29	1951	77
1932	22	1952	82
1933	25	1953	75
1934	23	1954	86
1935	12	1955	82
1936	13	1956	109
1937	30	1957	86
1938	17	1958	84
1939	26	1959	76
1940	27	1960	126
1941	16	1961	275
1942	24	1962	236
1943	12	1963	342
1944	17	1964	264
1945	0	1965	195
1946	11	1966	262
1947	19	1967	490
1948	18	1968	519
1949	32	1969	689

Figure 4: Historical data on drug-dependent deaths in New York City, 1930-692.

Which is the cause - supply or demand - and which is the effect? Both data also show a massive exponential rise beginning in about 1960, which is when the Chinese operation was intensified and when the Soviet narcotics trafficking operation commenced. This massive rise is not a unique US phenomenon. In Great Britain, heroin addicts were few in number between 1930 and 1960. Then after 1960, the situation suddenly became unman- ageable3. Nor are these growth rates due to the alienation of youth during the Vietnam War. They preceded the Vietnam War reaction. The surge began during the Kennedy Administration, which, if anything, was an uplifting period in American politics. The sharp rise cannot be explained as simply the result of increased demand. It appears to have been more the result of increased supply, as well as of the associated Soviet and Chinese marketing techniques that were designed to create demand.

As noted earlier, what has been happening is also remarkably evident in data from Southeast Asia and Europe in the early 1970s. In both cases there was a surge in drug addiction among US servicemen. The reaction of the American military was at first to deny that there was a problem, and then to blame the drug crisis on the poor quality of recruits. But there is little question what caused the increase. It was due to a mammoth increase in the supply of drugs, high-pressure marketing techniques, and ultra-low prices.

The prices were artificially depressed and the availability of drugs was maximised. Prostitutes were used to push drugs on unsuspecting servicemen. Addiction was covertly increased by mixing opium and heroin in with drugs that were not considered addictive, such as marijuana. Cartons of cigarettes and 'reefers' laced with narcotics were given away free to American troops. Heroin was sold as cocaine, which at the time was not considered addictive.

This represented blatant political warfare directed against the youth of the United States. The source of the problem was not weak-willed American youth, dissatisfaction with society, or some other muddled explanation. There may have been some of that, there always is. But that was not the cause. The cause was a massive supply of cheap drugs and a system dedicated to pushing these drugs among the American military. These Soviet and Chinese operations were immensely successful.

This historical evidence is exceedingly important. What has been happening in America has been explained as the result of American social decay, a growing decadence. America was to blame. This was just one dimension of an important propaganda and disinformation campaign designed to cause Americans, and the rest of the world, to lose faith in America and in the American way of life. These propaganda campaigns are part of a massive influence operation on which the Soviets have been spending over $3 billion per year since the late 1950s4. There is no question that American society is far from perfect. It has many faults, but it is much better than any existing alternatives. This is why the Soviets work so hard to tear it down. It is time for Americans and our friends and neighbours to recognise what is happening. The massive growth in drug use in the various free societies is not the result of internal decay in those societies. Nothing could be further from the truth, and until we face the truth, an effective strategy to combat the drug offensive is unlikely to be developed.

It is also possible to relate what has been taking place in the United States with the historical data presented above. There has been a steady increase in US drug interdiction activity and an ever-increasing quantity of drug seizures, especially of cocaine. Yet simul- taneously, the flow of cocaine has increased, the quality has improved, and the price has

CHAPTER 11: Fixing the Responsibility                                         135

decreased. Is this effect just the result of an oversupply and trafficking competition? Or, might the tempo of the political war against the United States have been accelerated, speeded up in part, perhaps, to cause the United States to believe the war on drugs is a lost cause?

Perhaps the greatest 'coincidences' are the manner in which the trafficking has grown almost precisely as identified in the Soviet studies, and in accordance with Soviet strategy. Are the Soviets merely tremendously prescient, or has the trafficking that the United States and many other countries have been subjected to been heavily influenced by Soviet Bloc intelligence operations, assisted and abetted by coordinated propaganda and disinformation activity5?

Consider the fact that the primary countries involved in trafficking in the 1980s were the initial Latin American and Caribbean targets in the Soviet drug strategy of the early

1960s: Cuba, Panama, Colombia, Mexico, Haiti, Jamaica, and most recently, Argentina. Or consider the fact that the vast majority of the drug dealers operating in the United States are minorities - Haitians, Jamaicans, Cubans, Colombians and Black people - most of whom General Sejna identified as having been priority Soviet revolutionary war targets -

Figure 5: Drug addiction in a district of San Francisco: The number of addicts in the Haight-Ashbury subculture who first used heroin, as a function of the year6. [see pdf for pictures]

and, to a lesser extent, organised crime, also a high-priority Soviet Bloc target since 1956. The three top Soviet political targets in South and Central America that have been identified by defectors and are singled out in Soviet literature are Mexico, Argentina and Brazil. Mexico is now in deep trouble, and the drug trade is a critical factor. Argentina is a growing source of drugs and Brazil, according to Diego Cordoba, a lawyer for the Medellin Cartel, will replace Colombia as the largest exporter of drugs within the next three years7. Mexico has become one of the most fragile Latin American countries because of its drug-associated destabilisation  potential.  Might  this  development  reflect  the  Cuban-Czechoslovak

'Rhine'and Soviet-Czechoslovak 'Full Moon' operations? And what about the operational tactics observed with respect to the Cuban, Haitian, Colombian and Jamaican operations in the United States, and which seem to mirror-image the push-pull tactics of the 'Full Moon' operation. Is all this strictly coincidence?

