Commandos And Cocaine: The Frontline of the War on Drugs

June 22, 2006 — -- The news this week that a major component of the U.S.-backed "war on drugs" seems to be failing brought back a flood of memories for me.

The reports come from Colombia where according to the United Nations coca production increased by eight percent last year. That despite record drug seizures and aerial fumigation of coca crops. And the number is probably conservative. The U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy reported in April that Colombia's production of coca was up 26 percent.

Coca is the key ingredient in the production of cocaine. The vast majority of which comes from Colombia. American taxpayers have spent $4 billion since 2000 helping the Colombians combat rebels and the coca trade.

My journal from an unforgettable May 2002 assignment into one of the most dangerous places on earth:

It was when the Major ran through the warehouse of weapons we might face that I began to turn white. I noticed my breath becoming shorter, my fists clench. It was the picture of the SAM on the screen that really unnerved me. SAM as in Surface-to-Air Missile. In this case surface-to-helicopter-in-the-air. In a few hours -- weather permitting -- I would be in one of those helicopters.

Then there were the diagrams of the guerilla's Viet Cong-style land traps: loosely concealed caverns designed to ensnare unsuspecting enemy who set foot on them. My clothes clung to my body, drenched in sweat from the thick tropical air and a serious dose of anxiety.

This is Cucuta, a dusty tropical city of about 600,000 high in the Eastern Andes. The Venezuelan border is literally at the end of the street. Bogotá, the Colombian capital, is 550 kilometers away. Despite its size, Cucuta is remote. The city is surrounded by spectacular mountains and arid plains. And jungle. Lots of jungle. It is the perfect locale for the two things that bedevil Colombia: coca and rebels.

It is early evening. I am sitting in the upper reaches of the steeply-raked auditorium of the regional barracks of Colombia's National Police. Sixty-five young Jungla Comandos ("Hoon-GLA Coe-MAN-dose" in Spanish), the elite Jungle Commandos of the Colombian anti-narcotics unit are earnestly absorbing a detailed briefing of tomorrow's mission.. Major Javier Alvarez is running through a very sophisticated series of power point demonstration, using his little red beam of light to highlight cocaine labs concealed in the thick jungle and photos of the armaments guerillas have been known to use to defend those labs.

Just north of Cucuta is an area that has the misfortune of being home to all three of Colombia's rebel groups. Because it's so close to Venezuela it's easy to get the drugs out of the country. So the rebels fight for control of the source of cocaine: coca leaves.

The Jungla Comandos have been around for about a dozen years. But it was only when the U.S. started supporting their missions that they became the crack unit they are now. It was simply a matter of money. The U.S., through a foreign policy begun by Clinton, made Colombia the third-largest recipient of U.S foreign aid. It's called Plan Colombia. It has cost US taxpayers $4 Billion in the last six years. The Jungla Comandos are where the abstract notion of foreign policy becomes very concrete. The U.S. has paid for all the helicopters, the armaments, the radios, the satellite phones, even the commando's helmets. And many of the commandos were trained by the U.S Marines, at U.S. expense. That is the story I have come to Cucuta to report. I would soon learn the other side of this story: the brains and the bravery in this mission are all Colombian.

At 6 a.m. the next morning we pull into the Cucuta airport as the tropical threaten to cancel the day's mission.. On the tarmac next to a long brick hangar 11 helicopters sit waiting: Nine Huey II's, a Bell, and a ferocious-looking Blackhawk, which will be the colonel's airborne mission control. (In an hour a sleek intelligence plane will arrive from Bogotá. It will circle above the choppers, overseeing communications.)

A few hours later the rain is a faint drizzle. To the north -- the direction we'll be heading -- the early morning fog has lifted, the sky begins to lighten. Word comes from the Colonel. We're going.

Suddenly the languorous morning shifts into high gear. Commandos cluster around their appointed choppers. They're strapping on 60 pounds of gear. Our escort is a Sgt. Harly Gomez Villanueva, a slight, friendly commando who seems smothered by the kit he is carrying. As he shows us to our helicopter I ask him how old he is.

"Vinte-siete," he replies, twenty seven. And then he says something more.

"No puedo escuchar," I say, his voiced drowned by the helicopter blade whirling around us.

Harly takes my notepad and writes: O+.

"Mi sangre," he says as he points his name on the back of his helmet and his blood type next to it. He smiles.

