June 30, 2025
Francisco Ramírez Cuellar, a member of the CSN Board, is experienced in Colombian labor law. He is familiar with land and sea transportation by companies in Colombia.
Translated by Eunice Gibson, CSN volunteer translator
It would be a good idea to point out some things that aren’t included in this report. It does not include the statistics on the seizures of very large amounts of cocaine from ships belonging to 3 United States banana-producing companies (the same ones that are now exporting from Ecuador, where the drug traffic has increased exponentially), and 2 United States mining companies that were transporting coal through the locks and also carrying cocaine. For specific examples, see my article on the CSN web site: https://colombiasupport.net/2022/11/csn-newsletter-fall-2022/.
It’s notable that in these companies, seizures of cocaine from their ships have been going on for 35 years, and they claim they were “victims” of the narcos. Would you say the same thing about a passenger who, during that period, claimed the narcos had put cocaine in his suitcase on the trip?
Without chemical precursors for the concentration of the cocaine, it’s not possible to prepare the paste base that allows the extraction of pure cocaine. The companies providing these precursors earn 100% of the revenue from the sale, including the famous Monsanto. And 100% of the revenue from money laundering belongs to two U.S. banks (sanctioned by the Obama administration with a $50 million fine for having laundered 5,000 million dollars from the cartels of Mexico and Colombia) plus the Swiss, British, and one Dutch bank.
Finally, we have to ask ourselves why the increase in plantings in areas where the seven US military bases are located. Do you suppose they are “combating” drug trafficking? Or is the same thing happening that happened in Afghanistan with opium during the US invasion?
There is no defense for drug traffickers, but we need to identify the true managers and beneficiaries of that criminal business, which has done so much harm to the planet.