Jamaica is an especially interesting case. When Michael Manley was Prime Minister of Jamaica, from 1972 to 1980, Jamaica almost became a client state of Cuba. By 1973, Manley was recruiting Jamaicans to go to Cuba for training in guerrilla warfare8 and Jamaica was being openly used for drug-trafficking into the United States. The appearance of Jamaican gangs (known as 'posses') is thought to have evolved around 1974. The well- organised Jamaican gangs like the Raetown Boys and the Dunkirk Boys are believed to have arrived in New York City in 1976. Originally organised for violence and terror, the

posses switched from being 'hitmen' and extortionists to traffickers in crack cocaine in

19869. Is it strictly coincidence that Jamaicans and Haitians are so prominent in the crack distribution and marketing networks today? Is it just coincidence that Marxist Mexican guerrillas are heavily involved in the guns-for-drugs trade?

As discussed in Chapter 3, Guadeloupe was the centre of a Caribbean drug operation conceived by the Second Secretary of the French Communist Party and the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Guadeloupe. With their assistance, it was placed in operation in

the mid-1960s - and run by two French-speaking Czechoslovak intelligence agents.

In 1987, a private US security specialist was hired by several Europeans who had sig- nificant investments in St. Vincent, south of Guadeloupe in the Grenadines, to eliminate problems caused by local terrorists that their staff in St. Vincent had been experiencing. The security specialist soon learned that drugs were plentiful throughout the Grenadines. Marijuana was a major crop on St. Vincent, and production there was controlled by the Rastafarians, Communist guerrillas, and local businessmen. The local police were totally corrupted. The islands' marijuana production was sold to the 'French' who dominated the inter-island sea transportation. Also in prominent were representatives of the Grenada- based New Jewel Movement, subsequently 'decapitated' by invading US forces.

The Communist guerrillas were the terrorists. Their objective seemed to be to drive local businessmen off the island. They were supplied with guns and ammunition by inter- island steamers. One night the specialist, who was operating under cover, infiltrated a group of twenty-five 'merchantmen' from a ship who came ashore for dinner and enter- tainment. Most of them were young Cubans; about ten percent were older Soviets.

The ship travelled from island to island supplying terrorists. Guns and ammunition were sealed in plastic and then placed in crab traps. This was also the method used to deliver a propaganda magazine, Oclae, which was printed in English in Cuba. The terrorists, masquerading as fishermen, would travel out to the various buoys and retrieve their supplies from the crab traps. Marijuana and other drugs were used to finance their operations. As the security specialist learned shortly before his departure, 'French' control of

CHAPTER 11: Fixing the Responsibility                       137

distribution was not recent, but extended back into the 1960s. Another coincidence?

Is it mere coincidence that the language used by many of the drug operators from

Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua and Panama - for example, that drugs are 'a revolu- tionary means of struggle against imperialism'10 - is impregnated with Marxist-Leninist phrases and concepts? And who deserves the responsibility for the non-Communist criminals who were trained at drug-trafficking 'academies' in the Soviet Union, Czecho- slovakia, Bulgaria, East Germany and other Soviet surrogate states? The output of those schools - trained criminals - based on the Czechoslovak model and assuming no expansion or contraction, would be over 600 per year between 1970 and 1990. That adds up to over

12,000  non-Communist  'graduates',  and  another  12,000  non-Soviet  Bloc  Communist

'graduates. Those totals do not include the Cuban and East European intelligence services'

operations throughout Latin America and the rest of the world which were not connected with the drug-trafficking training centres.

Is it only paranoia that led Ramon Rodriguez to be concerned about DGI infiltration of the Medellin Cartel and to respond 'Absolutely!' when asked if Cuba had infiltrated the drug community11? During the campaign by Colombia to crack down on drug dealers following the assassination of a presidential candidate, Luis Carlos Galan, on August 19, 1989, thousands of suspected traffickers were arrested. In one sweep of Medellin, 27 Cubans were seized. They carried forged Costa Rican passports12. What were they doing in Colombia's drug capital? Were they on vacation?

Or consider the manner in which numerous sources have reported statements made to them by high-level Communist officials on the deliberate use of drugs against the United

States by the Communist countries. Some of the many such statements which appear at

various places in this text are assembled in Figure 6, on page 138.

The rationale and strategy associated with drug-trafficking operations are logical and consistent with the first principles of Marxist-Leninist doctrine. The operations conform with informal statements made by many high-echelon officials who were involved and who come from a wide variety of countries - Colombia, Nicaragua, Panama, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, China, Romania and Bulgaria.

It should be clear that Chinese and Soviet drug-trafficking strategies have been primary forces behind the US (and of course the global) drug offensive. In 1967, Sejna reported, the Soviets estimated that they (that is, they or their satellites) were in control of 37 percent of drug output then being supplied to the United States and Canada, and that this figure would be expanded by up to 13 percent each year. In terms of distribution and sales within the

United States and Canada, the figure was lower- at 31 percent. By 'control' was meant that

the people they had trained had a hand in running the operation and the Soviets were receiving a cut of the profits.