Outrage-Part II

by Preston Peet (May, 1999)

The Case

Back in December, I wrote a piece about how the CIA had recently implicated themselves in working with drug traffickers back in the 1980's, while surreptitiously supplying the conflict in Nicaragua. In one paragraph of the article, I asked if there weren't some way that I could instigate a class-action suit against the CIA, and those involved. Well, someone beat me to it.

Out in California, on March 15, 1999, there were two suits filed against the CIA, and the Department of Justice, by two Oakland attorneys, William Simpich, and Katya Komisaruk. A third suit was filed in Gainsville, Florida by Anita Belle on April 15, 1999.

Simpich and Komisaruk had received a call from Mike Ruppcrt, an ex-LA narcotics detective, and founder of Crack the CIA, a coalition dedicated to the exposure of CIA misadventures, and for most of the last twenty years one of very few activists concentrating on the CIA's involvement in international drug trafficking. Ruppert told me that he'd been trying to find a good lawyer for the last two years to take the case, but hadn't had any luck until this last March, when he found Kamisaruck, who in turn brought in Simpich. It's not been all that long since the CIA obligingly implicated itself by making key documents available to the public, thereby making a case much more feasible.

Simpich told me that when he sat down and looked at the paper work, he threw his hands in the air, and said, "It's a great case, let's do it."1

"This case rests solely on the records and documents in the public domain. There will not be any trouble with 'national security', nor with being able to subpoena some information or other because it is 'classified'. The documents that the government itself has already released show an irrefutable 'deliberate silence'," according to Simpich.

In the two cases filed in California, it's the people who lived in predominantly black neighborhoods that are part of the suit, which if 1 understand it, could lead to some people who were hit hard by- addiction and it's consequences getting left out, simply because they lived in the "wrong neighborhood".

But down in Florida, where the third class action suit was just filed yesterday, April 15th, the suit is a three class suit, rather than the two-class suits that have been filed in California. According to Anita Belle, the woman responsible for getting the suit launched in Florida, she felt there were going to be white people who were ravaged by the scourge of crack cocaine who weren't going to be covered unless she made sure to include a "class" in the suit for those who did not actually live in the neighborhoods that were inundated by the drugs that pour into them, but were none- thc-less adversely effected.

The ground swell in California seems to be rising fast. Particularly in the African-American communities, the fact that the CLA allowed huge amounts of cocaine into the South Central Los Angeles area, and subsequently throughout the rest of the States during the Eighties and beyond is on many people's lips. There is a lot of organizing among the churches, the unions, and the schools, trying to bring this matter to everyone's attention. This is something that should be brought to the fore in the United States, and discussed rationally, and openly.

Not the Devil Incarnate, Only Behaving Like It

Simpich made it clear that he is not saying that the CIA as a whole is the devil incarnate, nor is he saying that the CIA necessarily targeted black communities for the crack trade. But he is saying that they were, and are, willfully negligent by not reporting those suspected of and acknowledged to be trafficking, and that the consequences of that negligence was for the mainly lower-class neighborhoods of color to be the ones hardest hit.

This is a constitutional case, in that there has been clear violation of due process, as well as violation of equal protection under the law. The CIA, in cooperation with the Department of Justice, changed the ClA's regulations in 1982, redefining the term "employee" to mean only full time career officials. The result of this was that suddenly there were thousands of people, contract agents, employed by the CIA who were no longer called employees. Now they were people who were, "employed by, assigned to, or acting for an agency within the intelligence community."2 Non-employees, if you will.

Reaching An Understanding

If the memo to Mark M Richard, the Deputy Assistant Attorney General/ Criminal Division, of the USA, on the subject of CLA reporting of Drug Offenses, dated February 8, 1985 is to be believed, this meant the CIA was under no obligation to report alleged drug violations by these "non-employees".3

As stated in the first part of this story, back in December, William Casey, Director of the CIA under President Reagan, and William F. Smith, Attorney General of the USA at that time, signed a "memorandum of understanding", in which it was made clear that the CIA had no obligation to report the allegations of trafficking involving "non-employees". Bill Casey sent a private message to Mr. Smith on March 2, 1982, in which he stated that he had signed the "procedures", saying that he believed the new regulations struck a "...proper balance between enforcement of the law and protection of intelligence sources and methods..."4 This was in response to a letter from Smith to Casey on Feb. 11, 1982 regarding President Reagan's new Executive Order that had recently been implemented, (E.O. 12333), issued in 1981, which required the reporting of drug crimes. 5

With that "new" way of doing things, the gates were effectively jammed open to the flood of hard drugs into this country from many points South of the border. The evidence is all around us.

A Cockamamie Scheme

Rep. Maxine Waters, in a speech in the House of Representatives on March 18, 1997, outlined various reports of CIA drug trafficking complicity, or willful negligence. Noting a report in the New York Times from November 20, 1993, she stated that "the CIA anti-drug program in Venezuela shipped a ton of nearly pure cocaine into the USA in 1990. The CLA acknowledged that the drugs were sold on the streets of the USA... Not one CIA official has ever been indicted or prosecuted for this abuse of authority." Ms Waters continued, calling it a "cockamamie scheme". Then she described how the CIA had approached the DEA, who has the authority over operations of this nature, and asked them permission to go through with the operation, but the DEA said "No". The CIA did it anyway, explaining that this was the only way to get in good with the traffickers, so as to set them up for a bigger bust the next time.6

If someone is able to approach a dealer and suggest a deal for a ton of cocaine, they are already in about as good as they can be. Ton deals are not done by just anyone.

