MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

US intelligence in 1988 considered links of Latam guerrilla groups and drug lords a short term issue

Declassified Brazilian military documents indicate that the US was more concerned in catching Panama Noriega than assessing the whole picture

US military believed that the links between the Colombian guerrilla groups and the drug lords at the end of the eighties was a matter of concern but a short term issue, according to declassified minutes of a meeting of US and Brazilian military officers, published by O Estado de Sao Paulo.

“In reply to concerns from Brazilian military, the Americans underlined the existence of links between the drug lords and guerrillas, mainly in Colombia. However they forecasted such association was condemned to failure, since the end objectives of the guerrillas and the narcotics traffickers were different”, according to the Brazilian military version of the October 1988 meeting

But despite underestimating these links, two decades later US Justice claimed that Colombia’s Revolutionary Armed Forces, FARC, were responsible for almost 60% of all the cocaine reaching the country and filed charges against fifty of the group’s leaders on narcotics trafficking.

The minutes from the IX Brazil-US Annual Consultation meeting for Security affairs are part of a list of secret documents from Brazil’s Armed Forces Joint Chiefs of Staff recently released by the National Archives and which the newspaper is releasing.

At the time and according to the document Washington was more concerned with the links of drug lords with then Panama dictator General Manuel Antonio Noriega. Overall they believed the links of the guerrilla with the drugs trade was limited to protection agreements.

“The drug-trafficking groups are very strong and appeal with their dollars to the protection from guerrilla groups such as Shinning Path (Peru) and M-19 in Colombia” the US officers told their Brazilian peers.

The guerrilla group actions which most concerned the US at the time were those from Shinning Path, FARC, the Colombian Liberation Army, ELN and the Movement 19 April or M-19.

Likewise at the time the decision was taken to combat drug trafficking at its origin with the help from producing countries.

“It was a significant US decision to block drug trafficking in land, air and sea, including actions in the same sources, such as those currently implemented in Colombia and Bolivia. To that effect they are trying to develop joint cooperation efforts among the involved countries with personnel training, technical aid and specific programs” underlines the Brazilian military declassified document.