Pubdate: Fri, 19 Jan 2001
Source: Houston Chronicle (TX)
Copyright: 2001 Houston Chronicle
Contact:  Viewpoints Editor, P.O. Box 4260 Houston, Texas 77210-4260
Fax: (713) 220-3575
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Author: George F. Will

SEEMS RUMSFELD'S RIGHT ABOUT COLOMBIA

WITH the delicacy of someone seasoned by much experience near the 
summit of government, Donald Rumsfeld has indicated strong skepticism 
about a policy from which this country may reap a bumper crop of 
regrets. Asked about the $1.6 billion -- so far -- undertaking to 
help fight the drug war in Colombia, Rumsfeld said he had not 
formulated an opinion. However, he embroidered his agnosticism with 
thoughts antithetical to the program for which George W. Bush, during 
the campaign, indicated support.

In his confirmation hearing, Rumsfeld, the next secretary of defense, 
said combating illicit drugs is "overwhelmingly a demand problem," 
and added: "If demand persists, it's going to get what it wants. And 
if it isn't from Colombia, it's going to be from someplace else."

Indeed. In authorizing the aid for Colombia, Congress demanded, 
delusionally, the elimination of all of Colombia's coca and opium 
poppy cultivation by 2005. That would almost certainly mean a 
commensurate increase in cultivation in Colombia's neighbors. One 
reason Colombia is the source of nearly 90 percent of the world's 
cocaine and a growing portion of heroin is that U.S. pressure on coca 
and poppy production in countries contiguous to Colombia, especially 
Peru and Bolivia, drove production into Colombia, where coca 
production has increased 140 percent -- to 300,000 acres -- in five 
years.

Now pressure on Colombia is pushing production into Colombia's 
neighbors. The New York Times reports that cocaine processing labs 
have recently been found in Ecuador's Amazon region. This is evidence 
that local peasants, who have crossed the border in recent years to 
work in the cocaine business, are "returning with the drug expertise 
they have acquired in Colombia."

Regarding the use of the U.S. military in policing this region, it is 
depressing to have to say something that should be obvious, but here 
goes: The military's task is to deter war and, should deterrence 
fail, to swiftly and successfully inflict lethal violence on enemies. 
It is difficult enough filling an all-volunteer military with 
motivated warriors without blurring the distinction between military 
service and police work.

The $1.6 billion for Colombia will mostly pay for helicopters that 
Colombia's military will use to attack drug factories and 17,000 
Marxist guerrillas, who are the world's most affluent insurgents. 
They use drug trafficking, taxes on coca production, extortion and 
ransoms -- grossing perhaps as much as $900 million a year -- to wage 
a war now in its fourth decade. The guerrillas also are opposed by 
right-wing paramilitary forces -- 8,000 strong and growing -- that 
are increasingly involved in drug trafficking.

Speaking of narcotics, Colombia has a "peace process" with a familiar 
asymmetry: Colombia's government wants to tame the guerrillas with a 
peace agreement; the guerrillas want to topple the government. 
Colombia's government is creating a second demilitarized zone in the 
country, this one for the second-largest guerrilla group to use as a 
haven during peace talks. But The Washington Post reports that since 
the first such haven was created two years ago for the largest 
guerrilla group, that group has used it "to increase drug 
cultivation, stage military offensives, train new recruits and hold 
more than 450 soldiers and police officers captive in open-air pens."

Kidnapping has become industrialized in Colombia, and assassins can 
be hired for "a few pesos," according to Brian Michael Jenkins. 
Writing in The National Interest quarterly, Jenkins, an analyst of 
political violence and international crime, says Colombia's 30,000 
murders unrelated to war translate into 100 deaths per 100,000 
Colombians, a rate which in the United States would mean 250,000 
murders a year.

Colombia, Jenkins says, is a combination success story and tragedy. 
The unemployment rate is 20 percent, and will go higher if defoliants 
and other anti-drug efforts put small growers and processors out of 
business. But Colombia has Latin America's fourth-largest economy and 
one of its highest literacy rates. It has 40 flourishing universities 
and has never defaulted on its debts. Yet a Gallup Poll reveals that 
40 percent of Colombians have considered emigrating and 60 percent 
know someone who has emigrated in the last two years.

Colombia's drug-related agonies are largely traceable to U.S. cities. 
Although one-third of Colombia's cocaine goes to Europe, America's 
annual $50 billion demand is a powerful suction pulling in several 
hundred tons of cheaply made, easily transportable and staggeringly 
profitable substances. Here is the arithmetic of futility: About 
one-third of cocaine destined for the United States is interdicted, 
yet the street price has been halved in the last decade of fighting 
the drug war on the supply side.

- --------------------------------------------------- Will is a 
Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist, based in Washington, D.C.
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MAP posted-by: Kirk Bauer