The Colombian Drug Quagmire
Colombia is on the brink of anarchy, largely because of the U.S.-sponsored drug war.

By Don North

For a Washington journalist, traveling to Colombia to attempt an understanding of the drug war is like being Alice stepping through the looking glass. It looks very different from a Colombian perspective.

From that perspective, it is the "demand" countries -- like the United States -- that provide the market for drugs, sell the precursor chemicals necessary to process the drugs, encourage the banks through which the proceeds are being laundered and also sell the guns and helicopters with which Colombians are killing each other.

Journalist Juan Salas, writing in the Bogota daily newspaper El Tiempo, mirrors Colombian public opinion. Although he may have an exaggerated concept of market prices, his commentaries complaining of U.S. drug war hypocrisy are well received: "A kilo of cocaine fetches about $2,000 in Colombia. By the time it lands in the U.S., after transportation and bribery costs, it usually sells for $20,000. Then, via a chain of intermediaries, it sells on the streets for the phenomenal sum of $60,000. With $40,000 in profit, the big drug barons are North Americans. We have a few skeletons in our closets to be aware of, but our big neighbor in the North is up to his eyeballs in hypocrisy -- a hypocrisy which we pay for in blood whilst they pick up the dollars."

As a correspondent in Vietnam and El Salvador for many years, I tend to gauge new conflicts in terms of the old ones I have covered. There are some parallels here, to be sure. Colombia feels like Vietnam in the mid-'60s, when the Saigon government held the cities, the Viet Cong controlled the countryside and the U.S. military thought spraying the country with the toxic defoliant Agent Orange was a good idea. It also reminds me of El Salvador in 1980 with its great divide between the rich and the landless poor; inequalities that drove unemployed and hopeless youths to join the guerrilla forces.
However, Colombia is unique. Her problems, which are largely a by-product of the drug war, are deep and complex, and they defy easy comparisons or solutions.

Colombia is on the brink of anarchy and civil war. It is the most violent country in the world. The Colombia Commission of Jurists reports that 6,067 people were killed in 2000 as a result of "socio-political violence" -- an increase of 50 percent over the previous year. The jurists blamed the right-wing forces, paramilitary, Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), for 49 percent of the killings and the leftist guerrillas, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), for an additional 11 percent. Over the past decade an estimated 40,000 Colombians have died violently.

Last year over 3,700 people were abducted by guerrillas, "paras" (paramilitary troops) or thugs who traffic in kidnapped people. That's about 10 a day, a pace that continues even now. This constant conflict has caused two million Colombians to crowd into satanic slums adjacent to the cities to escape rural violence. More and more displaced Colombians arrive in the capital, Bogota, every day. One million of the more affluent have fled to neighboring countries or to the United States.

Yet Colombia is also one of the oldest democracies in the Western Hemisphere, with millions of well-educated and industrious citizens. Its 40 universities are all crowded to overflowing. For much of the last century, Colombia was a model of economic stability and success in Latin America. Although overdue for political and judicial reforms, and in spite of its history of corruption and exploitation by drug lords, Colombia is a much more vibrant and deserving society than any other ally we have tried to help since World War II. Its collapse would unleash a flood of illegal drugs and destitute refugees, spilling the conflict into neighboring states and seriously destabilizing the economy of South America and ultimately the United States.

A weak and ineffective central government has virtually ceded control of Colombia outside the dozen major cities to armed gangs of drug traffickers, leftist guerrillas and rightist paras -- assuring the country's increasing economic deterioration and social disintegration.

World's Leading Producer

In the early 1990s, Colombia was primarily a refining center for coca harvested in Bolivia and Peru. By 1997 Colombia had become the world's largest producer. Peru, once the top producer of coca in the world has, with U.S.-financed repression programs, almost eradicated drug production. In Bolivia, troops fanned out across the country and uprooted coca crops. However, the demand for cocaine did not diminish, and coca cultivation shifted to Colombia.

Seventy percent of Colombia's cocaine production is exported to the United States. State Department figures, considered the most reliable, estimate that in 1999, 520 tons -- 80 percent of the world's production -- left Colombia. Today, United Nations drug officers say the export may have increased to about 700 tons a year. About 200 tons are seized by the authorities, leaving more than 500 tons a year making their way into international drug markets.

