From: Lee 
Subject: Venezuela Cocaine Bust and Traffic
Message-ID: <199510171720.NAA08191@minerva.cis.yale.edu>
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 95 17:20:44 0400
by Roy S. Carson
American Reporter Correspondent
Caracas, Venezuela
10/16/95
narcotics
715/$7.15

             COCAINE CD IS LATEST TWIST IN SMUGGLING PLOYS
                           by Roy S. Carson
                    American Reporter Correspondent

        CARACAS -- Venezuela's defense minister General Moises Orozco
Graterol has admitted publicly that "national territory is being used
as a bridge for drug trafficking" -- and his words were confirmed as
he spoke to a press conference here.
        National guard officers seized 55 kilos (121 pounds) of high-
grade cocaine over the weekend and were immediately able to trace it
to the Cali cocaine cartel in Colombia as part of an original shipment
of 900 kilos (1,980 pounds).
        Drugs police also busted a drug trafficking ring which used an
international overnight air courier service to send camouflaged
compact discs of cocaine to addresses in the U.S. and Canada.
        Audacious smugglers had removed CDs from their covers to fill
the cavity with cocaine before putting on a new factory seal.  It's
feared that thousands of discs may have reached U.S. destinations
before the ruse was discovered.
        And Gen. Orozco Graterol has just returned to the capital from
an aerial survey of mountainous borderlands with Colombia aboard a
newly-loaned U.S. aircraft, specially equipped with sophisticated
equipment to detect illegal drug plantations.
        It's the latest sign of cooperation between the Venezuelan
military and Washington, although the Venezuelans still refuse to let
a American pilots take the flight controls.
        They say it's a matter of national sovereignty -- athough
they're ready to take U.S. money, helicopters, radar and
communications equipment at no cost.
        DEA sources say the Venezuelans don't understand that the
high-profile arrest and 10-year prison term in Florida given to
Venezuelan Brigadier Gen. Alexis Ramon Sanchez Paz and other high-
ranking military officers does little to bolster the State
Department's or the DEA's confidence in the nation's military.
        It's well-known that the Colombian cartels have a stranglehold
on their own military, but the Venezuelan defense department also
seems less than willing to clean up its own act in the the face of
widespread allegations of deep-rooted corruption in its armed forces.
        Apart from that, the Venezuelan justice ministry's director of
security, Army Maj. Edgar Alonzo Uzcategui, says there have been 49
recent attempts at escape from Venezuelan jails -- all financed and
manned by the multimillion dollar cross-border drug industry.
        A case in point is the recent escape of 30 long-term convicts
from the state penitentiary in Tachira.  They were all serving time
for drug trafficking;  police say their escape was efficiently
organized from the outside.
        DEA agents here, speaking to The American Reporter on
condition of anonymity, say it's a matter of perception, since while
U.S. administrations traditionally blame producer nations for
exporting cocaine, heroin and cannabis to the United States, South
American governments -- and Venezuela's is no exception -- see th U.S.
drug problem as the fault of the end-consumer, and want the United
States to foot the bill to get rid of the menace.
        "The U.S. government seems finally to have understood that
they must fully cooperate in the destruction of the sources of drugs,"
Venezuelan Ambassador Leopoldo Taylhardat said, "but they must also
realize that until inside the U.S. they apply tough punishment to drug
dealers and consumers, and while there is a wealthy market for drugs,
nothing meaningful will be acheved by attacking the drug sources or
the distribution cartels."
        "There is so much money involved that very strong action is
needed at the source and consumption ends, not to mention the
'speedways' and 'bridges' we [Venezuela] have become."
        "Either that or legalize drug use," says the Venezuelan
ambassador.  "Which one will come first?"
        In vaguely related news from Buenos Aires, president Carlos
Menem's anti-drug secretary Alberto Lestrelle has caused a sensation
in a broadcast statement about Argentine lawmakers who sometimes sleep
through boring marathon night sessions in congress and are somehow
able to produce eloquent oratory at drop of a hat.
        "Some legislators are half-asleep at night and suddenly
explode with great speeches," Lestelle told Radio Mire.  "No doubt
they go to the bathroom and snort cocaine."
        Meanwhile there are a lot of unanswered questions surrounding
the arrival today Monday in Bogota, Colombia, of PLO chairman Yasir
Arafat, who will also visit Brazil before heading to New York for the
United Nation's 50th Anniversary celebrations.
        Colombian and Brazilian foreign ministry officials are saying
nothing officially, but there's widespread speculation in all
political and diplomatic quarters about the purpose of the visit.

                              -30-

    (Roy Carson is South American Bureau Chief of The American
Reporter.)


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