by Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad

In 1996 a series of articles ("Dark Alliance") written by Gary Webb, San Jose Mercury
News reported that in the 1980s, "a San Francisco Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to…
street gangs of Los Angeles and funneled millions in drug profits to an arm of the contra guerrillas
of Nicaragua run by the Central Intelligence Agency" and the "cocaine that flooded in
helped spark a crack explosion in urban America… "  Gary Webb died at the age of 49 from
a reported "self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head" in December of 2004.

Now cut to December 16, 1996, the day Por Esto! published the first in a long series of articles
denouncing banker Roberto Hernandez as a "narco-trafficker." After Menendez got a
complaint from a fishing collective whose members felt they were victims of a land grab by
Hernandez, Por Esto! reporters found packages of cocaine washed up on the banker’s beaches. Mario
Menendez is the editor and publisher of Por Esto!, a newspaper chain that might be called the
Village Voice of the Yucatan Peninsula. Mexico is the drop off point for cocaine coming from
Columbia destined for the US.

According to a StopTheDrugWar.org September 5, 2003 article titled, "In Colombia, Social
Distortion as Narcos Grab Land", drug traffickers now control almost half of all of Colombia’s
most productive agricultural lands, according to a study released by the Colombian government and
reported in the newsweekly Semana. Traffickers hold some 10 million acres, or 48% of prime
agricultural land, with a value of $2.4 billion dollars, according to the government analysis. Those
numbers could be low, the report said, because of the use of cut-outs to disguise the true owners of
properties.

The Houston Chronicle published an article by John Otis on June 22, 2005 entitled, "DRUG WAR
IN COLOMBIA: IS THERE ANY PROGRESS?" The article says that the White House claims that cocaine
levels are down, but some analysts disagree. Estimates on the 2004 South America cocaine trade vary
from the White House drug office estimates of 640 metric tons to the United Nations estimate of 670
metric tons to the US task force estimates of 1,390 metric tons. Although the White House estimates
would indicate a decrease in drug trafficking, the other estimates would indicate that the supply of
cocaine has greatly increased. Why would the White House want to low-ball the estimates of drug
trafficking? Could it be that somebody within the US government wants drug trafficking to continue
to flood the Black neighborhoods with cocaine, while at the same time using US taxpayer money to
destroy the agricultural base of South American indigenous peoples, opening these lands up to US
land speculators and agribusiness firms?

According to a CommonDreams.org article reprinted from the Philadelphia Inquirer on March 26,
2001 called "U.S. War on Drugs in Columbia is Ravaging Farmers and Land", the writer
Constance Garcia-Barrio reports that "The U.S. has a hidden agenda in the war on drugs,"
says Linda Panetta, director of the School of the Americas Watch/Northeast. She further stated that
"It is getting and keeping control of Colombia’s resources: gold, silver, copper. Colombia may
have the largest oil reserve in the Americas. The U.S. wants to control it."

Now if we shift to the US government’s dismay at indigenous presidents being elected in
Venezuela and Bolivia, we might get a clearer picture of plans that will soon affect everybody in
these United States. President Bush is trying to open up all of South America to "free
trade". What this means is that North American manufacturers and farmers could then move their
operations to South America and ship their products back to the US without paying duty taxes.
Venezuela President Hugo Chavez is trying to rally the other South American presidents to not sign
on with the Bush scheme.

In the meantime, large US farmers and agribusiness firms have already moved to countries like
Columbia, Brazil and Venezuela in preparations for the flooding of US markets with cheaper
agricultural products than the US farmer can produce. According to a National Public Radio broadcast
a Nebraska farmer who started off with a 250 acre farm has moved to Brazil where he now farms 8,000
acres. In South America the land, labor and fuel is cheaper giving the farmers there an advantage,
if they can ship their products duty free into the US.

Let’s look at a series of events and policies to see just how this is working. First the US
imposes trade restrictions and duty taxes to protect the American white farmers against competition.
America then buys the higher priced commodities from the white farmers (PL480) and dumps them at
below market prices on the cities of South America which forces her local farmers to grow more cocoa
plants for the drug market instead of food crops. The US turns around and buys cocaine from these
drug lords, allowing them to buy more of the peasants’ land.

The US then turns around and starts a "drug war" against cocaine producers with
taxpayer money. Through this process they seize the drug lords’ lands and sell them at bargain
prices to US agribusiness interests. Once the US companies are up and running, the US drops her
trade restrictions and removes the duty taxes so that her companies can now ship back agricultural
products and manufactured products to compete with the small farmers and manufacturers who could not
get out in time.

Of course these agricultural products are being produced without the vast number of regulations
on the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), pesticides and fertilizers which the US farmers are subject to. How will this effect the health
of the US citizens? Add to this the reduction in health care benefits, we then have a formula for
the sinking of America. Hello, America, welcome to the "Third World".

Peace, Doc

Books and lectures by Dr.
Ridgely A. Mu’min