History of Latin America II

This article, Dimensions of the South American Cocaine Industry, by Rensselaer Lee III covers many different aspects of the cocaine trade out of South America.  It looks into the economic impacts, trafficking, social impact, and the political impact.  For this post I have chosen to focus primarily on the economic impact.  The amount of money that flows through the underground economy or spent by governments against the drug trade is amazingly high even when this article was published in 1988.  At the time this article was published Americans alone spent $20-$25 million dollars on cocaine each year.  That is roughly equivalent to the gross national product of Israel when this article was published.  However, the income from the US is not the only way that drug trafficking contributes to the economy of each nation.  In Bolivia drug trade employs between 350,000 to 400,000 people.  Traffickers also contribute to the economy by investing heavily in the legal businesses in the country they live in.  In Colombia the Medellin Cartel invested in high-rise office buildings and condominiums that gave them a legitimate business front.  Drug traffickers effect the economies of the world in other ways, that are not covered in detail in this article.  As I said, I chose this article after being surprised just how high the yield was from this business even in the 1980s.

• Dimensions of the South American Cocaine Industry
• Rensselaer Lee III
• Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, Vol. 30, No. 2/3, Special Issue: Assessing the Americas’ War on Drugs (Summer – Autumn, 1988), pp. 87-103
• Published by: Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Miami
• Stable URL: 

  Cable Ties Kissinger to Chile Controversy

  Published by alanna April 20th, 2010 alanna in chile. 0 Comments

  April 10, 2010.  Washington Post

  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/10/AR2010041001414.html

  This recent article by the Washington Post discusses the assassination of a former Chilean ambassador to the United States, a topic that we talked about in class.  The article describes Operation Condor and what Kissinger’s relationship with the operation was, with a focus on a newly discovered cable.

  In the Sept. 16, 1976 cable, the topic of one paragraph is listed as “Operation Condor,” preceded by the words “(KISSINGER, HENRY A.) SUBJECT: ACTIONS TAKEN.” The cable states that “secretary declined to approve message to Montevideo” Uruguay “and has instructed that no further action be taken on this matter.”

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  “The Sept. 16 cable is the missing piece of the historical puzzle on Kissinger’s role in the action, and inaction, of the U.S. government after learning of Condor assassination plots,” Peter Kornbluh, the National Security Archive’s senior analyst on Chile, said Saturday. Kornbluh is the author of “The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability.”

  “You can instruct” the U.S. ambassadors “to take no further action” on the subject of Operation Condor, said the Sept. 20 cable by Harry Shlaudeman, assistant secretary of state for Inter-American affairs, to Shlaudeman’s deputy.

  The next day, on Sept. 21, 1976, agents of Chilean Gen. Augusto Pinochet planted a car bomb and exploded it on a Washington, D.C., street, killing both former Ambassador Orlando Letelier, and an American colleague, Ronni Karpen Moffitt. Letelier was one of the most outspoken critics of the Pinochet government.

  Sarah B.