Pubdate: Sun, 23 Apr 2000 Source: Chicago Tribune (IL) Copyright: 2000 Chicago Tribune Company Contact: 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60611-4066 Website: http://www.chicagotribune.com/ Forum: http://www.chicagotribune.com/interact/boards/ Author: Larry Rohter, New York Times News Service Image: http://www.mapinc.org/image/nyt.colombia.gif COCAINE-AND-REBEL QUAGMIRE PULLS U.S. DEEPER IN COLOMBIA MONTCLART, Colombia - Nearly half the world's supply of cocaine originates within 150 miles of this isolated Colombian military outpost on the Putumayo River. So when Lt. German Arenas and his anti-drug troops recently set out by boat, they knew that finding a target would be the easy part. By nightfall, they had found three crude cocaine-processing laboratories in the open jungle; more than 6,000 seedlings of a new, more potent variety of coca plant; a half-dozen large fields brimming with ripening coca bushes; and four hapless peasants. But after they had destroyed as much as they could, arrested the peasants and headed back downriver, the soldiers left behind at least 200 more labs hidden in the dense, trackless jungle and thousands more acres of coca plants. To the growing alarm of the Clinton administration, which has been bankrolling much of the anti-drug fight here, coca production in Colombia has more than doubled in the past five years. U.S. officials estimate that the country now grows or processes more than 500 tons of cocaine a year, or some 90 percent of the world's supply. Colombian trafficking groups have also moved aggressively into the heroin business, replacing Southeast Asia and Afghanistan as the source of most of the heroin seized in the United States. But here, as in many parts of southern Colombia, the army and the police dare not send spray planes and helicopters to eradicate the fields, because the instant they appear, the aircraft invariably draw ground fire from the Marxist guerrilla forces that thrive on the drug trade. The principal rebel group, the 15,000-strong Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, has been fighting the Colombian government since the mid-1960s, financing its war for most of that time with kidnappings and extortion. But that has changed sharply in recent years. With the smashing of the notorious Medellin and Cali cartels, the guerrillas gained greater access to a far more lucrative source of income: coca and heroin. Now the rebels provide protection and support to the dozens of smaller trafficking groups that have sprung up to replace the cartels, and they are earning, by the Colombian government's estimate, more than $1 million a day. That, in turn, has blurred the lines of what was once painted in relatively simple terms as an ideological battle between a pair of left-wing insurgencies that enjoy almost no popular support and a flawed but functioning democracy. Along the way, the focus of the conflict has shifted, so that while the government still controls most of the country's territory, the war itself is increasingly being fought over cocaine and heroin. On one side is the popularly elected government of President Andres Pastrana and its thin and poorly trained security forces. On the other are the increasingly well-armed and richly financed leftist guerrillas. Equally menacing are the right-wing death squads that have a long history of collusion with elements of the Colombian military and also deal in drugs. "It is the only self-sustaining insurgency I have ever seen," said Gen. Charles E. Wilhelm, who is responsible for Latin America as commander in chief of the U.S. Southern Command. "There is no Cuba in back of it; there is no Soviet Union in back of it. It is this delicate merger of criminals, narco-traffickers with insurgents." After nearly a decade of trying with little success to give government forces the edge in this confrontation, the White House and Congress are on the verge of the biggest gamble yet: a $1.6 billion package over two years that would beef up anti-drug training for the Colombian police and military and provide better equipment for their forces, including more than five dozen helicopters. Though the national armed forces have more than 100,000 soldiers, barely a third of them are ready for fighting. Under a law that reflects the class prejudice and favoritism that run through Colombian society, high school graduates are forbidden to participate in combat. The prospect that U.S. aid may soon begin flowing clearly excites the weary soldiers here. "Tell them we need air support, like the police get for their operations," said Lt. Gustavo Lievano. "How much more money are they going to give us to buy intelligence from informants?" a grizzled sergeant wanted to know. To some in Washington the prospect of increased U.S. involvement in Colombia is viewed warily. "Before we quadruple our military aid and embark on an open-ended, costly commitment, the Colombian government needs to come up with a workable strategy," argues Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.). "The Colombian government wants a blank check. That is not going to happen." Critics worry that Washington is embracing an unrealistic game plan. They say that Colombia lacks a concrete strategy for quickly getting the job done, that attacking cocaine at the source will be more difficult in Colombia than it was in neighboring countries, and that ultimately U.S. military advisers will be drawn into the broader war between the guerrillas and the government. On the Colombian side, a recent poll shows that a majority of Colombians favor U.S. intervention. "Pastrana has shown that he doesn't know how to deal with this situation," said Diego Bedoya Hurtado, a Bogota accountant. "Only the Americans are going to be able to get us out of this mess." As the conflict deepens, the situation for ordinary Colombians has grown worse. At least 35,000 people have been killed over the past decade, and more than 1.5 million people, most of them peasants, have been forced to leave their homes. In addition, at least 2 percent of Colombia's 40 million people, some 800,000 mostly middle-class people, have left the country since 1996, most for the United States. Investors are also fleeing in the face of extortion demands by guerrilla and paramilitary groups, and unemployment is at a record rate of one worker in five after a recession that shrank the economy by more than 5 percent last year. While the United States is determined to diminish the flow of cocaine and heroin into U.S. cities, especially with an election upcoming, it does not want to be pulled into what could only be a long, bloody and expensive campaign in Latin America's longest-running guerrilla war. All told, U.S. aid to Colombia has grown by 3,500 percent since 1993, according to Barry McCaffrey, the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and a former commander of U.S. military forces in Latin America. That makes Colombia the largest recipient of U.S. aid outside the Middle East, even without the additional equipment and training programs under discussion. Washington clearly hopes that a sizable one-time injection of new aid will prove sufficient for the Colombian government to regain the upper hand. But Fernando Cepeda Ulloa, a former minister of the interior and ambassador to the United States, was speaking for many Colombians, and some Americans, when he recently suggested that a pair of fundamental questions remain. "Is the elimination of narcotics trafficking the key to achieving peace, or is the achievement of peace necessary to the elimination of narcotics?" he asked. "That is a dilemma that has to be analyzed and contemplated." - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D