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  Some Doubt Ochoa Case Legacy
Posted by FoM on September 08, 2001 at 16:19:21 PT
By Michael Easterbrook, Associated Press Writer  
Source: Associated Press 

justice The extradition of reputed drug boss Fabio Ochoa to Miami - seen as a victory for U.S. drug agents - won't put a dent into the world's flourishing cocaine trade, Colombia's top anti-drug lawman said Saturday.

``There are millions of consumers and thousands of people willing to supply that demand,'' Gen. Gustavo Socha, head of Colombia's anti-narcotics police, said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Ochoa, who arrived in Miami early Saturday to face trial, was a leading member of the Medellin cocaine cartel, which waged a war of terrorism in the 1980s and early 1990s to pressure the Colombian government to bar extraditions to the United States.

The Medellin cartel had moved amateurish smuggling operations into the big leagues, delivering tons of cocaine to the United States by plane. But the cartel's heyday ended when its top leader, Pablo Escobar, was shot dead by police in 1993. The smuggling landscape has since changed dramatically, with no single gang being dominant.

The rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and their right-wing paramilitary foes control the production of cocaine by protecting and taxing farmers who grow cocaine-producing crops and clandestine processing labs.

The purified cocaine is then picked up by various smuggling groups for shipment abroad. The system works well: Colombia has for years supplied more than 80 percent of the world's cocaine. Despite strong cooperation in anti-drug efforts by President Andres Pastrana's government, no one has managed to break the country's domination of the trade.

U.S.-backed anti-drug efforts, which will be examined by Secretary of State Colin Powell during a visit to Bogota next Tuesday and Wednesday, have had only mixed success.

A decade ago, the extradition of Ochoa would have provoked a terrorist backlash. Today, few expect a violent reaction.

``It would be very stupid for these narco-terrorists to do that,'' Socha said. ``The courts have bent over backward to accommodate Ochoa's legal rights.''

Still, the State Department warned Americans in Colombia to take safety precautions. The last attack thought to be in response to the government's extradition policy was in November 1999 when a bomb in Bogota exploded, killing eight bystanders.

Some Colombians are upset that Ochoa, who is accused of belonging to a gang that smuggled 30 tons of cocaine a month, was taken away for trial in the United States.

``Every person has a right to be tried in their own country,'' said Giovanna Debia, while shopping at an upscale mall in Bogota.

Ochoa's sister, Martha Nieves Ochoa, said the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration made up the charges in reprisal for his refusal to work as an undercover agent following his release from a Bogota prison in 1996.

``My brother emphatically refused to be part of that dirty game and is now paying the price,'' Martha Nieves Ochoa said in a telephone interview from Medellin, the home of the Ochoa clan. Two of Ochoa's brothers were also members of the Medellin cartel, and served time in a Colombian prison.

In 1991, Fabio Ochoa was the first major Colombian trafficker to surrender in return for a promise that he would not be extradited. But U.S. prosecutors say Ochoa resumed transporting cocaine after leaving a Colombian jail in 1996.

He was arrested in 1999 along with dozens of other suspected traffickers in a joint DEA-Colombian police operation.

U.S. anti-drug efforts are focused mainly on the fumigation of crops of coca and of poppy, from which cocaine and heroin are made. Pastrana said last week that U.S. aid in the interdiction of drug smuggling flights should be resumed. The program was suspended in April following the accidental shooting down of a U.S. missionary flight over neighboring Peru.

U.S. radar stations and radar-equipped aircraft form a web through which planes cannot move without being spotted. Once the radar picks up the planes, the information is passed to Peruvian and Colombian air force planes that then intercept the drug-smuggling aircraft.

Pastrana also called for a review of the global anti-drug strategy, saying its victories have been few.

Source: Associated Press
Author: Michael Easterbrook, Associated Press Writer
Published: Saturday, September 8, 2001
Copyright: 2001 Associated Press

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