• While more modest results would lead to some changes in cocaine production and trafficking patterns in Colombia, they would not significantly alter the cocaine trade in either Colombia or the rest of the Andes. [REDACTED WORD]

A 50-percent decline in coca cultivation in the south over the next five years likely would encourage substantial new cultivation in other parts of Colombia. Farmers probably would be able to compensate for their losses by growing elsewhere in Colombia; therefore, only a limited number of growers in border areas would cross international boundaries to plant new fields. Colombia’s drug-funded insurgent groups could be expected to encourage or try to compel displaced farmers to migrate into areas the guerrillas dominate. [REDACTED WORD]

This paper examines the potential consequences of intensified pressures on Colombian cultivation and drug trafficking under the US-backed Plan Colombia; it does not attempt to assess the prospects for the Plan s achieving its goals. [REDACTED TWO OR THREE SENTENCES PLUS FOOTNOTE ¹]

In order to evaluate the potential consequences of the Plan for the Andean drug trade, particularly with regards to the likelihood of spillover of the drug trade beyond Colombia’s borders, this report assumes that the effort is successful in reducing current levels of coca cultivation in the Colombian Putumayo and Caqueta departments and in disrupting at least some of the supply lines used by traffickers to bring coca derivatives produced in those regions to market. The paper examines the impact of Plan Colombia over five years because sustained operations that could significantly damage the country's thriving narcotics industry will not take effect until at least years three through six of the Plan. Two scenarios are considered: one in which at least 50 percent of the coca under cultivation in these departments is eliminated over a five-year period; and a second in which an 80-percent coca reduction is achieved. [REDACTED WORD]

The paper’s sole focus is the potential impact of Plan Colombia on the drug trade. The National Intelligence Council is currently drafting an assessment of the potential impact of Plan Colombia on narcotics, security, migration and economics in Colombia’s neighbors.

Where Will Coca Cultivation Go? [REDACTED WORD]

Shifts of cultivation within Colombia appear most likely to the east of current Putumayo and Caqueta growing areas. Logically, most new growing areas are likely to press the outer bounds or be outside the operating radius of Colombia’s US-provided OV-10 and Turbo Thrush spray planes (200 and 250 nautical miles, respectively). While the Colombian National Police currently stage out of bases in Larandia and San Jose del Guaviare, they also plan to stage eradication flights from Tres Esquinas, Villa Garzon, and Puerto Asis. (See map.)

Two other factors affecting the location for new planting would be the presence of insurgents and the existence of alternative development programs in areas affected by eradication. Areas under guerrilla control are more likely to see increases in coca cultivation as a result of intensified eradication efforts. Moreover, the government plans a significant social and economic investment in the south as part of Plan Colombia. Farmers and laborers would be less likely to migrate to new centers of coca cultivation if alternatives were available to them. If growers in Putumayo and Caqueta do not migrate, new fields would need a supply of local labor to thrive. That said, farmers or laborers in areas not affected by the spray program may become involved in the coca trade as traffickers seek out new areas to plant coca. [REDACTED WORD]

New coca plantations to the east are most likely to be along or near river transportation routes - few roads exist in this part of Colombia - and in areas that are not subject to seasonal flooding. The area around Puerto Leguizamo in eastern Putumayo Department, where some coca already grows, also would be well suited for new coca plantings. To the west, new coca fields are most likely to be planted in Nariño Department, especially along the Patia River where low levels of coca already exist. Other potential growth areas exist further to the north, where at least some coca already exists.

Colombia’s coca growers would be hard pressed, however, to compensate for their losses within Colombia if Bogota succeeds in eradicating 80 percent of the coca under cultivation in the south over five years. In this scenario, farmers would have to replant more than 64,000 hectares, or an average of 21,000 hectares per year over the three years of intensified eradication efforts, to maintain current production levels. While growers would seek alternative growing areas within Colombia as described above, the rapid pace of government eradication efforts would dissuade many from going through the expense of replanting. Significant eradication would also induce many growers to seek alternative development assistance from the government. As a result, the 80-percent scenario would almost certainly lead to increased cultivation in neighboring countries as traffickers in Colombia faced the prospect of declines in potential cocaine production. [REDACTED WORD]

What Will Be the Impact on Cocaine Processing? [REDACTED WORD]

The decline of 50 percent of coca cultivation in the south probably would not lead to significant declines in cocaine production in Colombia. While domestic base and cocaine trafficking patterns would be significantly altered, traffickers likely would be able to maintain current cocaine production levels by relying on both Colombian-grown coca derivatives and Peruvian imports. Robust eradication efforts in Colombia, however, likely would increase demand for coca derivatives from Peru - which still sends substantial amounts of cocaine base to Colombia for processing. Such a spike in demand could help fuel a resurgence in coca cultivation in Peru. [REDACTED WORD]

