As Bolivia is the world’s third-largest producer of coca leaf, most U.S. assistance for the country’s security forces aims to help the government of President Hugo Banzer carry out its “five-year plan” to eliminate illegal coca production.

International Narcotics Control

The State Department’s International Narcotics Control (INC) program funds and supports two dozen distinct counternarcotics programs in Bolivia. The INC program groups these efforts into four areas: Narcotics Law Enforcement and Eradication; Alternative Development and Economic Incentives; Rule of Law and Administration of Justice; and Program Development and Support.¹ With nearly one-half of its 1999 budget devoted to alternative development, judicial reform and domestic demand reduction, the INC program provides a fuller mix of military-police and economic aid in Bolivia than it does in most other countries, notably Colombia.

The first category, narcotics law enforcement, encompasses all assistance to Bolivia’s police and armed forces. The category is made up of four subprojects: ground operations, air operations, riverine operations, and field support and infrastructure.

The INC program assists several Bolivian police units. Foremost among them is the Special Force for the Fight Against Narcotics Trafficking (FELCN), a unit given leadership of Bolivia's anti-drug efforts. According to the State Department's International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR), the FELCN was completely reorganized in February 1996 "from a combined military/police organization to a primarily police based organization." An active duty police officer, instead of a retired senior military officer, serves as the unit's director general.² U.S. government personnel provide the FELCN with advice and training. U.S. goals for the unit, according to the INC program's 2000 Congressional Presentation, include helping it "to develop an operational-level planning capability," improving its command and control over the Rural Mobile Police Patrol Units (UMOPAR) and the three military task forces it supervises, and increasing coordination with counternarcotics agencies elsewhere in the Andean region.³

The Rural Mobile Police Patrol Units (UMOPAR) are the FELCN’s uniformed interdiction force. UMOPAR detachments are active in the Chapare, Trinidad and Yungas coca-growing regions of northern Bolivia.⁴ The UMOPAR and Ecological Police, which carry out manual eradication of coca together with army conscripts, receive U.S. training and equipment. The INC Congressional Presentation regards communications equipment as especially “critical” since these police units “face violent ambushes and attacks from coca growers.”⁵

Other police bodies receiving assistance include the urban narcotics police, which performs investigations, Special Prosecutors of Controlled Substances assigned to police units, other investigative and intelligence gathering units, and canine units. The INC program also supports two police schools, the International Anti-Narcotics Training Center and the International Waterways Law Enforcement Training School.⁶  

The three Bolivian military counternarcotics task forces that receive aid under the INC program are the army's Green Devils Task Force (GDTF), the air force's Red Devils Task Force (RDTF), and the navy's Blue Devils Task Force (BDTF). All are charged with providing transport and logistics support to the police, and are ostensibly under police command, though the General Accounting Office (GAO) noted in March 1998 that "coordination between the counternarcotics police and military units continues to be a problem."⁷

The army's Green Devil Task Force transports police personnel, fuel and commodities. The 2000 INC Congressional Presentation notes a need to continue replacement of the task force’s and the police’s “rapidly aging vehicle fleet,” whose condition is exacerbated by difficult terrain.⁸

In April 1998, a joint military-police task force was sent to the Chapare coca-growing region to deal with rioting in response to stepped-up eradication efforts. With U.S. assistance, this joint force was converted into an “eradication/security” unit. The force, which includes 2,000 army personnel, reportedly provides protection for the UMOPAR units eliminating coca on the ground in the Chapare.

The air force’s Red Devils task force provides air transportation for eradication and counternarcotics law-enforcement operations that take place beyond the reach of roads. Counternarcotics missions are the Red Devils’ only responsibility.⁹

Red Devil pilots fly U.S.-owned aircraft maintained in Bolivia through the interregional aviation program of the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL). Most of these aircraft, which are flown by Bolivian pilots, are located in Santa Cruz, Chimore, Trinidad and La Paz.¹⁰ U.S.-owned UH-1H “Huey” helicopters, according to the 2000 INC Congressional Presentation, “enable the government to project authority over vast areas where drug traffickers previously operated with impunity.”¹¹ The U.S.-owned UH-1H helicopter fleet was reduced from twenty-two to sixteen in November 1997. 

The Red Devils also use C-130 cargo planes provided and supported by the United States. These aircraft transport police, heavy equipment, and fuel for counternarcotics operations. The INC Congressional Presentation notes that “only the C-130 aircraft can transport the helicopter fuel blivets necessary for long-range operations in remote areas.”¹² 

The INC program has helped the Bolivian Navy to develop, equip and train four task groups, the "Blue Devils," which are located in the Amazon basin cities of Trinidad, Puerto Villaroel, Riberalta, and Guayaramerin. The Blue Devils provide logistical support to the police, and monitor and interdict riverine traffic in drugs and precursor chemicals. In December 1997, the unit was granted law enforcement authority by the Bolivian government, which means its members have the power to arrest suspects and make seizures.¹³

The INC program’s support and infrastructure subprogram pays for the administrative and operating expenses of Bolivian counternarcotics agencies that do not fall within the other subprograms. It also covers many personnel and overhead costs for four field offices of the U.S. embassy's Narcotics Affairs Section (NAS), which provide logistical support for counternarcotics activities.¹⁴

The original 1999 appropriation for the INC program in Bolivia was $40 million. In non-binding report language, the House Appropriations Committee directed the State Department to spend $5 million of this amount to “enhance” existing alternative development programs in Bolivia’s Chapare and Yungas regions, and $3 million to increase Bolivia’s air, riverine and coca-eradication efforts.

