Home

Home

Chickens of cooperation coming home to roost

Abid Ullah Jan

Which government agencies made war on its own people, selling tons of drugs to them, destroying their lives, incarcerating thousands under conspiracy theory and making billions of dollars for waging wars and destabilising other states? 

If your answer is ISI, you're wrong. The answer is CIA and DEA.[1][1] 

A Western intelligence agent called this “a jaded view” of this scribe about US intelligence agencies. I am, however, making this point once more not to disillusion readers about the American agencies or to defend the agency that has turned my life into a living hell but to point out how propaganda works and how the chickens of individual, agency and state cooperation with US come home to roost in the long run. 

ISI, inter-services intelligence agency of Pakistan, faced severe criticism at a US Senate briefing on March 20, 2003 on the drug trade. Questioning two key members of the Bush administration at a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, several Congressmen came down hard on Pakistan.[2][2] 

Nancy Chamberlin, who was Washington's ambassador in Pakistan till last year was forced to confirm and reconfirm that over the last six years ISI’s involvement in the drug trade was "substantial."  

When asked, as ambassador did she ever report Pakistan's involvement with the Taliban and its intelligence unit's involvement in the opium trade? "No, I did not," said the former ambassador. Why not? This is what she was not asked but we have the right to ask and also find out, why not. 

The purpose of the hearing was to implicate ISI, Pakistan military and Pakistan, but to leave other facts and factors aside. The latest hearing of US Senate is just another threat in the vast trap being laid for Pakistan army for many years. 

Washington Post published a report by John Ward and Kamran Khan in its September 12, 1994 edition in an attempt to implicate Pakistan army in drug trafficking. The News published this report in October 1994. The same effort was duplicated by the same Kamran Khan in April 04, 1999 edition of the News.  

A few in­dividual instances of drug trafficking by some opportunist army or air force officers was presented out of context to put the blame squarely on shoulders of the armed forces, and tell the public that Pakistan army from top to bottom is following drug trafficking as a matter of official policy.  

The US Senators didn’t ask Ms Chamberlin as to why she didn’t ever report ISI’s involvement with drug trade because the answers thus far were enough for the self-appointed cops to frame charges against Pakistan. Going beyond that point would have brought dirty hands of the US agencies in discussion. We can’t say if ISI has made any profits from the drug trade but there is no denying the fact that like the US subversive activities in Nicaragua and elsewhere in South America, CIA has definitely financed its Afghan war through drug funds. How far has ISI assisted CIA in these escapades is not on public record but there is no denying the fact that now is the time for CIA to exploit its partnership with ISI’s for framing Pakistan.  

It has been con­firmed that there were no heroin factories in Pakistan before 1979 and "in 1980," says Harold D Wankel, DEA Assistant Adminis­trator of Operations. Later on, Opium production had all but been destroyed by Afghanistan's Taliban regime. Poppy cultivation, according to the UN, plummeted from 80,000 hectares in 2000 to little over 5,000ha in 2001. But in 2002, with the renewed interest of ISI, production was back to between 40,000ha and 60,000ha, according to the UNDCP. This is a weak indication of US agencies have brought ringing poppy growing and heroin manufacturing spill over to Pakistan and Afghanistan.  

Stronger evidence lies in the fact that the CIA-drug relation goes back to late 1960's. According to Victor Marchetti, a veteran of 14 years with the CIA — where he rose to be executive assistant to the Deputy Director of CIA — in 1967 "one officer was assigned to travel all over Latin America, buying up all sorts of hallucina­tory drugs which might have some application to intelligence activities and operations." That was the point when CIA first got involved with the drugs, and planned to use them for financing it operations.  

John D Marks, who worked as an analyst and US State Department Intelligence Expert for many years, wrote how the CIA was involved in narcotics trafficking since Vietnam War. In Vietnam, he wrote, "the CIA hoped to defeat the Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese; for that purpose,... The CIA was willing that the Meo [continue] to sell the drugs during their 'secret' war," for the US against communists.  

As recently as 2001, many farmers, including Haji Sultan, chief of the Nur Zai tribe in Afghanistan, made the explosive charge that before coming to power, officials in the pro-US Karzai regime made it clear that if the pro-Taliban southern provinces changed sides, the government would look the other way if opium was grown. "You can imagine. Poppies were outlawed by the Taliban. Suddenly, everyone in the south saw they could make money again if they kicked out the Taliban.[3][3]  

When planes of the' CIA proprietary airline, Air America could be used to carry opium for Meos and the US highest military officers supported by the Agen­cy could be the kingpins of the drugs trade — as explained in "CIA and the Cult of Intelli­gence"; how can we believe that the CIA didn't suggest ISI and Pakistan army to help it trade drugs for buying guns and turning Afghanistan into a Soviet Vietnam. 

ISI might have assisted CIA in trafficking drugs as it has assisted it in every other adventure within and outside Pakistan, but our armed forces have definitely not trafficked drugs as a matter of official policy like the CIA. The DEA sponsored ANF in Pakistan has definitely advanced US agenda, such as its role in framing editor in Chief of the Frontier Post. However, there is no evidence that ISI got involved with CIA to the extent of SIN (the CIA created unit in Haitian Army). In 1986, the CIA created SIN to fight cocaine trade. However, according to its undeclared objectives, SIN quickly got involved in the CIA-protected biggest drug dealing operations in the Caribbean region.  

