Contra-Cocaine Was a Real Conspiracy

Article by Robert Parry

EXCERPT:

It did not begin with the 1996 emergence of Ricky Ross in a series of articles by San Jose Mercury-News investigative reporter Gary Webb...

The Contra-cocaine scandal began... with a 1985 article that Brian Barger and I wrote for the Associated Press. Our article cited documentary evidence and witnesses – both inside the Contra movement and inside the U.S. government – implicating nearly all the Contra groups fighting in Nicaragua under the umbrella of Ronald Reagan’s CIA.

Our Contra-cocaine article was followed up by a courageous Senate investigation led by Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts who further documented the connections between cocaine traffickers, the Contras and the Reagan administration in a report issued in 1989.

Yet, part of the scandal always was how the Reagan administration worked diligently to undercut investigations of the President’s favorite “freedom fighters” whether the inquiries were undertaken by the press, Congress, the Drug Enforcement Administration or federal prosecutors. Indeed, a big part of this cover-up strategy was to mock the evidence as “a conspiracy theory,” when it was anything but.

To read the full article:
http://consortiumnews.com/2013/12/02/contra-cocaine-was-a-real-conspiracy/

For more info:
http://carmeloruiz.blogspot.com/search/label/Contras
http://carmeloruiz.blogspot.com/search/label/Gary%20Webb

Journalist Gary Webb.