Politics
Increasing drug traffic through Venezuela, in addition to Caracas' support for illegal Colombian armed groups, is undermining the United States efforts to fight illegal drug traffic, said the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) in a report published on Monday.

"While Venezuela has its own counternarcotics initiatives and says it does not need US assistance, available data indicate that drug trafficking through Venezuela is increasing," added the document published by the GAO, the investigative arm of the US Congress, AFP quoted.

"If illegal armed groups continue to find safe haven in Venezuela and receive support from Venezuela, the permissive atmosphere and lack of cooperation will likely adversely affect the security gains made in Colombia since 2000," when Plan Colombia started, the report warned.

The report was prepared at the request of Republican Senator Richard Lugar, the Ranking Member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, US Senate, amidst concerns about growing drug traffic through Venezuela, a country that in 2005 discontinued anti-drug cooperation with Washington.

"At a minimum, the lack of Venezuelan counternarcotics cooperation with the United States is a significant impediment to the US capacity to interdict drugs en route to the United States," lamented the GAO survey.

In its annual report on drug traffic, published in February, the US State Department claimed that Venezuela was one of the major transit routes for illegal drugs in the hemisphere, adding that the situation is worsening due to the lack of cooperation by the Venezuelan government.