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Contesting the ‘War on Drugs’ in the Andes: US–Bolivian Relations of Power and Control (1989–93)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 May 2019

Allan Gillies*
Affiliation:
Research Fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow.
*
*Corresponding author. Email: allan.gillies@gla.ac.uk.

Abstract

The implementation of President George H. W. Bush's 1989 Andean Initiative brought to the fore competing US and Bolivian agendas. While US embassy officials sought to exert control in pursuit of militarised policies, the Bolivian government's ambivalence towards the coca-cocaine economy underpinned opposition to the ‘Colombianisation’ of the country. This article deconstructs prevailing top-down, US-centric analyses of the drug war in Latin America to examine how US power was exercised and resisted in the Bolivian case. Advancing a more historically grounded understanding of the development of the US drug war in Latin America, it reveals the fluidity of US–Bolivian power relations, the contested nature of counter-drug policy at the country level, and the instrumentalisation of the ‘war on drugs’ in distinct US and Bolivian agendas.

Spanish abstract

Spanish abstract

La implementación de la Iniciativa Andina de 1989 dio como resultado agendas en competencia entre los EEUU y Bolivia. Mientras que funcionarios de la embajada estadounidense buscaron ejercer control en busca de políticas militarizadas, la ambivalencia del gobierno boliviano alrededor de la economía de la coca-cocaína apuntaló la oposición a la ‘colombianización’ del país. Este artículo deconstruye los análisis de arriba-abajo y desde el punto de vista estadounidense de la guerra contra las drogas en América Latina para examinar cómo el poder estadounidense fue ejercido y resistido en el poco estudiado caso boliviano. Avanzando un entendimiento del desarrollo de la guerra estadounidense contra las drogas en América Latina apoyado en la historia, el artículo revela la fluidez de las relaciones de poder EEUU–Bolivia, la naturaleza contestada de la política contra las drogas a nivel de país, y la instrumentalización de la ‘guerra contra las drogas’ sobre agendas dispares de EEUU y Bolivia.

Portuguese abstract

Portuguese abstract

A implementação da Iniciativa Andina de 1989 trouxe à tona as conflitantes agendas dos EUA e da Bolívia. Enquanto funcionários da embaixada dos EUA procuraram exercer controle nas busca de políticas de militarização, a ambivalência do governo da Bolívia no que dizia respeito à economia gerada pela cocaína fundamentava oposição à ‘Colombianização’ do país. Este artigo desconstrói análises ‘do topo para a base’, predominantemente centradas nos Estados Unidos sobre a guerra contras as drogas na América Latina, e procura examinar como o poder dos Estados Unidos era exercido e resistido como no caso, pouco estudado, da Bolívia. Propondo um entendimento um pouco mais fundamentado historicamente sobre desenvolvimento da guerra contra as drogas dos Estados Unidos na América Latina, o artigo revela a fluidez das relações de poder entre os Estados Unidos e a Bolívia, a natureza combatida da política de combate às drogas em nível nacional, e a instrumentalização da ‘guerra contra as drogas’ nas distintas agendas da Bolívia e dos Estados Unidos.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

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References

1 Interview with Charles R. Bowers, US ambassador to Bolivia (1991–4), 12 April 2013.

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6 In line with research institutional ethical approval (College of Arts, University of Glasgow), I provided participants with a written summary of the research and its aims, how their data would be used, and options around anonymity/direct quotes. Before each interview, I allowed time for questions and gave participants my contact details. Some requested the opportunity to sign off on the use of direct quotes. In these cases, participants were duly contacted. All approved the use of quotes.

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25 Thoumi, Illegal Drugs, Economy, and Society in the Andes, p. 309.

26 US Congress established the process of ‘certification’ as part of the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act. This act obligated the president to report to Congress on the performance of partner governments in the area of counter-drug policy. Partner governments deemed to have failed in their drug control obligations would be ‘decertified’, which potentially entailed a range of economic sanctions. Marcy, William L., The Politics of Cocaine: How US Foreign Policy Created a Thriving Drug Industry in Central and South America (Chicago, IL: Lawrence Hill, 2010), pp. 87–8Google Scholar.

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50 Interview with Bowers.

