CIA drug-running and Clinton As the powerful Western countries grapple with the extradition of two suspected bombers from Libya another extradition re-quest has gone almost entirely without notice in the press. Costa Rica is attempting to bring back a naturalised citizen of their cou ntry to face justice following a governmental report into his activities. The man in question, John Hull, is accused by Costa Rica of murder, drug trafficking and hostile acts against Nicaragua in violation of their countrys neutrality. John Hull was a major contra supporter during the U.S.s war against Nicaragua and is believed to have engineered the bombing of the La Penca press conference given by Eden Pastora, the only contra leader who had refused to work under the C.I.A. Five were killed in the explosion and twenty injured (though marginally higher and lower figures have also been put for-ward). Hull was even accused by Colombian drug kingpin Carlos Lehder on an ABC news program of pumping about 30 tons of cocaine into the United States a year from his ranch in Costa Rica. It included an airstrip: just one link in the contra resupply network. Cocaine-funded covert operations have a pedigree: the C.I.A. support for opium-growing Chinese nationalists in the Golden Triangle set the scene for the 60s heroin plague in the U.S. As far back as the 50s the C.I.A. had found it expedient to ally with the Corsican syndicates smuggling drugs through Marseilles who were able to break the power of the communist dockworkers there. Further examples would include the Mujaheedin guerrillas, for instance, and Manuel Noriega, who himself helped organise the rou ting of drugs to the U.S. and guns to the contras. Since jumping bail in Costa Rica, Hull has found sanctuary in the U.S., the country where he was born and also a country professing zero tolerance for drug smugglers. And even, we are told, a whole war on drugs along with its 'abhorrence of terrorism' . Hull has told journalists that he will return to Costa Rica to clear his name and has even been in touch with Amnesty Internation= al to protest about harassment. A number of U.S. Congressmen quickly got in touch with the Costa Rican President to ask th at he handle Hull's case "in a manner that will not complicate U.S.-Costa Rican relations." Can we expect Hull to return to Costa Rica to prove his innocence soon? Not according to Susie Morgan, a British journalist badly injured in the La Penca blast: the C.I.A. cannot afford Hull taking the witness stand, theyd have to kill him. She herself gave up chasing Hull after four arduous years of investigation. Others have tried too and faced blockages and death threats; one insider-turned-informant was killed on Hulls ranch.=20 The Christic Institute: under attack The one organisation which looked as if it might be able to put some pressure on Hull was the Christic Institute - a liberal public interest law firm which made Hull a defendant, along with twenty-eight others, in a lawsuit brought by two of the American journalists injured in the La Penca explosion. The lawsuit charges that a criminal racketeering enterprise smuggled narcotics and arms through contra bases in Central America, supplying much of the North American drug market. In the event the Christic Institute was given the runaround by the judicial system, which denied them a jury trial, and with the unprecedented - politically-motivated - removal of their tax-exempt status looming as well as awards of huge costs and fines totalling $1.7 million against them, they may soon lie in financial ruins. Leonard Schroeter, chair of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, has called the various judicial sanctions against the Christic Institute the single most unspeakable attac k on dissent Ive ever seen... It was judicial tyranny. Schroete= r, like others, is terrified at the implications: Corporate America is deter-mined to convert judges into ideo-logues, who follow the corpor-ations agenda. And part of that agenda is minim ising peoples capability to have access to justice. Corporate America wants to reduce the number of lawsuits challenging their practices and abuses by the federal government... If youre challenging something major, youre subjecting yourself to severe r isk. The risk of personal bankruptcy. The risk of being forced out of your profession. Thats the kind of terror this case has created. Some sympathisers say that the Institute itself may be partially to blame for casting its net too wide and bringing in so much insufficiently well-prepared evidence along with superfluous and sometimes unsourced conspiracy theory that their case became too cumbersome. The Christic Institute has a praiseworthy record of legal actions in the public interest: it helped with the successful Karen Silkwood case against Kerr McGee Nuclear Corporation and with a number of important civil rights cases in southern black communi ties. Now, however, it may finally have bitten off more than it can chew: the White House, the C.I.A. and even the Justice Department (who halted the F.B.I. investigation of contra-linked heroin trafficking). It looks as if it may fail to live up to the high hopes of its supporters - who include Jesse Jackson and Bruce Springsteen - through a mixture of inexperience as well as a generous dose of governmental maliciousness. Hull apparently remains in hiding in the U.S. - still a free man. The Christic In stitute has managed, until now at least, to survive after drastic cuts in staff and activities and the selling-off of buildings, and even then only after a large donation towards the $1.7 million in fines. There has still been no direct refusal by the U.S. government to allow the extradition but neither has there been any sign that Clinton favours extradition; his past behaviour may give little cause for optimism.=20 Clinton's cocaine cover-up?