Cocaine, the Contras, and the United States: How the U.S. Government Has Augmented America's Drug Crisis

• NCJ Number: 130352
• Journal: Crime, Law and Social Change Volume: 16 Issue: 1 Dated: special issue (July 1991) Pages: 97-131
• Author(s): P D Scott
• Date Published: 1991
• Length: 35 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: Netherlands
• Note: Abstracted from "Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America," by Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall (University of California Press, 1991)

Annotation

This study of U.S. connections to Hondura and other Nicaraguan Contra supporters in illicit drug trafficking concludes that gray alliances for covert operations constitute a major part of the United States' drug problem.

Abstract

The Kerry Report and its supporting documentation show how U.S. support for the Contras and their supporters in the Honduran Army created a window of opportunity for cocaine smuggling through Honduras. The size of the problem became public knowledge in late 1987, after two cocaine seizures by U.S. customs officials totaling over 6.5 tons. The author contends that Honduran Colonel Leonidas Torres Arias, in his capacity as Army intelligence chief in 1982, protected Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros, a prominent Honduran drug trafficker. The author also contends that Torres Arias and Matta Ballesteros were central to the Contra support apparatus in Honduras as well as to the drug trade. Further, it is noted that Washington continued to protect Honduran Contra supporters who had been convicted of drug trafficking, even after the Drug Enforcement Administration office in Tegucigalpa was closed in 1983. Drug trafficking links between the Contras and the Central American region in general are examined, and alleged U.S. protection of drug-related activities affecting the Contras is discussed. 136 notes (Author abstract modified)