Venezuela up to its eyeballs in the “white stuff”

When most people think of cocaine smuggling, they revert to images of the Colombian jungle, or perhaps the ongoing drug war in Mexico. What many people may not know is that Venezuela has been eyeball-deep in the drug trafficking business for a long time, and the Obama administration has to figure out how to deal with that problem in the midst of an attempted rapprochement with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

The Wall Street Journal recently published an article on an upcoming Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, which blames widespread government corruption in Venezuela for the proliferation of cocaine trafficking within and across its borders. The report states that cocaine shipments through Venezuela have soared more than fourfold to 260 metric tons in 2007, up from 60 metric tons in 2004.

There are two main sources for this problem: the suppliers and the transporters. Of course, a third source is the consumer, but that’s a “whole ‘nother issue” that won’t be discussed here. The suppliers are groups like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a Marxist-Leninist terrorist group, and dozens of smaller Colombian cartels. A raid on a FARC camp in Ecuador last year provided some of the most damning evidence yet that the Venezuelan government was wittingly providing financial, materiel, and moral support to the FARC.

The corruption of Venezuelan government institutions like the National Guard and Investigative Police should come as no surprise. Corruption is an endemic problem throughout Latin America that goes back hundreds of years to colonial times. Bribes and off-the-record payments are a way to pad the poor salaries of government employees in undeveloped and developing countries. As sad as it is (and challenging for counterdrug efforts), corruption in Latin America is a given and not likely to be eliminated soon.

What makes the situation even more complicated is Honduras’ involvement in Venezuelan drug trafficking. Drugs arrive in Honduras on noncommercial aircraft and, increasingly, in speedboats, from Venezuela and to a lesser extent Colombia, according to the Key West, Florida-based Joint Interagency Task Force-South, which coordinates drug interdiction in region. "Every night, three or four Venezuelan-registered planes land without the permission of appropriate authorities and bring thousands of pounds ... and packages of money that are the fruit of drug trafficking," Honduras’ foreign minister, Enrique Ortez, told CNN en Español.

While Chavez has been denying any complicit involvement with drug trafficking, his government’s efforts to actively combat the trade have been rapidly diminishing. He formally suspended cooperation with the US Drug Enforcement Agency in 2005, a move that was copied by Chavez’s close friend and Bolivian President Evo Morales. These are all serious issues the Obama administration will need to consider as it develops its policy towards the Venezuelan government.