Our trip begins in the Commander's Blackhawk. I count 18 inside, including our camera team and the two pilots and the commander and a dozen commandos. The commandos inside are the emergency reinforcements and medics. They'll hit the ground only if there's trouble. The Colonel sits in his command perch just behind the pilots. No seats for the rest of us, just squeeze in. We do. A gun butt cuts into in my back, equipment belts press into my legs.

Like a swarm of killer bees, the choppers lift just a few feet from the ground and head gingerly from the tarmac. Still just ten feet off the ground, the pilots move in unison into a precise zigzag pattern on the runway. In formation, they head for the sky.

Mission Andaluz has begun.

Curiously, I am feeling calm. I have been on assignments with the U.S. military and I know what professional soldiers are like. Absolutely everything I have seen so far gives me confidence that I am in the hands of real professionals.

Our destination is the jungle around the small town of Tibu. Today's targets are in an area controlled by the AUC, the right-wing Para-Militaries. It should take about 33 minutes to get there. It is far too noisy to talk in the helicopter. Commandos stare out the window, or close their eyes. There is a sense of intense focus around me. One particularly menacing looking commando is sitting in the middle of the crush. His hands are propped on his elbows, a piece of thread is strung from the fingers of one hand to the fingers of another. He's playing Cat's Cradle, a game I remember from my Boy Scout days, but I can't remember how it's played. As I watch him he makes intricate patters with the string, flipping his fingers and reversing his hands. His toothy smile seems an evil grin. I am glad he's on our side.

As I look below, the plains have given way to a rougher landscape. The forest cover is thicker. Harsh rocky ridges cut through the canopy of green. We are flying over the jungle, yet from this altitude it looks like any forest I've seen in upstate New York.

Suddenly the chopper formation breaks apart. We turn sharply to the left and circle. The smaller choppers head off in clusters of three.

As I look below I see the thick jungle cover punctured with irregularly-shaped pockets of bright green. The commando next to me nudges my arm and points.

"Coca," he screams into my ear above the roar of the chopper blades.

Then I see huge swaths of grayish-brown cut from the forest. Tree trunks scattered on the bare soil. I had been told to look for these gashes and they are everywhere: new coca fields devouring the jungle.

A few minutes later I see a plume of black smoke below. Flames shoot through the tree tops. Commandos have struck their first coca lab. Then I see a second plume not far away. A chopper sets down in a coca field nearby, the coca plants stretching to the ground as the powerful winds from the chopper blades batter them like an ocean storm. From the jungle half a dozen commandos appear and scramble onto the chopper. The whole process takes just a few minutes. There is a choreography here that I am just beginning to understand. As the first two plumes of smoke subside, I see others appear on the horizon. The SWAT teams continue the assault.

After an hour circling above the targets we shift to a lower altitude. From down here, the forest cover is no longer just an indiscernible swath of green. I can see exotic palms, flowering trees, and thick vines. What a beautiful place this would be if it weren't such an ugly mess.

It is 11.30. The commando beside me has decided it is time for lunch. I notice he's eating pre-packaged food from a familiar beige package. It's an MRE, standard US Army rations ("Meals Ready to Eat") that I have lived off on embeds with U.S. forces. Even the food here comes from Plan Colombia. I'm offered a taste but hunger is far from my mind.

Below us two helicopters circle intently over a thick patch of forest surrounded by coca fields. Through the forest canopy I see the glimmer of a rusting tin roof.

"Una cocina," my neighbor screams into my ear as he points to the object of everyone's interest. A kitchen.

There are two kinds of drug labs in cocaine country. The more primitive ones turn coca leaves into a coca base. They're run by poor campesinos, or peasant farmers. It takes about a ton of coca leaves to make 1.5 kilos of coca paste. The campesinos carry the paste to a central cocina, where they are paid about $1,500 for what amounts to three month's work. Half of that is eaten by the expenses of their little labs. The cocina is a much more sophisticated cocaine laboratory, operated by rebels or people under their control. Turning 1.5 kilos of coca paste into a kilo of powdery cocaine requires expensive chemicals and elaborate chemistry.

The head of aerial reconnaissance for this mission told me that when he flew over this area last week, he was able to identify about 150 coca base labs, and two cocaine labs. One of those two cocaine labs is below.

The choppers circle and dance. I feel like I'm watching a video game. In fact, all of this would make a terrific video game. And for once the good guys could have a chance of winning.

