DATE=11/10/1999
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=COLOMBIA DRUGS
NUMBER=5-44743
BYLINE=RHODA METCALFE
DATELINE=
INTERNET=YES
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: Colombia has struggled for decades with drug
mafias. Its reputation as a source of high quality
cocaine -- and more recently heroin -- remains
legendary. For years the U-S government rejected
Colombia's assertion that it was doing all it could to
fight drugs. But times are changing. Rhoda Metcalfe
reports from Bogota that the days of the all-powerful
Colombian mafias seem to be over
TEXT:
/// SPANISH NEWS CLIP FADES UNDER ///
When news reports in Colombia recently announced the
capture of a major drug trafficker, Colombia's police
chief Jose Serrano said the best evidence against the
suspect was close ties to Mexican drug lords.
/// SERRANO SPANISH ACT FADES UNDER ///
General Serrano says, the man has excellent
connections with the Mexican drug traffickers. He
says that is critical, because as everyone knows,
without those Mexican connections, Colombian drug
traffickers cannot move the drugs directly into the
United States.
General Serrano's words were a sign of how far
Colombian drug dealers have fallen since the days of
the infamous Colombian drug mafias -- which once ruled
the drug world. Today, Colombian drug lords have
become the middle men.
/// SFX SIRENS, BOMB, SIRENS ///
Bombings were commonplace in the heyday of Pablo
Escobar and the Medellin drug cartel. In the early
90's, their campaign of terror killed thousands of
Colombians and successfully forced the government to
back away from extraditing drug lords.
Economic analysts estimate that during the Escobar
years, five to six percent of Colombia's G-D-P was
drug money -- close to the combined value of
Colombia's oil and coffee - the country's two top
exports.
With the slaying of Escobar in 1993, the Cali drug
cartel took over. A subtler mafia, the Cali drug lords
gained control by bribing Colombian politicians.
The corruption even tainted the election of former
President Ernesto Samper.
/// SAMPER SPANISH ACT FADES UNDER ///
Mr. Samper was accused of winning the presidency with
the backing of six million dollars from the Cali
cocaine cartel. The Supreme Court cleared him, but
the United States revoked his American visa, saying it
had evidence of his links to traffickers.
The power of Colombia's drug mafias finally began to
unravel three years ago, with the arrest of the
Rodriguez-Orejuela brothers, the leaders of the Cali
cartel. This time, there was no new mafia to take
their place. Sergio Uribe is an independent researcher
who has worked with international anti-drug
organizations. He explains that a bunch of small
Colombian players moved in to take over the cocaine
processing.
/// FIRST URIBE ACT ///
Before we might have had maybe 10 to 20 people
who controlled 60 or 70 percent of the
cristalization -- that is the production of
cocaine from base to cocaine. Today we might
have 200.
/// END ACT ///
The Colombians lost the most lucrative end of the
business -- the distribution routes into the United
States. They were taken over by Mexican traffickers
who had the advantage of contacts in large Mexican
neighborhoods established in the big U-S cities.
/// SFX CASH REGISTER ///
The amount of drug money circulating in Colombia is
now believed to be about half what it was at its peak
-- about two or three percent of G-D-P. The drug
dealers who remain downplay their wealth. They've
learned. The opulent style of former drug lords was
often the key to their downfall.
/// OPT ///
Analyst Sergio Uribe points to a recently publicized
arrest of a Cali drug dealer who was thought it wise
to live in a middle-class neighborhood.
/// SECOND URIBE ACT ///
Of course, the news media forgot to mention that
the house was basically bulletproof. Had been
totally armored. But he was living there, that's
very low profile. He ran around in a taxi. Ten
years ago the guy would have gone around in a
Mercedes Benz and had 20 bodyguards.
/// END ACT ///
/// END OPT ///
And after the scandal surrounding former President
Samper and many other high-ranking Congressmen and
bureaucrats, it has become harder for drug lords to
get Colombian politicians into their pocket [bribe
them]. Analyst Juan Jose Echavarria of the private
economic research group known as FEDESARROLLO says
politicians are increasingly wary.
/// FIRST ECHAVARRIA ACT ///
It is true that drugs corrupted many people, but
it is also true that many of these people ended
in jail. So if you are in politics, you had
better think again. You had better think twice
if you go into the drug business or work with
these people
/// END ACT ///
Colombia's justice system continues to make regular
arrests of bureaucrats allegedly corrupted by drug
money. New controls over banking and taxation are
making money-laundering slightly more difficult --
pushing some traffickers to move their money to safer
places, often in the Caribbean. Analyst Echavarria
points out that the new generation of small-scale
traffickers has learned to operate like modern
businessmen.
/// SECOND ECHAVARRIA ACT ///
They put their money in or out as any legal
activity puts the money in. When it is
profitable to send the money out they do it,
when it is profitable to bring it in, they do
it. And that depends on interest rates and
expectation of devaluation. I mean they are as
rational as every other guy in the country is.
/// END ACT ///
That makes them all the more difficult to track. Drug
profits move as fluidly around the world as investment
capital. And Colombia's drug traffickers, despite
their nasty reputation, are becoming less and less
significant actors in the increasingly complex world
of the drug trade. (Signed)
Neb/rm/gm
10-Nov-1999 15:24 PM EDT (10-Nov-1999 2024 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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