"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 Bogotá, 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 Bogotá 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 Bogotá.

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."

Note: Leader says U.S. partly to blame.

Source: Houston Chronicle (TX)
Author: John Otis, Houston Chronicle South America Bureau
Published: September 6, 2001
Copyright: 2001 Houston Chronicle
Contact: viewpoints@chron.com
Website: http://www.chron.com/

Related Articles & Web Site:

Colombia Drug War News
http://freedomtoexhale.com/colombia.htm

Study Points Up Flaws in Drug-Fighting Plan
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10792.shtml

Powell To Travel To Colombia
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10745.shtml

CannabisNews Articles - Plan Colombia
http://cannabisnews.com/thcgi/search.pl?K=plan+colombia

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PS: I'll change your greeting to FoM if I can if not that's alright.

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Thanks, you're all the best!

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-TM

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Before it reduces them further into anarchy. And we play right along.

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To suggest "Plan Colombia",is the brainchild of Pastrana,is like saying
Al Gore invented the internet! or Martha Stewart invented the crackpipe,
or Mr Rogers is responsible for 84% of all meth labs.or that dubya has a
three digit I.Q.

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Bill and Barry are gone now, but most of the congresscritters remain. Have they put the word out to the media that their role in this disaster be sent to the memory hole?

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.."sidestepped the question of legalization..." indeed. Puhleeeeez.

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