Venezuelan leader vows to cut US antidrug work

BOGOTÁ -- In the latest sign of deteriorating relations with the United States, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has vowed to cut off all bilateral antidrug cooperation and expel the US Drug Enforcement Administration from a country whose porous borders make it a leading transshipment point for cocaine and heroin from neighboring Colombia into the United States and Europe.

On Wednesday, the head of the Venezuelan antidrug agency said DEA agents and their equipment had been evicted from his headquarters. The announcement followed accusations by Chavez in a speech last week that DEA agents were spying on his government. He said in the same speech that he had decided to end all bilateral antidrug cooperation. Two Chavez aides later accused US agents of siphoning off confiscated drugs for illegal sting operations and conducting raids in the absence of Venezuelan authorities.

Washington vehemently denied the charges, and a US official in Caracas said yesterday that DEA agents never had an office at the Venezuelan antidrug agency and have not, as Venezuelan officials assert, had diplomatic privileges revoked.

''We have eight DEA agents in Venezuela, and all of them are here in the embassy doing their job," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment.

Yet the threat to expel the DEA follows closely after Chavez severed bilateral military cooperation, a precedent that suggests Chavez will make good on his pledge to evict the DEA as well.

The move would not only further poison sinking relations with Washington, which relies on Venezuela for 15 percent of its oil imports, but could also throw a wrench in the United States' $3 billion efforts in the last few years to eradicate and interdict drugs in Colombia, which shares a loosely monitored 1,300-mile border with Venezuela.

This is not the first time Chavez has thwarted US antidrug efforts; in 1999, he banned US counter-drug flights in Venezuelan airspace, calling the missions an infringement of sovereignty. Despite the downward spiral in relations since Chavez accused Washington of plotting to overthrown him in 2002, his move to end all antidrug collaboration is a surprise.

Just two months ago, Interior Minister Jesse Chacon of Venezuela publicly promised, ''Of course we'll keep working with the DEA."

Thanks to more lenient checks on passengers and cargo originating in Venezuela, the country is a primary route for smuggling Colombian drugs into Europe, said Alejandro Reyes, a researcher at the Center for the Study and Observation of Drugs at Rosario University in Bogota. The Venezuelan coast has also been used extensively by smugglers in speedboats.

Meanwhile, as US-funded antidrug programs flourish in Colombia, analysts have observed a ''balloon effect" in which more illicit cultivation has shifted to neighboring countries, including Venezuela and Ecuador.

Elsa Cardozo, a professor of international relations at Venezuelan Central University in Caracas, interprets Chavez's threat as ''a way to present his government as one that can defy the US in any way it wants, and the US can't do anything about it. . . . But [ending anti-narcotics cooperation] could have very dangerous effects for Venezuela itself, even if the motive is political, to annoy the US."

Venezuela's internal drug problem appears to have worsened of late, with a doubling in drug seizures in the last four years, according to official figures, and accusations of drug-related corruption in the security forces. Washington revoked last Friday the visas of three Venezuelan military officials suspected of drug trafficking into the United States.

Another worrying consequence of diminished antidrug cooperation could be a spike in the smuggling through Venezuela of chemicals used in the processing of cocaine in Colombia, Reyes said.

Adam Isacson, Latin-American security specialist at the Washington-based Center for International Policy, an independent think tank, said ''that border has always been a sieve" because of poor policing by both Venezuela and Colombia, ''and a few DEA guys weren't going to do much about that, anyway." An end to bilateral cooperation, he added, ''will make it a little more difficult to interdict drugs, but I think the political impact will be greater."

Last week, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli called Chavez's accusations against the DEA ''an effort to detract from the government's increasingly deficient record of cooperation" and said severing antidrug ties would affect an annual review next month to certify if Venezuela is cooperating in the war on drugs.

Losing certification triggers sanctions, including a cut-off from most US military and economic aid, but Venezuela has not been a beneficiary of such aid since it ended military cooperation, Isacson said. The United States could also oppose multinational loans to Venezuela, which has applied for a $1.5 billion credit from the Inter-American Development Bank.

Even more significant, Isacson said, one more slap in the face to Washington by Chavez ''will increase calls in the United States for Venezuelan regime change, and those who make those calls will play up the narco angle."