With an October 1998 “Western Hemisphere drug elimination” emergency supplemental appropriation, Congress voted an extra $14 million for the Bolivia INC program in 1999. The INC program dedicated $5 million of the extra funds to alternative development programs, and $9 million to Bolivian air, riverine and eradication operations.

Much of the $9 million will support the new military-police task force providing security for eradication activities in the Chapare region. “The supplemental funds will enable us to fly more helicopter hours and supply more of the equipment necessary to support such a unit,” INL bureau chief Rand Beers told a House subcommittee.¹⁵ The additional funds will also be used to replace or upgrade UH-1H helicopters.

Other training and exercises

Several other U.S. programs pay for the training of Bolivian military and police personnel in counternarcotics and other skills. Bolivia is a significant recipient of Defense Department “Section 1004” assistance, which funds an undetermined amount of training, much of it through visits from Special Forces teams. Many of the approximately ten yearly Special Forces counter-drug training deployments to Bolivia train UMOPAR units in light infantry skills.

Special Forces also pay frequent visits to Bolivia for training under the Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) program. JCET deployments to Bolivia in recent years have often involved police and military units with no counter-drug role that do not receive assistance through the INC program.¹⁶ According to a July 1999 report by the General Accounting Office (GAO) of the U.S. Congress, a principal goal of JCETs is to promote Bolivian participation in UN peacekeeping operations overseas. (Bolivia's military has expressed interest in such operations; in May 1999 seventy members of the Bolivian Army’s Manchego Battalion joined a UN peacekeeping operation in Angola.) In one such deployment, the GAO reports, “U.S. National Guard special forces trained themselves on how to conduct light infantry training while the Bolivians learned basic military skills such as patrolling and marksmanship.”¹⁷ Other JCETs focused on counter-terrorism, “improving the capabilities of the Bolivian counterterrorism police unit.”¹⁸

The International Military Education and Training (IMET) program pays for “professional military education and international peacekeeping courses to key Bolivian military personnel,” according to the 2000 Congressional Presentation for Foreign Operations.¹⁹ The Justice Department’s International Criminal Investigative Training and Assistance Program (ICITAP), with an expected 2000 budget of $750,000, will assist Bolivia’s police in the implementation of a newly-approved criminal procedure code.²⁰

Bolivian personnel frequently attend the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA) and the U.S. Air Force Inter-American Air Forces Academy (IAAFA). In 1998 Bolivia was the region's third-largest provider of students to the SOA.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has worked to increase linkages and coordination between the Bolivian police force's FELCN and its counterparts in Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil. DEA has hosted bilateral meetings in an effort to foster contacts between FELCN units near the Argentine border and Argentina’s DEA-supported Northern Border Task Force, a counternarcotics unit made up of Gendarmería and provincial police personnel. DEA has also opened offices at Puerto Suárez, near the Brazilian border, and in the Yucuiba area near Argentina.²¹

According to a communiqué from the U.S. embassy in La Paz, on February 29, 1999 the U.S. Information Service offered a seminar on media and public relations for commanders of Bolivia’s anti-drug task forces. The event sought “to exchange experiences between journalists and commanders of the anti-drug units with the purpose of improving the relationship between both, and to structure a public affairs unit in Cochabamba.”²²

Bolivian personnel participate in several of the U.S. Southern Command’s regular multilateral training exercises, among them Fuerzas Aliadas Humanitarian, Fuerzas Unidas Peacekeeping, and United Counterdrug.

In May 1999, Bolivia hosted Fuerzas Unidas Peacekeeping 99, which involved 490 civilians and military personnel from the United States, Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.²³ According to Southern Command chief Gen. Charles Wilhelm, this “command post exercise” – an activity in which officers in a simulated headquarters act out a scenario by making command decisions – was an opportunity “to share all the lessons learned and to see the ways in which their forces can cooperate in other peace missions, at the regional level as well as at the international level.”²⁴

Between June 1 and August 15, 1999, U.S. forces carried out a “New Horizons” Humanitarian Civic Assistance (HCA) exercise in the Chaco region of southeastern Bolivia. Up to 240 U.S. military engineers and medical units formed “Combined Task Force Chaco” to build schools, expand a medical clinic, dig wells, improve a road, build a base camp in the town of Boyuibe, and provide medical and dental services. The task force worked alongside Bolivian army engineers, medical teams and security forces, while medical readiness teams worked with the Bolivian Ministry of Health.²⁵

Arms transfers

In 1998 Bolivia received nonlethal equipment and small arms through the Excess Defense Articles (EDA) program and through a $12 million counternarcotics emergency drawdown. The EDA, reports the State Department’s 2000 Congressional Presentation for Foreign Operations, “will support U.S. military interests by allowing the Bolivian military to equip its modest forces and stretch scarce defense funding. This excess defense equipment will be used to support both legitimate national defense needs as well as Bolivia’s counter-narcotics program.”²⁶

Bolivia is not one of the region’s major weapons customers; Foreign Military Sales (FMS) and Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) have consistently added up to roughly $10 million in each of the past few years. Recent defense purchases have included small boats, fuel, spare parts, small arms and ammunition.