Then Ms. Waters tells of a Los Angeles Times article, dated March 8, 1997, in which it was reported that, "Lt. Col. Michel Francois, one of the CLA's reported Haitian agents, a former Army officer and a key leader in the military regime that ran Haiti between 1991 and 1994, was indicted in Miami with smuggling 33 tons of cocaine into the USA."7

When the USA helped Aristide return to power in Haiti in 1994, Francois was helped out of the country, according to Ms. Waters, and given asylum in Honduras. Members in the House of Representitves fought tooth and nail to support Cedras and Francois and the others in Haiti who had overthrown Aristide, and who were actively shipping tons of cocaine into the USA. Ms Waters said, "Members of this House literally had wrapped their arms around drug dealers. Members of this House not only swore by them and protected them, while they were protecting them, Francois was building an airstrip in Haiti where he could receive the drugs flown in from Colombia....to fly it right back out to the United States. This was a trans-shipment point."8

Those Darned Drug Trafficking Terrorist Assets

Certain people within agencies and departments in the US intelligence community, as well as the government, willingly and knowingly allowed traffickers and cartels to operate, and to smuggle their drugs into this country, because they had a war to run, and they had to do it secretly, without telling Congress. After the Boland Amendment was passed in October, 1984, limiting US assistance to the Contras to strictly humanitarian aid, those running the war still had to supply weapons, ammunition, rockets, bombs, and other sundry supplies. What better way than to do it than with drugs, the biggest selling product in the world, after arms, and completely off the books?

The folk involved in the "Cult of intelligence" as it were, keep getting us into these conflicts, using our tax dollars to back drug armies. Viet Nam, Laos, Bolivia, Afghanistan, Panama, Peru, Nicaragua, Haiti, Mexico, and now the KLA in Kosovo, all of these places had or have an army funded primarily by drugs. The US government backed, or are backing the known traffickers again, and again.

As Jack Blum, former Chief Counsel to the Senate Subcommittee on Narcotics and Terrorism in the Eighties, testified in Senate hearings in 1996, ( before Arlen Specter's subcommittee. Sen. Specter is the inventor of the "magic-bullet" theory for the Warren Commission's investigation into the assassination of Kennedy), "We don't need to investigate [the ClA's role in Contra drug trafficking]. We already know. The evidence is there." This wasn't all he said. He noted, "If you ask: In the process of fighting a war against the Sandinistas, did people connected with the US government open channels which allowed drug traffickers to move drugs into the United States, did they know the drug traffickers were doing it, and did they protect them from law enforcement? The answer to all those questions is YES."9

Where's the Justice Here?

There is a four month limit to the time required by law between the actual filing of the first suit, and the serving of the defendent, in this case the CIA, and others. This means that in that four month time, there needs to be as many suits filed as possible to guarantee that these cases will not be pushed aside, nor be treated lightly.

There have been a select group of people trying to bring this out into the open for a number of years now, and it looks as though there may just be light at the end of this tunnel somewhere. In the meantime, more young men and women will loose their lives to drugs, go to prison, overdose, contract HIV or Hep C, sell their bodies, and a host of other sick, horrible things will befall those still out using. Will Oliver North give this subject "Equal Time" on his TV "news" show? Probably not. Will my liver fail before anything truly gets accomplished by these suits? Maybe, but I am for sure going to do everything I can to bring some of these hypocrites and liars kicking and screaming into the sun, for all the world to see.

1 Phone interview with William Simpich, by P. Peet, April 16, 1999
2 Lyons vs. CIA, Class Action Lawsuit On Behalf of victims of the Crack Cocaine Epidemic, filed March 15, 1999, in Oakland, and simultaneously in Los Angeles.
3 Memo to Mark M. Richard, the Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the USA, -from A.R. Cinquegrana, the Deputy Counsel for Intelligence Policy, dated -February 8, 1985, subject: CIA Reporting of Drug Offenses
4 Memo to William French Smith, Attorney General, Department of justice of the USA, from William J. Casey, Director of Central Intelligence, dated March 2, 1982, obtained at www.copvcia.com
5 Memo from William F. Smith, Attorney General, Department of Justice of the USA, to William Casey Director of Central Intelligence, dated February 11, 1982, obtained at www.copvcia.com, and Class Action Lawsuit on Behalf of Victims of the Crack Cocaine Epidemic, filed March 15, 1999, Lyons vs. CLA.
6 Speech of Representative Maxine Waters in the House of Representatives, March 18, 1997, obtained from the internet. Was televised on CSpan, date unknown; also see "Anti-drug Mission Turns Sour", Adams, David, St Petersberg Times, Jan. 26, -1997, p. Al; also see 60 Minutes story, broadcast on Nov. 21, 1993
7 Speech of Rep. Maxine Waters in the House of Represta.tivcs, March 18, 1997, also "Cocaine Politics, Drugs, Armies, and the CLA in Central America", Scott, Peter Dale, and Marshall, Jonathan, University of California Press, 1991, 1998
8 Speech of Rep Maxine Waters, March 18, 1997.
9 Testimony and prepared statement of Jack Blum, Chief Counsel for Senator John Kerry's Subcommittee on Narcotics and Terrorism, which released it's own report in 1980, before Sen. Arlen Specter's Subcommittee Hearings in 1996, from the website www.angelfire.com. and There is much more information on the Kerry report in "Cocaine Politics", by Scott, Peter Dale, and Marshall, Jonathan, as well as in "Whiteout", by Cockburn, Alexander, and St. Clair, Jeffrey. Also see the book "Dark Alliance", by Webb, Gary, to read in depth how one ClA-affilitated drug ring flooded the South Central LA area, causing it's first major crack epidemic problems.