An 80-percent decline in cultivation probably would lead to a decline in potential cocaine production in Colombia. With many growers unwilling to replant in the face of aggressive eradication, new plantings would be unlikely to keep pace with eradication - causing a decline in potential cocaine production in Colombia. Total Andean cocaine production could also decline if growers in neighboring countries are unable to replant fast enough to meet Colombian demands; new coca plantings in such countries as Peru and Bolivia do not reach harvestable age until after 18 to 24 months. [REDACTED WORD]

While Colombian traffickers likely will try to make up for declines in domestic production by increasing their importation of cocaine base from neighboring countries, especially Peru, they may choose instead to increase cocaine production outside of Colombia. Successful eradication and interdiction programs combined with Bogota’s aggressive extradition policy would create an increasingly hostile environment for the drug trade and induce many traffickers to take their business into neighboring countries. This would result in a further decentralization of the Andean cocaine trade, with multiple centers of cocaine production and an increasingly complex web of trafficking networks. [REDACTED WORD]

What Is the Potential for Spillover Beyond Colombia? [REDACTED WORD]

Significant spillover of coca cultivation and drug trafficking from Colombia into neighboring countries is likely if Plan Colombia achieves levels of eradication approaching our 80-percent scenario. The governments in Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela - which to date have aggressively eradicated incipient plantations - probably would deter large-scale plantations. Nevertheless, increases in cultivation along the border with Colombia would be likely. Commercial cultivation in those countries would be more likely if Colombian insurgents, to maintain their own sources of income, chose to emigrate along with farmers to help keep local authorities at bay. Peru, and to some extent Bolivia, would face increased market pressures that probably would fuel a resurgence in coca cultivation. Already, Peru’s cocaine trade - dealt a significant blow by a potent combination of interdiction, eradication, and alternative development successes in the late 1990s - is showing signs of recovery; and Colombian traffickers are making increased use of Ecuadorian, Venezuelan, Brazilian, and Panamanian territory to reach the US and European cocaine markets. Although less likely, rising coca prices resulting from Colombian supply shortages could put at risk Bolivia’s significant accomplishment in dramatically reducing its illegal coca supply. [REDACTED WORD]

While most farmers displaced by the expected eradication surge in Colombia will probably stay within national boundaries, there is some risk that commercial-scale cultivation could take root in Venezuela, Ecuador, Panama, or Brazil. Small amounts of coca have been detected in all four countries, but the willingness of Venezuela and Ecuador to eradicate these small plots has discouraged, until now, more extensive attempts to cultivate the crop. This will and the ability to eradicate coca as quickly as it appears are the key to holding the line at the Colombian border. [REDACTED WORD]

The greatest danger of a cultivation spillover would come through a mass exodus of Colombian coca farmers, or the orchestrated introduction of coca by traffickers to local non-Colombian farmers, which likely would overwhelm the ability of neighboring states to eradicate new coca quickly enough to staunch its spread. The risk would be even greater if Colombian insurgents were willing to guard new coca fields from eradication forces, as they have done in many areas of Colombia. Under such circumstances, governments may be especially reluctant to risk confrontation with the guerrillas by cracking down hard on coca growers. Ecuador has already shown a reluctance to confront a growing Colombian insurgent presence along the border. [REDACTED WORD]

Apart from the eradication threat, Ecuador and Venezuela appear to offer an attractive alternatives to coca farmers. Land in both countries is geographically comparable and contiguous to many areas in Colombia that already support extensive coca growth. Border regions in both countries also offer superior transportation opportunities to return semi-refined cocaine base back to finished laboratories in Colombia and a local labor force that could aid bringing in harvests. Eastern Panama offers land agriculturally suitable for coca production, but the region’s sparse population and poor transportation links make it less than ideal for large-scale cultivation, [REDACTED SENTENCE?]. Most of Brazil's western border with Colombia is lowland Amazon rain forest that is subject to seasonal flooding, also making it ill suited to coca production. [REDACTED WORD]

Significant declines in Colombian coca cultivation are most likely to cause a resumption of large scale cultivation in Peru and, though less probable, Bolivia. These countries collectively produced about two-thirds of the world’s supply of cocaine base until 1995 but account for only about 32 percent of that produced at present - owing both to large increases in Colombian production and to sharp decreases at home. The likely upward spiral in coca prices caused by marketplace shortages would provide a strong incentive for former coca farmers, and even new ones, to jump back into the business. Such effects are likely to be felt first in Peru, where, as noted above, the drug trade already appears on the verge of a resurgence. Traffickers in Peru have recently succeeded in reaching export markets independent of the Colombians, pushing coca prices high enough to become very profitable for most farmers. Farmers would be likely to increase their coca plantings in the spillover area of northern Loreto Department along the Colombian border; opposite the Leguizarno coca area of Colombia. In Bolivia, a dramatic upswing in demand coupled with reduced government enforcement would be necessary to induce growers to return to fields abandoned to the government’s aggressive eradication program. [REDACTED WORD]

