Venezuela's Emerging Narcostate

Geopolitics: Is Venezuela becoming a new drug haven just as Colombia crushes its traffickers? The rub-out of Colombia's top cocaine kingpin in Venezuela last Friday suggests that's exactly what's going on.

Wilmer "Soap" Varela had just succeeded Diego Montoya as the top drug lord left in Colombia. He seized the position after Montoya got busted in his underwear by Colombian troops last September. It was a short reign for "Soap," who last week went down in a hail of gunfire reportedly from drug rivals -- in Merida, Venezuela.

That's significant, because Venezuela's Hugo Chavez has long denied giving safe haven or providing transit routes for Colombia's drug lords, including the FARC Marxist narcoterrorists at war with Colombia's democracy.

Yet "Soap," so named for his ability to slip through authorities' fingers, found the business climate better in Venezuela than in Colombia. Former Venezuelan drug-enforcement chief Mildred Camero told El Universal that Venezuela had protected Varela for years. He "moved between countries but he spent more time here," she said.

It's part of the growing evidence that Venezuela is turning into a narco-state. This week, Colombia's Semana magazine reported that a high-ranking Venezuelan general, Hugo Carvajal Barrios, had met with Colombian FARC kingpin Ernesto "Monkey Jojoy" Briceno to help him protect 21 FARC guerrillas.

The Washington Post, El Pais of Spain and Jane's Intelligence Review also reported on other top Venezuelan officials working with the FARC, in effect creating a safe haven for the murderous group.

This is likely to become a bigger problem as Chavez ravages Venezuela's oil-based economy and relies more on drug trafficking for income.

Letting officials collaborate with the drug trade and its billions of dollars of revenue is one of the few ways Chavez can keep his aides loyal. And if drug trafficking hurts the West, he's all for it.

Many points show the extent of this negative direction:

In 2005, Chavez cut off all cooperation with the Drug Enforcement Administration, accusing the DEA of spying. Camero and others say it was because he wanted to protect certain drug gangs. Meanwhile, U.S. National Intelligence Director Michael McConnell accused Chavez of pushing an "anti-U.S., radical leftist" agenda and said his lack of cooperation in the drug war "undermines efforts by other countries, particularly Colombia, by giving traffickers access to alternative routes and transit points."

Venezuela is awash in crime and violence, a significant sign of unchecked drug trafficking, with Caracas recording an average of 24 murders each day. Yet no Venezuelan judges or policemen have been targeted -- a sign of Venezuela's growing corruption, since nations serious about battling drug cartels, including Peru, Colombia, Mexico and the U.S., have all lost such officials who cross traffickers.

Europe has taken an onslaught of drugs not seen since the days of the French Connection after Chavez cut cooperation with the DEA. Drug trafficking has surged fivefold in just three years, with some 5.7 metric tons intercepted in the first nine months of 2007 alone. A third of Colombia's output, some 220 tons, is shipped through Venezuela to West Africa, where enforcement is weak. After that it moves north to Europe.

Huge shipments of drugs are being intercepted in Mexico, Guatemala and the eastern U.S. since Chavez cut off ties with the DEA. They all have some origin in Venezuela. This week the FBI arrested a Venezuelan in Miami, Pedro Jose Benavides-Natera, and charged him with laundering drug cash to buy U.S. aircraft to smuggle more cocaine, U.S. court documents say. The Associated Press reports that these investigations are expanding.

Chavez has grown increasingly brazen about his own drug use, boasting recently that he consumes coca paste, an illegal product used to make cocaine. Showing his biceps to his TV audience, Chavez said: "I chew coca every day in the morning ... and look how I am," according to El Nuevo Herald. His increasingly erratic actions suggest drug use -- and a tolerance for it within his nation's borders.

In short, there's an increasingly sharp picture emerging of a cocaine-fueled narco-state that curses the West with illegal drugs and keeps the deadly FARC terrorists alive at Colombia's expense.

Chavez refuses to back down on his open support for the FARC despite evidence that it's involved in the drug trade. The resemblance to Panama under Manuel Noriega in the 1990s is alarming.

The U.S., Europe and Colombia need to start developing contingency plans for this, because Chavez isn't going to stop and this has potential to do great damage.