Pubdate: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 Source: Miami Herald (FL) Copyright: 1999 The Miami Herald Contact: http://www.herald.com/ Forum: http://krwebx.infi.net/webxmulti/cgi-bin/WebX?mherald Author: Andres Oppenheimer COLOMBIA COCA CULTIVATION HAS SKYROCKETED, U.S. DRUG CZAR SAYS But Peru, Bolivia have helped curb cocaine production, U.S. drug czar says While world drug production is declining, new CIA crop estimates show a phenomenal increase of coca cultivation in Colombia, White House drug czar Barry McCaffrey announced Thursday. Coca production rose 26 percent in Colombia last year, McCaffrey said. "This is a massive, strategic shift of cocaine production out of Bolivia and Peru, and into Colombia," he said. Surveying drug trafficking throughout the hemisphere, McCaffrey said he does not believe the Cuban government is involved in drug smuggling, but he speculated that Cuba may become a major drug transit point in a post-Fidel Castro era. Addressing a group of academics and diplomats at the University of Miami, the head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy said efforts to curb drug production overseas have paid off, thanks to the anti-cocaine drive by the Peruvian and Bolivian governments. "Cocaine production in South America has plummeted," he said. "Between 1995 and 1998, coca cultivation has declined by 56 percent in Peru and 22 percent in Bolivia." The problem is that Colombia's coca production "has exploded," offsetting the successes elsewhere in the Andean region, McCaffrey said, citing previously classified CIA crop estimates that he suggested will be made public periodically. The new figure is almost certain to exacerbate a debate in Congress between conservative Republicans and the Clinton administration over how to deal with Colombia, congressional sources and academics say. Congressional critics of the administration are demanding a massive increase in U.S. aid to Colombia's anti-narcotics forces and fear that Colombian President Andres Pastrana's decision to withdraw the army from a sizable rebel-held territory as part of his peace initiative with leftist guerrillas will turn out to be a blessing for drug traffickers. Asked about the newly demilitarized zones, McCaffrey said that "it is not a major coca-producing region," although he conceded "there is clearly a risk" that it may become one. Congressional critics say the area, stretching from the south of Bogota to almost the Ecuadorean border, harbors major cocaine laboratories. But McCaffrey conceded that, while he supports Pastrana's peace plan, he is skeptical about the guerrillas' sincerity. In a later interview with The Herald, he added that rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia are making $600 million a year from drug protection, kidnappings and bank robberies. "Why would they stop?" he asked. On drug trafficking through the Caribbean, McCaffrey identified Haiti and the Dominican Republic as major transit routes, but said Cuba is not a major problem yet. U.S. intelligence services have detected drug flights carrying up to one ton of cocaine a month over Cuban territory, "taking advantage of Cuba's vulnerabilities. The Cubans have almost no capability right now to operate in their own coastal waters or airspace. Their radars don't work," he said. "We have no evidence, nor personally do I believe, that the Cuban government itself is involved in any way in drug smuggling, nor do I believe that it is yet a major threat to the United States," he added. "Having said that, [I think] it will be [a threat]. You know, at some point, we won't have an aging communist dictatorship in Cuba. They are the most energetic people in the world. Cuba will be open within five years or whatever, and it will be a major, a logical drug-smuggling route." A University of Miami expert on Latin American drug trafficking, Bruce Bagley, disputed McCaffrey's assertion that coca growers are moving to Colombia because the governments of Peru and Bolivia are doing a good job eradicating the crop. "Production has dropped in Peru and Bolivia because the Colombians have come up with a better variety of coca and because they are closer to the United States," Bagley said. - --- MAP posted-by: Mike Gogulski