Regardless of whether there is a coca spillover from Colombia, a spillover in regional trafficking is already under way and unquestionably will become more serious alter the launch of a major counternarcotics push into southern Colombia. Reacting to current interdiction levels, traffickers in southern Colombia already have been making better use of Ecuadoran territory and Venezuelan territory and airspace to reach global markets for cocaine, in 1999, for example, Ecuadorian national police increased their seizures of finished Colombian cocaine threefold to some 12 metric tons [REDACTED PHRASE] Venezuela is also being threatened by the impact of spillover from Colombia. [REDACTED PHRASE] 7 percent of detected cocaine exports from South America flowed through Venezuela en route to market in 1999. Venezuela’s unwillingness to allow US radar planes to over fly its territory, moreover, has made it even more vulnerable to drug flights that violate its airspace. [REDACTED PHRASE] some 18 drug planes have been detected returning through Venezuela’s relatively safe airspace during the first six months of this year. [REDACTED WORD]

How will Colombian Trafficking Organizations Be Affected? [REDACTED WORD]

Actions under Plan Colombia could have significant impact on reshaping the Andean cocaine trade over the next several years. Attacks on the Colombia-dominated cocaine industry are likely to accelerate already existing trends toward greater regionalization and globalization of the trade, toward growing Colombian emphasis on heroin and synthetic drugs, and toward the development of greater specialization by trafficking service groups. If successful in reducing the coca crop, Plan Colombia actions also could diminish the direct control of Colombian traffickers over most of the world’s cocaine supply. [REDACTED WORD]

Plan Colombia actions could contribute to the growing international spread of the cocaine industry. In recent years, [REDACTED PHRASE] Andean drug traffickers have expanded their links to trafficking or organized crime groups from Russia, Italy, Spain. Albania, Mexico, Brazil, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and other countries. Such diverse relationships have encouraged traffickers from all three Andean producer nations to alter their routes and methods. Colombian traffickers, for example, have increased their use of commercial shipping vessels to ship cocaine across the Atlantic, and have strengthened their operations in such major port countries as Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, and Panama, according to press [REDACTED WORDS]. Peruvian and Bolivian traffickers, faced with reduced Colombian purchasing of semirefined cocaine - a byproduct of Colombia’s rapid growth in coca cultivation - have increased their own production of finished cocaine and made connections to outside criminal buyers. Peruvian and Bolivian traffickers, having tasted the fruits of greater profits from international cocaine dealing, will be well positioned to meet much of this demand themselves.

[REDACTED WORD]

Both of our scenarios assume that the guerrillas would be unable to stop eradication efforts. A decline of 50 percent of coca cultivation in southern Colombia would represent a significant loss of revenue for FARC guerrillas operating there, and signal to growers elsewhere in Colombia that the insurgents are not able to protect their fields. In addition to continuing their efforts to halt the program through increasingly violent attacks and sponsoring peasant protests in affected areas, the guerrillas would also attempt to control areas under new cultivation. However, as coca cultivation and processing labs migrate into areas controlled by Colombia’s other insurgent and paramilitary groups, friction between these groups will increase as they vie for control of this lucrative revenue source. [REDACTED WORD]

An 80-percent decline in the coca crop would pose a real dilemma for the FARC of either following the drug trade or losing significant revenue. Faced with declining drug-related revenues as coca cultivation declined in Colombia. they could chose to aid in the migration of cultivation into neighboring countries or to take steps to increase revenue from other sources. The FARC already have established a presence along the border in Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela and undoubtedly would seek to increase coca cultivation in those areas. Such a move, however, would increase their profile and the degree to which they are perceived as a threat by those countries.

The insurgents are as likely, however, to increase their involvement in kidnapping, extortion, and bank robberies in order to replace lost drug-related income. In addition, the guerrillas likely would increase their involvement in cocaine production and smuggling - including international sales. [REDACTED WORDS] some FARC fronts may have progressed beyond their traditional role of taxing the cocaine industry to being direct participants in cocaine trafficking, including a number of arms-for-drugs deals. [REDACTED SENTENCES]

• A more direct role in trafficking would give the FARC a greater stake in resisting antidrug pressures aimed at reducing coca supplies and disrupting cocaine movements.