NHAO
The Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Office was a State Department unit hijacked by Oliver North to distribute aid to the Contras through companies owned and operated by drug traffickers.
The Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Office (NHAO) was created in mid-1985 to oversee delivery of $27 million in "humanitarian" aid Congress agreed to give the Contras. Oliver North and the Central Intelligence Agency first tried to place the operation inside the National Security Council for direct control, but when that failed, North "hijacked" it from the State Department, according to CIA official Alan Fiers.1
North's Control
North pressured the NHAO to hire his aide Rob Owen as a $50,000 "facilitator" - a move opposed by NHAO director Robert Duemling, who said he didn't see the need for a middleman. North had Contra leaders write letters demanding Owen's hiring and lobbied Duemling's superior, Assistant Secretary Elliott Abrams. After one meeting, Abrams told Duemling: "Well, Bob, I suppose you probably ought to hire Owen." Meeting minutes show Abrams and North agreed Owen "will be expendable if he becomes a political or diplomatic liability" and could be dismissed as "an experiment that hadn't worked out."1
Drug Trafficker Contractors
The NHAO hired companies run by drug traffickers to deliver aid. Frigorificos de Puntarenas, created by the Medellín cartel as a money-laundering front, received more than $260,000 in taxpayer funds. DIACSA, a Miami aircraft company used for years as the U.S. headquarters of Floyd Carlton's Panamanian drug-smuggling venture with Manuel Noriega, was hired despite being penetrated by an undercover DEA agent at the time. Vortex Aviation, operated by Detroit drug dealer Michael Palmer, received contracts despite the CIA knowing Palmer was dealing drugs. SETCO, owned by Honduran drug kingpin Juan Matta Ballesteros, was the "principal company used by the Contras in Honduras."1
CIA Guidance
Fiers confirmed the CIA guided the selection of these carriers: "I believe we guided them toward the carriers they ultimately used." Duemling testified that North instructed him not to "dislodge or replace their existing arrangements, which seemed to be working perfectly well." When the GAO audited the NHAO's broker accounts, it could not trace most of the money. Of $4.4 million that went into the accounts, less than $1 million could be accounted for. The rest was traced to offshore banks and disappeared.1
Sources
- Webb, Gary. Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 12: "This guy talks to God" ↩
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