Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 7 November 1996 — Page 25

The Muncie Times, November 7, 1996, Page 25

►CIVIL RIGHTS JOURNAL Did CIA funnel crack cocaine to Los Angeles blacks?

Conspiracy theories are nothing new in communities of color. I remember the rumors circulating after the riots of the 1960’s that the government was building concentration camps for black folks. Preposterous*? What happened to Japanese Americans during World War II? What about the government’s experiment with black syphilis patients in Alabama during the 1950’s and later? Now, we read in a respected daily newspaper that for most of a decade the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) supplied crack cocaine which was sold to street gangs in Los Angeles to funnel millions of dollars in drug profits to a CIA-backed guerilla army in Nicaragua. The crack cocaine provided in this scheme, we are told, helped spark a crack explosion which devastated the African American community, not only in Los Angeles, but across the nation. It’s almost too diabolical to believe, but according to the San Jose Mercury News, Calif., that is exactly what happened. A recent series done by this California newspaper examined the actions of a Los Angeles crack dealer named Ricky Donnell Ross and his connections with drug dealer Oscar Danila Blandon Reyes, who allegedly had ties to a Latin American-based CIA agent who told them that they were raising money for the Contra revolution. That revolution, you may remember, was supported by the Reagan administration but received only limited funds in its early days of operation. It was the need for additional funds to support the contra’s guerrilla war that caused the linking of cocaine sales and the war. The series in the San Jose Mercury News examines how Blandon’s boss in the cocaine operation, Juan Norvin

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Menesse Cantareo, has never spent a day in a U.S. prison, even though the federal government has known of his drug dealings since 1974. Indeed, agents from four government law enforcement agencies have complained that their investigati were hampered by the CIA or unnamed “national security” interests. Even a U.S. Senate subcommittee was unable to pierce the wall of secrecy surrounding these operations. One of the most frightening aspects of this story is the decision by Blandon, the middleman, to make cocaine, which has been only available to the rich, affordable and available to the masses in the African American community in South Central Los Angles. Within only a few years, crack cocaine had devastated the African American community across the nation. Using the Crips and Bloods street gangs as distributors, Blandon and Ross devised an extraordinary marketing strategy. As a result, thousands of young black men are serving long federal prison sentences for selling mere handfuls of the drug, while thousands more of African American families are in crisis. During the Congressional Black Caucus fall meeting, a hearing was held on these allegations. Several thousand people jammed into a hearing room to learn more about these charges. As a result. Congresswoman Maxine Waters, in

whose district most of this occurred, and other members of the Black Caucus met with CIA Director, John Deutch. Deutch said he had no reason to believe such allegations, which would have taken place before

his tenure. But he expressed his outrage at the charges raised and pledged to get to the truth in this matter. He assured caucus members that an independent investigator will look into the allegations and report within 2 months. Is this just another conspiracy theory? Or did agents in the CIA conspire to sell drugs in the African American community to fund their own guerrilla activities in Nicaragua? For the sake of all of us, we must find out the truth.

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