Pubdate: Tue, 06 Aug 2002 Source: Reuters (Wire) Copyright: 2002 Reuters Limited Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/colombia.htm (Colombia) COLOMBIA'S 1ST FEMALE DEFENSE CHIEF PROMISES WAR BOGOTA, Colombia, Aug. 6 - Nearly 30 years ago, law student Marta Lucia Ramirez was the cover girl of a glossy Colombian magazine, sporting a sundress and smiling for cameras. On Wednesday, she will be sworn in as the first female defense minister in Colombia's history. She pledges to beat into submission the country's 30,000 Marxist rebels and rival paramilitary outlaws. In an interview with Reuters, Ramirez, 47, said she would lead Colombia's armed forces in a ''war without quarter'' against the outlawed fighters and the cocaine industry that is increasingly funding their 38-year-old guerrilla conflict. ''We are going to have a war without quarter against drug trafficking, against the outlawed armies,'' Ramirez said. ''I don't think that the solution can be strictly military. But the solution requires a military component ... that will be (my) responsibility.'' The Harvard-educated Ramirez was tapped by hard-line President-elect Alvaro Uribe to orchestrate a massive military buildup that will strain the budget. Ramirez, who speaks near fluent English, said Uribe picked her largely because of her experience juggling government budgets. It was also her extensive diplomatic and business contacts as foreign trade minister and, most recently, ambassador to France, that she said got her the job. She will direct plans to virtually double Colombia's contingent of 210,000 soldiers and police, taking back vast swaths of an anarchic Andean nation that produces about 70 percent of the world's cocaine. She sees no division between the drug war and the guerrilla war and promises to step up military strikes against both. ''To end illegal narcotrafficking business in our country, we must finish off the activity of all of the outlawed armies,'' she said. ''We want more aerial eradication ... more interdiction ... and more efficient military action.'' WAR ON TERROR Since Sept. 11, U.S. President George W. Bush has quietly folded Colombia's drug-fueled conflict into his global war on terror. Most important for Ramirez, Washington -- which brands Colombia's outlawed armies ''terrorists'' -- is finally dropping restrictions on the more than $1.5 billion in U.S. anti-narcotics aid so Bogota can use it to fight the rebels. ''I think that what we have done with the U.S. aid so far is given (the country) a smaller dose of antibiotics than what was needed,'' she said. ''But now that all of the additional assistance is arriving ... the antibiotic's power will be much stronger.'' Despite the U.S. aid, Colombia's harvest of coca -- the raw ingredient in cocaine -- has risen, and there have not yet been any cocaine shortages or price hikes on U.S. streets. Part of the reason, Ramirez argues, is that Colombia's military has failed to secure lawless rural areas where coca is grown. It strikes at the rebel positions and is quickly called away to a new battleground. ''When the military leaves, the guerrillas return to their homes and drug trafficking, and there is this vicious cycle,'' she said. ''We are now going to arrive with the Colombian army, secure the zone, and leave police units there ... so that there is long-term stability.'' Departing her small estate, set on a rural patch of the Andes mountains, Ramirez kisses her daughter goodbye and is driven along winding, rural roads above Bogota. Her chief of security says he is preparing a report recommending she live in the city, where the threat of a rebel ambush is less likely. ''It used to be safe here, but I don't know anymore,'' Ramirez says, with Bogota unfolding out her window in the valley below. Colombia's war has claimed 40,000 lives in the past decade and made it the world's kidnapping capital. ''I know that I'm taking over one of the most difficult jobs in the world.'' When asked if she thought a woman could run Colombia's male-dominated state security forces, Ramirez described the post as ''complicated, difficult,'' but one for which she considered herself ready after a long run in government office. ''I think the military has it perfectly clear that I have a professional trajectory, that I have credibility and respect,'' she said. ''There will need to be a cooperative relationship (with the military), a relationship of mutual respect, and obviously also a relationship of subordination.'' - --- MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk