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Drug War Revised In Colombia
Pubdate: Mon, 4 Feb 2002
Source: Washington Times (DC)
Page: 1
Copyright: 2002 News World Communications, Inc
Contact: http://www.washtimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/492
Author: Rowan Scarborough
DRUG WAR REVISED IN COLOMBIA
The Bush administration plans to increase the U.S. military's involvement
in training Colombian security forces to fight drug traffickers, but it
will keep Americans out of combat, officials said.
The Pentagon and State Department are debating the size and scope of a
follow-up to the Clinton administration's "Plan Colombia," which is
consuming $1.3 billion in U.S. aid. The new program would be dubbed
"Colombia: The Way Ahead" and would earmark up to $1 billion for training
Colombian security forces and eradicating the coca crop from which cocaine
is processed. The plan could be sent to Congress later this month.
The United States would help establish a second Colombian anti-narcotics
brigade and also train local troops in protecting the country's vital - and
often targeted - oil pipelines. Rebels dynamited one pipeline from an
Occidental Petroleum-run oil field near the Venezuelan border more than 140
times last year, the Associated Press reported from Santa Isabel, Colombia.
The sabotage cost the government and the company $400 million.
"Security is the biggest single constraint to American foreign investment
in Colombia," said U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson, who U.S. officials say
is urging the State Department to increase military aid and training to the
South American country.
The emerging proposal also calls for increased intelligence-sharing with
Bogota. This would include intercepted communications and satellite
photographs, U.S. officials said.
The new push in the war on drugs comes as some in the Bush administration
view Plan Colombia as a failure. They say the policy has not made a dent in
drug traffickers' capacity to produce cocaine. Colombia provides 90 percent
of the cocaine that reaches U.S. territory.
In fact, U.S. officials said, an upcoming CIA-State Department report will
show that Colombia produced a record coca crop last year. The
administration reported 336,400 cultivated acres of coca for 2000, up from
303,000 acres in 1999.
Critics in and outside the government contend that more anti-drug money and
increased U.S. advisers are not the solution. They say that as long as
Colombian President Andres Pastrana follows a policy of negotiating with,
instead of fighting, guerrilla armies involved in illegal drugs, the
trafficking will continue.
According to a U.S. military officer, "The problems in Colombia are not
going to be solved with another brigade or training to protect pipelines.
The only way to get at the problem is to target the organizations that
target the pipeline and protect the drug labs. The story in Colombia is not
what we are doing, but what we are not doing."
In Colombia, the government has ceded chunks of territory and is
negotiating with two left-wing insurgent groups whom the State Department
lists as terrorist organizations. They are the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN). Both are heavily
involved in the narcotics trade. The largest rightwing anti-FARC group is
the United Self-Defense Groups of Colombia.
Robert Maginnis, vice president for policy at the Family Research Council
and a retired Army lieutenant colonel, said that President Bush's war
against terrorism presents the right time to change policy and start
targeting FARC and ELN. A key tenet of Mr. Bush's global anti-terror
campaign is that there is no distinction between states that harbor
terrorists and terrorist groups themselves.
"The president has made it very clear," Mr. Maginnis said. "If you harbor
terrorists or provide sanctuary, as President Pastrana has done in Colombia
for whatever reason, you're as guilty as the terrorists themselves. ... We
haven't been nearly as aggressive as we ought to be down there."
Several U.S. officials say the Colombian military is ready to fight in
trying to end a 40-year FARC effort to overthrow the democratic government
Mr. Maginnis added: "You have to go after FARC. Keep in mind this was a
guerrilla organization that was communist that has metamorphised itself
into an international terrorist group with white-collar operations that
ship drugs into North America and Europe."
U.S. officials say the practice of aerial spraying of coca fields has not
met its goals. One problem is that private, contracted pilots are often
afraid to fly over territory controlled
by well-armed narcotics traffickers.
The Bush administration's plan will rely heavily on Army Special Forces, or
Green Berets, attached to the 7th Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg, N.C.
Sources said there are no plans to have the Green Berets, used extensively
in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban and al Qaeda network, directly enter
Colombia's long-running war against drug cartels.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is said to be skeptical about the idea
of getting the U.S. military deeply involved in anti-drug operations.
The new U.S. plan would include the transfer of American military
equipment. Earlier this month, Mrs. Patterson handed over 14 Black Hawk
helicopters to the Colombian army as part of "Plan Colombia."
"We will continue to work together to liberate Colombia, the region and the
hemisphere from narcotics," Mrs. Patterson said at the ceremony at the
Tloemaida Army Base. She said U.S. aid last year helped Colombia destroy
nearly 60 tons of cocaine.
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