Colombia is also the Western Hemisphere's largest producer and distributor of refined heroin. In 1999, State Department estimates showed Colombian poppy cultivation to be 7,500 hectares, a crop capable of producing eight tons of refined heroin.
The U.S. government for the last two years has supported Plan Colombia, described by the State Department as "an integrated strategy to meet the most pressing challenges confronting Colombia today -- promoting the peace process, combating the narcotics industry, reviving the Colombian economy and strengthening the democratic pillars of Colombian society." As part of its $1.3 billion support for the plan, the U.S. provides assistance, including equipment, manpower and training, to the Colombian military and police for its anti-drug efforts. It is these programs that have proven particularly controversial.

Colombian Criticism

There are growing numbers of influential Colombians increasingly opposed to the anti-drug policies sponsored and financed by the United States. Typical is German Martinez, a government official in Putamayo, an area targeted by the plan for anti-drug efforts. He believes the U.S. initiatives show a flawed understanding of the drug trade, which he sees as a troika of grower, dealer and consumer. "The people of North America are not distinguishing between the different links in the chain of narco-trafficking," he says. "The Colombian state should regain autonomy in policy for dealing with coca cultivation, because this plan is not a vision of Bogota, but responds only to the drug and counterinsurgency interests of the United States."

Colombians are also puzzled by Washington's zeal for fumigation of coca and poppy crops while maintaining the suspension of U.S. drug surveillance flights over Peru and Colombia. An investigation is continuing into the incident in April 2001 when an American Baptist missionary and her infant daughter were killed when Peruvian Air Force fighters mistakenly identified the missionary plane as an illegal drug flight. In late November, Colombian President Andres Pastrana complained that Colombian drug smugglers were taking advantage of the ban on U.S. anti-drug flights. Gen. Hector Velasco, the Colombian Air Force commander, said that more than 100 illegal drug planes had passed unhindered through Colombian air space since the suspension was put into effect last year.

It is not easy to intimidate Colombia's coca growers, who are supported by over 30,000 heavily armed guerrillas and paramilitaries. During the pervasive drug wars in the Andes over the past 10 years there has been one very basic yardstick to measure the policy's failure: The price of an ounce of cocaine on the streets of New York has dropped from $100 in 1990 to less than $30 today.

U.S. Focus

The main focus of the U.S. anti-drug initiatives is to combat the cocaine and heroin enterprise by fumigating crops and destroying labs. There is a growing chorus of critics of this approach both within the Colombian government and in the international community. Klaus Nyholm, chief of the United Nations drug control efforts in Colombia, has maps that document over 400,000 acres of coca fields growing today, an increase of about 10 percent despite the U.S.-sponsored eradication efforts.

Nyholm is particularly critical of the crop fumigation offensive. Crops can be replanted within three months of fumigation, and the spraying appears to have driven coca farmers to clearing and cultivating vast new areas of virgin jungle to make up for any losses, he said. It also alienates peasant farmers who grow small plots to survive in a desperate economy. "It's not fair, in our view. The peasants and indigenous people are not criminals," said Nyholm.

The United Nations opposes spraying of peasant plots of fewer than seven acres. It accepts spraying of larger plantations, which the Colombian government claims are run by drug traffickers, but believes all spraying must be monitored for environmental effects. Nyholm has called for an international audit of the cocaine crop-spraying program. "We believe an international and neutral verification is needed," he said. "There's lots of data, but it all comes from people who have an interest in the issue. That's why we need verification, to find out what is true and what is not true."

U.N. figures show no indication that repression at the source has had any impact on the world price of cocaine, as the cost of the leaves represents less than one-half of one percent of the cost of cocaine on the streets of the U.S. and Europe.
A growing chorus of opposition from local governors and politicians is asking why it is necessary to escalate an unwinnable war by adding to the social chaos destroying Colombia in order to save it from growing coca. Four governors from southern Colombian states and two senators in the Colombian Congress recently told a news conference in Washington that the fumigation is ineffective in stemming drug exports, endangers the environment and violates the human rights of Colombian farmers.

Even the official government ombudsman, Eduardo Cifuentes, has demanded suspension of the spraying. He questions the lack of an environmental management plan and accurate information about the effects of the chemicals used in fumigation. Neighboring Ecuador has asked that spraying be kept six miles from its border.

