DATE=8/24/1999
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=DRUG WAR IN COLOMBIA
NUMBER=5-44125
BYLINE=ED WARNER
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: The United States is stepping up its aid to
Colombia to combat the combined forces of Marxist
guerillas and narcotic traffickers, whose growing
power threatens the state. America is also threatened
by the cocaine pouring in from Colombia, some seventy
per cent of the total that reaches the country. But
critics say given the heavy demand for illicit drugs
in the United States, trying to eliminate the supply
is futile and leads to further destabilization of
Colombia. V-O-A's Ed Warner reports.
TEXT: Some 300 American soldiers, CIA operatives and
drug enforcement agents are now in Colombia to try to
stop the cocaine flooding into the United States. So
far in this mission against narco-guerrillas, eight
Americans have died in surveillance plane crashes.
More casualties are likely as the U-S mission expands.
Colombia is the third largest recipient of American
aid after Israel and Egypt, and there are proposals to
double that amount. Yet it hardly compares to the
estimated 600-million dollars a year that the
guerrilla movement known as FARC (Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia) gains from the drug trade. The
group is said to have more automatic weapons than the
Colombian army.
Nor is there any sign of cutting back cocaine
production despite U-S and Colombian efforts to
eradicate it. Reports say areas of coca cultivation
have increased by 50-percent in the last two years.
Andy Messing, Executive Director of the National
Defense Council Foundation, served in the U-S Special
Forces in Vietnam and Central America and has traveled
extensively in Colombia. He believes too little U-S
help has allowed the narco-guerrillas on the left to
challenge the government, which also must cope with a
paramilitary force on the right.
Mr. Messing says the United States must offer aid and
advice to the Colombian government and insist on
reforms that will satisfy some of the rebels' demands
for social justice. At the same time, he says, FARC
must be deprived of its income by eradication of the
coca fields:
/// FIRST MESSING ACT ///
If you do not attempt to reduce supply, then you
have incredible volumes beyond demand coming
into the United States, which creates a new
level of demand in the United States. So you
have to address both demand side and supply
side. The best you can ever hope for is making
it hard to get and very expensive to get, and
that drives down some of the demand. You can
never win against drugs, but what you can do is
reduce it to its lowest manageable level.
/// END ACT ///
If supply is not reduced, says Mr. Messing, a
narco-sovereignty could be established in Colombia,
putting the drug dealers effectively in control.
Mexico would not be far behind in his opinion, and the
rest of the hemisphere would be endangered.
Mr. Messing says the previous guerrillas in the region
were motivated by communism, but today's rebels
reflect a predatory capitalism:
// SECOND MESSING ACT //
Dark-side capitalism is ten times worse than
Communism ever was because it lends a distinct
level of strength to their operation that
Communism never had. Communism was not a
successful economic model. Dark-side capitalism,
which is dictatorial and monopolistic and favors
a hedonistic, narcissistic ruling elite, has its
own perverse momentum.
/// END ACT ///
Ethan Nadelmann is Director of the Lindesmith Center,
a drug policy institute in New York. He is skeptical
of U-S efforts to eradicate cocaine in Colombia. If
production is suppressed in one area, it moves to
another:
/// FIRST NADELMANN ACT ///
If you look at the last seventy to eighty years
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