51 Ibid.

52 George H. W. Bush to Charles R. Bowers, 23 Aug. 1991, personal archive of Charles R. Bowers.

53 Kenneth D. Lehman, ‘A “Medicine of Death”? US Policy and Political Disarray in Bolivia, 1985–2006’, in Loveman (ed.), Addicted to Failure, p. 132.

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76 Bowers (in his interview) argued that cultural differences were important in this regard: ‘the Anglo-Saxon, American view of what is appropriate, and what is moral, and what is ethical – inherited from our UK brethren – does not fit totally with what that view might be in Latin America’.

77 Oral history of James C. Cason, political counsellor, US embassy La Paz (1987–90) (interviewed 13 Nov. 2009): in The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training – Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, Bolivia Reader, available at http://adst.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Bolivia.pdf (last access 17 Jan. 2019).

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83 Interview with Paz Zamora.

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89 Interview with Gonzalo Torrico, vice-minister of social defence (1989–93), 2 May 2014.

90 The Washington Consensus refers to neoliberal policy reforms – advanced by institutions including the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the US Treasury – attached to economic rescue packages for crisis-hit countries in the Global South during the 1980s and 1990s.

91 Gamarra, Eduardo, ‘Bolivia: Managing Democracy in the 1990s’, in Domínguez, Jorge I. and Lowenthal, Abraham F., Constructing Democratic Governance: South America in the 1990s (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 7298Google Scholar; and Sanabria, ‘Consolidating States’, p. 537.

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96 Interview with Paz Zamora.

97 Lehman, Bolivia and the United States, p. 199.

98 ESFs are administered by the US State Department to provide funds to governments in areas of US strategic interest. They can be used for a variety of purposes. In this case, funding was used primarily to relieve external debt.

99 Painter, Bolivia and Coca, p. 137.

100 Interview with Paz Zamora.

101 Ibid.

102 Interview with senior minister of the Paz Zamora government, 7 May 2014. Several interview participants requested anonymity.

103 For detailed analysis, see Painter, Bolivia and Coca, pp. 105–38.

104 Interview with Paz Zamora.

105 Interview with Guillermo Capobianco, interior minister (1989–91), 16 April 2014.

106 Concerns regarding political instability caused by challenging state–narco networks also formed part of this dynamic. See Gillies, ‘Theorising State–Narco Relations’.

107 Banzer's military dictatorship spanned the years 1971 to 1978.

108 Interview with Paz Zamora.

109 Interview with Capobianco.

110 Ibid.

111 Ibid.

112 Oral history of James C. Cason, p. 65.

113 Interview with Paz Zamora.

114 Ibid.

115 In February 1981 the US TV programme ‘60 Minutes’ broadcast a TV special on the ‘Minister of Cocaine’. See also Cynthia Gorney, ‘Bolivia, Internationally Islolated [sic], Is again Rife with Coup Rumors’, The Washington Post, 22 March 1981, available at https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1981/03/22/bolivia-internationally-islolated-is-again-rife-with-coup-rumors/e43489d1-e6d5-4a6a-a4f5-2aee5e0c24c8/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.2abe204deb73, last accessed 15 Feb. 2019.

116 Interview with Gelbard.

117 Ibid.

118 Interview with Capobianco.

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120 Interview with Paz Zamora.

121 Interview with Torrico.

122 Interview with Gelbard.

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126 Ibid.

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128 The death of Chavarría as he awaited trial in 1995 left many questions unanswered.

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144 Menzel, Fire in the Andes, p. 56.

145 Coletta Youngers, ‘A Fundamentally Flawed Strategy: The US “War” on Drugs in Bolivia’, WOLA Issue Brief 4, 18 Sept. 1991, p. 14.

146 Interview with Saavedra.

147 Williams, ‘Waging the War on Drugs’, p. 16.

148 Interview with Saavedra.

149 Ibid.

150 Menzel, Fire in the Andes, p. 65.

151 According to Saavedra (interview), Gelbard's wife broke her leg during a family skiing trip to Chile, delaying the ambassador's return to Bolivia.

152 Interview with Saavedra.

153 Painter, Bolivia and Coca, pp. 83–4.

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