None of the choppers lands. The Colonel, I learn, feels it's too dangerous to go in today. He'll plan to return to this target tomorrow. I begin to wonder why they don't bomb the place or fire a rocket. Later when I ask one of the officers about this, he explains, that's not allowed. Innocent campesinos who operate the small coca labs or are forced to work in the cocinas could get killed. Why not fire a warning flare at the target first? Not allowed. Colombia's police and military have had a spotty record of human rights abuses. This unit, with its foreign funding, is careful to stay squeaky clean.

Noon. After two hours in the air the choppers head just north of the town of TIBU. I'd been told there is a small army base where we'll be stopping to refuel. It is a grim place. Right in the heart of rebel country. A few cinderblock barracks and a half dozen cracked concrete landing pads for helicopters. And the charred foundation of what was the base fire hall. It was hit by rebel rockets a year ago and never rebuilt. The entire base is surrounded by two lines of barbed wire fencing.

The troops stationed here come out to greet us and service the choppers. Huge portable plastic fuel tanks sit like bags of melted ice on the grass between the landing pads. These troops look nothing like the commandos. Their uniforms are threadbare, their gear is basic. They seem to wear a bewildered expression on their faces. What did they do to end up here? This must be a terrifying, lonely place to spend a night. Think Siberia with palm trees.

We are airborne again, this time in one of the smaller Huey helicopters.. What a difference. Flying with doors open and just above the tree tops everything is so much clearer. We are now part of the three airborne teams.

From our lower altitude we watch as the ritual we saw earlier is repeated. A chopper lands, commandos rush to secure the area. As it heads for the sky, a second chopper lands and commandos dash into the jungle. I time the sequence of events on my watch. In less than two minutes that now-familiar plume of smoke rises from the forest. The choppers return, the commandos are safely airborne. The entire process takes less than eight minutes.

We head to a second target. From our lower altitude I can see a family of poor campesinos standing perhaps a thousand feet from the coca lab that we are about to see destroyed. The home they stand beside looks desperately poor. A simple wooden shack. There is no electricity, there isn't even a road. Just a cow path. A man who looks like the father is anxiously waving a white flag at us as his children huddle around him.

Campesinos like these used to make their living growing coffee or grazing cattle. But coffee no longer brings in enough cash to support a family. So now they grow coca. If they're lucky they'll make a few thousand dollars a year for what is excruciatingly hard labor. The coca leaves have to be picked with bare hands, which get cut and scraped raw by the repetitive labor. The poverty is so acute in places like this that the consequences of growing coca can't possibly register on people like this. They are just trying to keep hunger from their door.

A small part of Plan Colombia encourages something called Alternative Development. It's a financial incentive program designed to induce campesinos to abandon coca growing and return to crops and livestock. Critics of Plan Colombia say this part of the equation is grossly under-funded. Until the campesinos have an alternative they will simply return to growing coca as soon as they can.

Around us the sky is filled with those now-familiar chimneys of smoke. Some thick and black, others fading into the horizon as the fires below burn out.

We move to another patch of jungle. Through the thick forest canopy I see a dull red tin roof. Another coca lab. Our next target.

We watch as two choppers land in a coca field below, commandos jump to the ground and the choppers head for the sky. Suddenly we are going down. The field is just a few acres surrounded by thick jungle. It is not flat, it tilts heavily into a valley below. The chopper comes down with one foot on the ground, the other in the air. A commando jumps and motions to me.

Here we go.

I am on the ground. The camera crew follow. The chopper is gone. Suddenly I hear screams.

"Vamos, vamos. Rapido." It is Major Javier Alvarez, the man in charge of this squad. "Let's go, let's go," he is yelling. "Quickly."

We slip and stumble through the muddy field to join Major Avlarez and another commando who are waiting – and still screaming – down below.

Suddenly the river appears. In all the chaos I hadn't noticed it. Major Alvarez is standing on our side, the commando on the other. It's moving fast, filled with mud from the morning rain. He motions us to cross. I don't have time to think about. In I go, my legs disappearing under the water that almost reaches to my waist. I keep running and grab the other side, scrambling up the muddy bank.

Our soundman is next. The sound mixer strapped around his neck, he holds the boom microphone high above his head. But he is a foot shorter than me. The water reaches above his waist. I gasp as I see his mixer submerged by the rushing water. A commando and I rush to pull him out. Then it's the cameraman's turn. We form a chain in the water and carefully pass the camera over our heads. Joachim meanwhile is desperately trying to assess the damage.

