CIA-Contra Drug Scandal -- Experience Nicaragua

The Thinkquest Team 17749, having heard only vague reports about CIA involvement with the Nicaraguan Contra warriors of the 1980s in drug trafficking in the United States, originally entered the project with a plan to research extensively and then provide a simple summary of the events and a compilation of whatever factual material had indicted the various perpetrators. However, we soon discovered that situation was anything but simple. Where we had hoped to find conclusive evidence and unbiased observations, we instead discovered heated allegations based on few and disconnected facts and a mountain of rumors.

We have come to the conclusion that there is no conclusive proof that there ever was a broad-based Contra operation to introduce cocaine into the United States and neither was the alleged operation aimed at any certain ethnic group or location. We instead know that although Nicaraguan Contras and other political groups, alike, were involved in illegal drug trafficking, they did so to a much smaller extent than other Latin American countries and groups within the United States. There is also no conclusive evidence that the CIA administration deliberately ignored the trafficking for fear of endangering the success of the anti- Sandinista operation with the Contras.

The entire event was initially instigated by a three-part series published in the San Jose, California Mercury News by Gary Webb who alleged that Contra contacts were waging a campaign to introduce crack cocaine into the African-American communities of California in coalition with the CIA. Numerous US government representatives began to push for investigations as did public media and ethnic organizations. We believe that the rumors were fueled, in part, by the fact that the CIA was involved with the Contras in the Iran-Contra affair and Nicaragua had acquired a mysterious stigma, thus making rumors about it more believable.