Sources:

¹ United States, Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Fiscal Year 2000 Budget Congressional Presentation (Washington: Department of State: March 1999): 14 <http://www.state.gov/www/global/narcotics_law/fy2000_budget/latin_america.html>.

² United States, Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Department of State, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, Washington, March 1998, March 2, 1998 <http://www.state.gov/www/global/narcotics_law/1997_narc_report/index.html>.

United States, Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Department of State, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, Washington, March 1997, October 1997 <http://www.state.gov/www/global/narcotics_law/1996_narc_report/index.html>.

³ Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Fiscal Year 2000 Budget Congressional Presentation 15.

⁴ Department of State, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, March 1998.

⁵ Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Fiscal Year 2000 Budget Congressional Presentation 15.

⁶ Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Fiscal Year 2000 Budget Congressional Presentation 14.

⁷ United States, Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Fiscal Year 1999 Budget Congressional Presentation (Washington: Department of State: March 1998): 21.

⁸ Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Fiscal Year 2000 Budget Congressional Presentation 15.

⁹ Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Fiscal Year 1999 Budget Congressional Presentation 21.

United States, Department of State, Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, End-Use Monitoring Report, 1995 (Washington: Department of State, February 1997): 70-4.

¹⁰ Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Fiscal Year 2000 Budget Congressional Presentation 80.

¹¹ Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Fiscal Year 2000 Budget Congressional Presentation 15.

¹² U.S. Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1998, (Washington: Department of State: March 1999): <http://www.state.gov/www/global/narcotics_law/1998_narc_report/major/Bolivia.html>.

¹³ Department of State, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, March 1998.

¹⁴ Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Fiscal Year 1999 Budget Congressional Presentation 21.

¹⁵ Rand Beers, Assistant Secretary, International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, U.S. Department of State, testimony before the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee of the House International Relations Committee, Washington, DC, March 3, 1999  <http://www.state.gov/www/policy_remarks/1999/990303_beers_hirc.html>.

¹⁶ United States, Defense Department, State Department, "Foreign Military Training and DoD Engagement Activities of Interest In Fiscal Years 1998 and 1999: A Report To Congress," Washington, March 1999: 1, 11.

United States, Defense Department, "Report on Training of Special Operations Forces for the Period Ending September 30, 1998," Washington, April 1, 1999.

United States, Defense Department, State Department, "Foreign Military Training and DoD Engagement Activities of Interest In Fiscal Years 1998 and 1999: A Report To Congress," Washington, March 1999: 1, 11-2.

United States, Defense Department, "Report on Training of Special Operations Forces for the Period Ending September 30, 1997," Washington, April 1, 1998.

¹⁷ United States Congress, General Accounting Office, Military Training: Management and Oversight of Joint Combined Exchange Training, Report to Congressional Requesters NSIAD-99-173 (Washington: General Accounting Office, July 1999): 47. Plain text <http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/useftp.cgi?IPaddress=162.140.64.88&filename=ns99173.txt&directory=/diskb/wais/data/gao>; Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format <http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/useftp.cgi?IPaddress=162.140.64.88&filename=ns99173.pdf&directory=/diskb/wais/data/gao>.

¹⁸ General Accounting Office 47.

¹⁹ United States, Department of State, Congressional Presentation for Foreign Operations, Fiscal Year 2000, (Washington: Department of State: March 1999): 857.

²⁰ Department of State, Congressional Presentation for Foreign Operations, Fiscal Year 2000 936.

²¹ Department of State, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, March 1999.

²² Embassy of the United States in Bolivia, “Seminario para Comandantes de Las Fuerzas de Tareas Antidrogas,” Press Release, February 23, 1999 <http://www.megalink.com/usemblapaz/DOCS/990223.HTM>.

²³ Embassy of the United States in Bolivia, “Comandante en Jefe del Comando Sur de los EE.UU. inicia hoy visita oficial a Bolivia,” Press release, May 25, 1999 <http://www.megalink.com/usemblapaz/DOCS/990525.HTM>.

²⁴ Embassy of the United States in Bolivia, “Entrevista con el general Charles Wilhelm durante su visita a Bolivia,” Press release, May 27, 1999 <http://www.megalink.com/usemblapaz/DOCS/990527.HTM>.

²⁵ “Multiservice force trains, combats poverty in Bolivia,” Air Force News June 18, 1999 <http://www.af.mil/news/Jun1999/n19990618_991202.html>.

²⁶ Department of State, Congressional Presentation for Foreign Operations, Fiscal Year 2000 857.