In circumstances like this we operate with wireless radio microphones. I wear a small microphone on my neck, with a transmitter on my belt. I have a second bigger, but more sensitive hand microphone, a transmitter attached to its base, stuffed in one of the pockets of my vest. The camera has two transmitters strapped to its back. With this technology we can all operate without wires tying us to one another. I know that what's happened isn't necessarily fatal. If the mixer or the wireless units are damaged, we can use cable to connect directly to camera. Miraculously the mixer is still working. The small microphone clipped to my shirt seems to be dead, but the hand microphone still works.

"Vamos," screams Major Alvarez as he leads up a muddy path into the jungle. My memory of that path is a soggy blur. There was no time to savor the scenery. I think I saw flowering trees and lush palms, but it was all too fast to record any details.

In a minute or two we reach an opening in the forest. Around the corner sits a low tin-roofed structure with no walls. The floor is covered in a deep carpet of green. Coca leaves. Along one side is a crude rig of troughs and barrels. The place stinks of gasoline.

Major Alvarez motions me into the lab. He is in overdrive. His face drenched in sweat. The adrenaline screams through him. I don't have to ask him to tell me what I am seeing. He launches into a descriptive tour. I'm able to understand most of what he's saying. There is a sneering contempt in his voice as he shows me the oil drums filled with gasoline and coca leaves. Others are filled a mixture of cement and sulfuric acid. And a hand press extracts the juice. It looks like something a Hillbilly might use to make moonshine. The Major kicks over a few barrels. Then he motions me to a path strewn with discarded coca pulp. Fifteen feet down there's a small cliff and the river below. Presumably the river we crossed. It's banks are littered with the dark green debris. The Major, his voice filled with rage, tells me the waste is contaminated with sulfuric acid and the debris from this and thousands of others labs is destroying his country's rivers.

The Major beckons me back to the lab, where two commandos are splashing gasoline from the oil drums over the huge bed of coca leaves. Another is slashing the bags of chemicals, emptying them on the fuel-soaked leaves. Everyone runs. From twenty feet away a commando grabs a hand grenade, pulls its detonator, and lobs it onto the gas soaked leaves.

Boom.

Suddenly the lab is engulfed in flames. We stand in awe for a moment as Javier records what we're witnessing.

Major Alvarez and a commando aim their machines guns into the inferno and let out a rat-a-tat-tat round bullets. They pierce the oil drums and the blaze becomes even bigger. Later Major Alvarez tells me he was born join sixty miles from here. He is now based in Bogotá. His parents followed him there because the guerillas and the Para-militaries made it too dangerous for them to stay. It's not hard to see why Major Alvarez is so dedicated to his work.

"Vamos," he screams yet again.

We are running down the muddy mountain path. He stops for a moment to fire bullets into two huge plastic containers sitting by the path. The first one smells of gasoline. The second emits the nauseating smell of chlorine. I keep moving.

In a minute or so were are back at the river crossing. We're careful to make sure our crew gets the equipment across safely. Suddenly above the tree tops our helicopter emerges. Touching down exactly where it left us.

"Vamos," screams the hyper-active Major. "Rapido." It's clear he doesn't want us lingering in open fields, but I think I detect a wry smile. He seems to relish keeping us on the move.

We clamber up the hill. I try to grab the branches of the coca plants as I struggle to get my footing up the hill. But the plants have shallow roots and they come out in my hands. I grab rotting tree trunks and stones and make my way to the chopper.

In an a moment we're all aboard and heading for the clouds.

On this first day of Mission Andaluz, commandos have destroyed three dozen coca labs. Over the next two days they'll destroy another hundred. And, it's hoped the two big cocaine labs too. Once the commandos are finished a squadron of aerial spray planes will fly over the area, dropping chemicals to destroy the coca crop.

If there's a sense that all this amounts to a victory in the war on cocaine it is by tempered by reality:

It is said that there are between 500 and 800 major cocaine labs across Colombia. And for every big lab there may be 50 or more smaller coca labs like the one we just saw. At best the numbers are rough estimates. But do the math. It is staggering.

As for the campesinos there is no doubt they will rebuild. By the time their fumigated crops bloom again three or four months from now, they'll be ready with a new lab. For them it's just a living. The Jungla Comandos won't be able to return here for at least a year. By then the campesinos will have harvested and refined two or three crops.

The three choppers circle the inferno. Once again the horizon is dotted with plumes of smoke. The terrain below is familiar. There's the coca field we landed in. There's the river. And there, at the base of a thick black plume are the remains of coca lab.