=20 A small dirt airstrip at Mena, Arkansas, was a major North American focus for the Contra drug and gun-running network, apparently handling a night-flight every five minutes, without lights, at the height of the activities. Democrat Congressman for Arkans as, Bill Alexander, has stated that activities at Mena have been responsible for large volumes of drugs coming into his state. In spite of mounting evidence, however, Clinton, as Governor of the state, appears to have made no attempt to help with investig ations by local prosecutors into the illegal activities there; he may even have sat on important evidence which could have helped to bring into the open these activities, as we shall see. In his defense Clinton has claimed that he did in fact authorise $2 5,000 for an investigation, but no trace of such a payment has yet been found. Clinton's behaviour has led to suspicion in some quarters that he may even have been linked to the C.I.A. in the past, perhaps receiving their help in obtaining his Rhodes scholarship as has happened with others. One fellow scholar at the time, Lt.Col. Ro bert Earl, curiously enough went on to become an assistant to Oliver North. Clinton is well-known too for sending his state's National Guard to Honduras for training in what amounted in effect to Contra-supporting activities. He has honoured prominent con tras, like Adolfo Calero and his brother as well as a notorious American supporter Major-General John Singlaub, with "Arkansas Traveller" awards. Clinton had also employed, in the Arkansas Development and Finance Administration, a contra-supporter named L arry Nichols, who almost torpedoed his candidacy later by exposing his affair with Gennifer Flowers during a court case following Nichols' dismissal from his job. Clinton's brother - who has been convicted of cocaine possession - is also involved, as a 'hanger-on' of Barry Seal who was a major organiser of the contra resupply network and one-time pilot for the Medellin cocaine cartel. An investigation in the newsletter "Washington Report" concluded that "There is ample evidence that Bush, Clinton, Pryo r (Senator David Pryor, Democrat-Arkansas), Bumpers (Senator Dale Bumpers D-AR), Hammerschmidt, various U.S. attorneys, Arkansas state officials and Arkansas financial institutions knew plenty about the illegal activities at Mena but permitted these to pr oceed."=20 The Deniable Link One episode which ought to have brought the Mena activites to the attention of the public involves Arkansas resident and C.I.A. 'asset' Terry Reed who found himself framed by Arkansas state officials, including Clinton's state security chief, Buddy Young, when he tried to end his role in assisting covert operations from Mena. He is currently suing these police officials. Reed had once worked for the C.I.A.'s 'Air America' and later, as a family man, still happily became involved in helping the contra resupply network: he refitted planes and trained contra pilots at the Mena airstrip. Later he became involved with Oliver N orth who asked Reed to allow a small plane he owned to be taken in a faked "theft" so that it could be used by the contra resupply network. This scam of North's - named "Operation Donation" - enabled him to circumvent Congressional clampdowns on aid to th e contras whilst plane and boat-owners would claim the insurance money and lose nothing themselves. Reed was unhappy about lending the plane, perhaps permanently, as it was needed for his work and he declined to help. A few weeks later it was stolen anywa y. Reed says it was a couple of years later, in 1985, that a friend from his days with Air America - C.I.A. pilot William Cooper - told him that the plane had actually been taken for Oliver North and "Project Donation". In mid-1986 Reed accepted the C.I.A.'s offer of a business opportunity in Mexico in exchange for further help in providing cover for a Mexican leg of the resupply operation. However, several months later Reed began to get cold feet after his old friend Wi lliam Cooper was shot down and killed over Nicaragua. The sole survivor, cargo-kicker Eugene Hasenfus, was propelled into the media spotlight sparking off the Iran-Contra investigation. "I told them that this was a grandiose, fun scheme but I am not going to do this anymore... we don't want to hurt you - we just want out. (But) once you've seen it, you're in", as Reed puts it. It is suggested that he also stumbled upon a tonne of cocaine in a hanger he used. His bosses, then including hardline anti-Castro Cuban Felix Rodriguez, were not pleased by his refusal to continue his work in Mexico. Before he knew what had hit him Reed found that his "stolen" plane had been secretly returned to its hanger and a passin g private investigator just happened to be walking by this hanger as the wind blew the door open to show the plane. He soon found himself in court, along with his wife, charged with insurance fraud. His F.B.I. file now inexplicably described him as "arme d and dangerous". The initially skeptical Public Defenders appointed to the case soon changed their minds when they and the Reeds suffered what under normal circumstances would have been an inexplicable series of violent incidents including break-ins, fir e-bombing and an apparently deliberate hit-and-run attack when one of the Defenders' cars was rammed. In the event Reed was aquitted of insurance fraud perhaps because he had expressed his wish to sub-poena North and Rodriguez. Reports on the case by Buddy Young, Clin-ton's security chief, had been dictated in 1988 and backdated by a year; the Judge conclud-ed that Young and the private investigator both had a "reckless dis-regard for the truth". Vital evidence supporting Reed's claims remained in Clinton's mansion way after it should have been handed over to the court. Reed is currently prosecuting the Arkansas officials who he believes tried - unsuccessfully - to frame him.=20 Pictures courtesy of Christic Institute: 8733 Venice Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90034 Tel. 010 1 310 287 1556 SELECTED SOURCES: Covert Action 37, The Realist 122, Unclassified Vol. IV No. I, Christic Institute - Convergence, Summer/Fall/Winter 1991.=20