Pubdate: Fri, 07 Sep 2001
Source: Houston Chronicle (TX)
Copyright: 2001 Houston Chronicle
Contact:  http://www.chron.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/198
Author: John Otis
Page: Front Page

COLOMBIA CALLS FOR DRUG WAR SUMMIT

Leader Says U.S. Partly To Blame

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Frustrated by the drug war's cost in lives and dollars, 
President Andres Pastrana on Thursday called for an international 
conference to draw a new blueprint for the fight against illegal narcotics.

"I think the moment has arrived to evaluate the world's anti-drug 
policies," the Colombian leader said. He added that everything from cocaine 
and heroin consumption in the United States to the controversial policy of 
aerial fumigation of drug crops in Colombia should be debated.

"We should sit down to listen and look at what has happened over the past 
12 years," Pastrana said, referring to a drug summit held in Cartagena, 
Colombia, in 1990. Colombians "cannot always be the ones paying the price 
in the fight against narcotics trafficking."

During a 40-minute interview with foreign journalists at the national 
palace in Bogota, Pastrana, whose four-year term ends next August, defended 
his efforts to end Colombia's 37-year war with Marxist rebels. The 
Colombian leader hinted that he will maintain a Switzerland-sized sanctuary 
in the southern part of the country that he gave the rebels in 1998 to 
promote peace negotiations.

Pastrana's comments came amid growing concern here that the peace process 
is breaking down and that U.S.-backed efforts to wipe out drug production 
are not working.

Secretary of State Colin Powell will visit Colombia next Tuesday and 
Wednesday to discuss the civil war and outline the Bush administration's 
plan for anti-drug and development aid for the region. Plan Colombia, 
Pastrana's anti-drug initiative, is financed by $1.3 billion in U.S. aid. 
The Bush administration has requested an additional $880 million in 
assistance, about half of which would go to Colombia.

Pastrana insisted that anti-drug campaigns in Colombia are bound to fail as 
long as Americans and Europeans continue to consume large quantities of 
cocaine and heroin.

"The drug problem, for the most part, is caused by demand, and if there is 
no control over demand, we can do nothing," Pastrana said.

Despite two decades of costly crackdowns here and the loss of thousands of 
lives in the fight against narco-traffickers, drug production continues to 
expand in Colombia, which supplies 90 percent of the cocaine and most of 
the heroin sold on U.S. streets.

A growing number of prominent Colombians, however, are calling for an end 
to the policy of using police crop-dusting aircraft to fumigate coca and 
opium poppies, the raw materials for cocaine and heroin. They argue that 
the herbicides damage the environment and cause illness among peasant drug 
farmers.

Others critics, including a Colombian senator and the head of Pastrana's 
Conservative Party, have gone even further by calling for the legalization 
of drugs.

But Pastrana gave no indication that he would halt the fumigation program, 
and he sidestepped a question about drug legalization.

At the February 1990 summit in Cartagena, the leaders of the United States, 
Colombia, Peru and Bolivia pledged to wage a unified fight against 
narcotics trafficking. Then-President George Bush, who attended the 
meeting, called the alliance the "first anti-drug cartel."

Pastrana said a new conference of world leaders should address issues 
ranging from fumigation to money laundering to trafficking in the chemicals 
used to make drugs to the demand for narcotics.

"There were so many things that were not discussed in the beginning that 
today are becoming important issues," he said.

Pastrana suggested that President Bush should take the lead in organizing 
the conference.

The Colombian leader also downplayed speculation that the Bush 
administration may be inclined to get more involved in Colombia's guerrilla 
war.

So far, U.S. military aid, which includes troop training provided by the 
Army's Green Berets as well as dozens of helicopters, has been geared 
toward fighting drug traffickers.

But the line between counter-drug and counterinsurgency aid often blurs 
because Colombian rebels earn millions of dollars annually by taxing and 
protecting drug farmers and traffickers.

"Does the United States want another Central America? I don't think so," 
Pastrana said, referring to U.S. involvement in counter-insurgency 
campaigns in Nicaragua and El Salvador in the 1980s. "I don't think any 
country in the world wants to get involved in our war, which is why we have 
to strengthen the peace process."

Pastrana, 47, a former TV newsman, senator and Bogota mayor, was elected in 
1998. But his term has been marred by an economic recession and his failure 
to produce concrete advances in the peace process.

His government opened talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of 
Colombia, or FARC, in January 1999 and began an informal dialogue with the 
National Liberation Army, a smaller rebel group known by its Spanish 
acronym, ELN.

Pastrana granted the FARC a 16,200-square-mile haven, known in Spanish as 
the despeje, to hold peace talks. But progress has been excruciatingly 
slow. Talks with the ELN were suspended last month. And both the FARC and 
the ELN continue to clash with army troops, kidnap civilians and blow up 
oil pipelines.

What's more, the FARC has used the sanctuary to cultivate drug crops and 
stash kidnapping victims. As a result, many Colombians have soured on the 
peace process and are calling on the government to retake the rebels' 
territory.

In a stark reminder of the violence, Jairo Rojas, a Colombian legislator 
who was vice president of the peace committee in the House of 
Representatives, was shot and killed Wednesday night in the garage of his 
apartment building in Bogota.

Rojas helped set up the first meeting between Pastrana and FARC leader 
Manuel Marulanda in July 1998, shortly before Pastrana took office. Rojas 
took over a leadership role on the peace committee after its former 
chairman, Diego Turbay, was shot and killed by suspected FARC rebels last 
December.

In the interview, Pastrana insisted that progress has been made toward 
peace and pointed out that canceling the rebel-held sanctuary would only 
intensify the war.

Pastrana pointed out that FARC and government teams have agreed on a 
12-point negotiating agenda and that international observers are monitoring 
the talks. He said that his goal is to leave behind an "irreversible" peace 
process for the next president.

"I don't know if I am too optimistic," he said, "but if we put things into 
context, much has been accomplished."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart