The Drug War

In the three years since the Andean Strategy was announced, Colombia has actively thrown its support behind U.S. counternarcotics objectives. It has applied pressure against drug-traffickers through police and military operations, and drug trafficking by the Medellin cartel has been disrupted. The overall effectiveness of Colombia's efforts and U.S. programs is unclear, however, because U.S. officials lack the data needed to make such an assessment. Various obstacles have hindered the effectiveness of U.S. efforts in Colombia, including the limited ability of some Colombian agencies to mount effective programs, increased insurgency and narcoterrorism, expansion of the cartels into heroin, corruption in the Colombian government, and the lack of effective antidrug programs in other countries. Various U.S. management problems have also helped to hamstring antidrug programs in Colombia, ranging from State Department cuts in funding for military and law enforcement programs to poor coordination among U.S. agencies to inventory and financial weaknesses. U.S. officials cannot guarantee that U.S. policies on aid uses and human rights are being met. GAO summarized this report in testimony before Congress; see: The Drug War: Colombia Is Implementing Antidrug Efforts, but Impact Is Uncertain, by Joseph E. Kelley, Director of International Affairs Issues, before the Subcommittee on Legislation and National Security, House Committee on Government Operations. GAO/T-NSIAD-94-53, Oct. 5, 1993 (13 pages).

GAO found that: (1) U.S. military and law enforcement aid has improved Colombia's counternarcotics capabilities; (2) U.S. officials believe that counternarcotics programs in Colombia have been effective in disrupting and reducing drug trafficking; (3) U.S. officials lack data to determine the programs' effectiveness; (4) the programs' success depends on long-term U.S. and Colombian commitments to Colombian law enforcement efforts and the reduction of the U.S. demand for drugs; (5) obstacles to the programs' success include Colombia's inability to plan and implement effective counternarcotics programs, increased insurgency and terrorism in Colombia, drug cartels' expansion into heroin trafficking, corruption, and dependence on other regional antidrug programs; (6) U.S. management difficulties include funding reductions, the lack of coordination between the Departments of State and Defense, and inventory control and expense payment problems at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota; (7) State has not fully implemented end-use monitoring procedures to ensure that Colombian military units use U.S. aid primarily for counternarcotics purposes; and (8) State lacks adequate data and procedures to determine if Colombian counternarcotics personnel are engaging in human rights abuses.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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