But U.S. and Colombian government authorities say the fumigation will not only continue but increase in the coming months. U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson warned that a halt in fumigation would have what she described as an "immediate and devastating effect on further U.S. support."

In a rare on-the-record statement to journalists in July 2001, she acknowledged that there was far more cocaine and heroin growing in Colombia than previously believed. Although about 135,000 acres of coca has been fumigated, the overall cultivation of coca in Colombia increased by 11 percent. "The pace of fumigation will pick up very dramatically," Patterson said. "We expect drug cultivation to level off in about 18 months." The number of crop-dusting planes in Colombia will more than double over the next year, and there are also plans to outfit some crop dusters with night-vision scopes to enable pilots to spray after dark, when they are less exposed to fire from guerrillas, paramilitaries or farmers who grow coca.

The Aftermath of Sept. 11

The events of Sept. 11 have produced a radical shift in U.S. relations with the world. Colombia is no exception. The Bush administration has indicated it will be even less supportive of the peace process in Colombia, which it believes has not worked. This applies particularly to the demilitarized zone, a Switzerland-sized area of southern Colombia controlled by the FARC, that officials in Washington claim is being used for drug trafficking and training guerrillas.

While the FARC, the AUC and another insurgency group known as the ELN all appear on the State Department's terrorist list, it is clear that the FARC is the principal target of U.S. counterterrorism efforts. Francis Taylor, the State Department's senior counterterrorism official, has commented that Washington's strategy for fighting terrorism in the Western Hemisphere will include "where appropriate, as we are doing in Afghanistan, the use of military power." Taylor left little doubt that "appropriate" targets included the FARC, which he described as "the most dangerous international terrorist group based in this hemisphere."

Colombia-watchers in Washington have differed widely in their assessment of the effects on Colombia of the new international war on terrorism. With official attention focused on Central Asia and the Middle East, Washington is far less likely to get involved in a major effort against the FARC in pursuit of either the drug war or counterinsurgency, some believe. But others say that some Colombian politicians will feel a new urgency to push the peace process forward, while those opposed to the peace process will manipulate the new attitude toward international terrorism to bolster greater counterterrorism and escalate the war.

On Colombia Human Rights Day, Sept. 9, newly appointed U.N. Special Representative for Human Rights Hina Jilani said: "The best way to achieve peace in Colombia lies in the promotion and protection of human rights." Since then the FARC has kidnapped and murdered a popular former minister of culture, Consuelo Araujo, and killed 18 villagers near Tierralta, while the paras have massacred 176 civilians, assassinated two elected representatives and five indigenous leaders.

And the U.N.'s Nyholm has admitted, "As long as the war continues, there is no anti-drug strategy that will have any significant level of success. Peace is the answer."
But the outlook for both peace in Colombia and curtailing the massive drug exports is grim. The guerrillas remain strong and unresponsive to President Pastrana's peace overtures. The FARC has grown rapidly in strength to about 20,000 members on 70 fronts. Control of the demilitarized zone in southern Colombia -- an area given as a condition of negotiations with the Pastrana government -- has given the FARC a major strategic asset. The future of the zone will be a major issue of this year's presidential campaign, which culminates in elections in May. Pastrana is not a candidate.

The paramilitary AUC is quickly becoming the force to reckon with in Colombia's 40-year-old civil war. According to Alfredo Rangel, a military analyst, the paras are growing at an even faster rate than the FARC in power and influence. Last year the paras had an estimated strength of 8,000 troops; it is now estimated at over 11,000. If they continue to grow at the same rate, they will equal the FARC within two years.

Both groups will attempt to boldly demonstrate their power and influence before the presidential elections. Colombian analysts say the U.S. policy of fighting only the drug problem while ignoring the civil war is futile, as guerrillas and paras, flush with money from not only drugs but kidnaping and extortion, gradually take over the country.

As a features writer for the Hongkong China Mail, Don North's first assignment as a war correspondent was in Borneo with the British Royal Marines and Ghurkas fighting Indonesian guerrillas. Since then, he has covered war and terrorism in a variety of locales, including Vietnam, the Middle East and the Balkans, as a cameraman and correspondent for ABC News and NBC News and as an independent filmmaker. Last summer North spent two months in Colombia documenting the drug war for an NBC special and in October 2001 covered the Afghan war with Northern Alliance forces. When not covering international conflict, he lectures on journalism and trains television journalists.