Even if some military or ISI officials have been involved in drug trafficking on personal level, it needs a Herculean effort to counter US propaganda and make public believe that the amount of privately smuggled drugs into US is no more than a fraction of the amount trafficked by the US agencies.[4][4] According to San Diego Union-Tribune (August 13, 1996), Celerino Castelo -- a former DEA agent -- stated that together with three other ex-DEA agents, they were willing to testify in Congress regarding their direct knowledge of CIA involvement in international drug trafficking. Castillo estimates that approximately 75% of narcotics entered the US with the acquiescence or direct participation of US and foreign CIA agents.  

Other than baseless accusations, the US has no evidence to prove our armed forces guilty of drug trafficking for its own sustainability. On the other hand irrefutable evidence is available to show that the CIA has funded most of its covert operations — like the one used for shutting down BCCI — with drug money, earned through organized selling of drugs to its own people. According to the court transcripts of BCCI case: “By late 1987, the agents had passed approximately $2.2 million derived from Don Chepe's [Colombian drug lord] proceeds through the IDC account, and had split the 7-8% commission profit with Mora [an established money launderer in Colombia] and Don Chepe's representative Javier Ospina, without telling any BCCI officers about drugs.”[5][5]  

Rep Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican from California, who showed too much interest in ISI’s role in drug trafficking the other day, also needs to take a little pain to inform the public about the US politicians, agencies, and their friends involvement in the drug trade. In the second week of October 1994, at a press conference even her former president, Bill Clinton, momentarily took on ghastly pallor when queried by the stalwart of Washington press corps, Sara McClendon. She claimed that the Bush administra­tion and the CIA established an operation in early 80's to ship drugs into the US. She wanted to know what Clin­ton knew about CIA's arms-drug shipments through Mena airport in South Arkansas -- Clinton's home state.  

Clinton said he knew nothing. Since it was a federal matter "the state really had next to nothing to do with it" said Clinton. "Every­body who's ever looked into it knows it." 

Just two days later, Evans Pritchard, Washington Bureau Chief for the Sunday Telegraph London wrote that Clinton, like his predecessors, knew a good deal more about drug-arms shipments in Mena and the CIA's involvement. He wrote in October 9 is­sue of Sunday Telegraph that by that time Arkansas "was close to becoming a narco-republic -- a sort of mini-Colombia, within the borders of the United States."  

According to Judge Robert Bonner, head of the DEA until 1993, a ton of pure cocaine, smuggled into US by the CIA in partnership with the Venezuelan National Guard, went into the hands of another US agency and the story got public. [6][6] Who knows how many other such shipments were successfully made without the mistaken interception by another agency. 

Unfortunately, anyone trying to expose the US agencies involvement in drug trade is considered as having “jaded view” about American intelligence agencies. Compared to such individual views, we must not forget that the US administration has a “jaded view” of Pakistan and the whole country is being victimised for that. Why don’t the US Senators have a look at what John Stockwell, the highest ranking official of the CIA to ever leave the Agency and go public, has to say: “For twenty years, the CIA was helping the Kuomintang to finance itself, and then to get rich, smuggling heroin.  We put (in) Air America, the CIA subsidiary – it would fly in with crates marked ‘humanitarian aids’ which were arms, and it would fly back out with heroin.  And the first target – market – of this heroin was the US GIs in Vietnam.”[7][7]  

The CIA makes partners for dealing drugs; they profit together for some time and then it discredits and discards them once the purpose is served. Haiti is the re­cent example where CIA was in deep connection with the paramilitary group FRAPH and Warren Christopher confirmed that Emmanual Constant, head of FRAPH, and Michael Francois, the Haitian police Chief were on ClA's pay-role. Drugs, undoubtedly, was the common ground of understanding between them.

The same might be true for ANF and some officers of ISI but it is not true for Pakistan army as an institution. Unlike the CIA, Pakistan army has never trafficked in dope as a matter of official policy. If some of our officers were involved in narcot­ics trafficking for their own gains, it is unjustified to attribute their misdeeds to the institution. These allegations are a ridiculous attempt to further discredit the already discredited armed forces of Pakistan, which has let itself played into the hands of US agencies. 

Providing evidence of US agencies involvement in drug trafficking is beyond the scope of this article. Suffice it to say that the chickens of our agencies cooperation with CIA and DEA are coming home to roost. Remember the apologetic explanations from our Foreign Office when the press mistakenly reported that it had asking US to withdraw DEA officials from Pakistan on May 17, 1997. Foreign Office apologised and called eradication of drugs as "the common objective" between Pakistan and the US, and such reports “against our public interest.” 

One gets satisfied with the after thought that we deserve what the US is doing to us. Didn’t we tell the government in 1997 that neither the US so-called drug war our "common objective," nor is the presence of US agents in Pakistan in our "public interest." The government did not listen to us then. No one can save it from reaping the whirlwind now.  

Concluded  March 24, 2003