EXPERT SAYS DRUG TRADE FEEDS COLOMBIA VIOLENCE

URBANA - Before Colombia can end the violence that plagues the
country, it must end its drug trade, and that means ending the demand
for illegal drugs in the United States, says a former Colombian
government official who's at the University of Illinois this week.

"That's what supports the guerrillas and the paramilitary forces,"
said Alfonso Lopez Caballero, who until recently was a member of the
Colombian government's 2-year-old peace commission negotiating with
the guerrillas in the country. "As long as there is no solution for
the drug problem, in one way or another we're going to have to contend
with unbearable amounts of violence."

Lopez Caballero has served as interior minister and ambassador for
Colombia and held other government posts. He is at the UI for the 12th
biennial conference of the Association of Colombianists, at which
academics, artists and government officials will discuss issues of
cultural significance to Colombia, including politics, the arts and
literature.

Colombia has been engaged in a 37-year-old civil war with rebel
groups. Lopez Caballero said the United States has become one of the
main players in that war.

"It's where the drugs are sold and where the money comes from that
feeds all these violent groups," he said. "It has allowed them to grow
so fast over the last 10 years. On the other hand, the U.S. is helping
the government to suppress these groups with advice and funds.
Colombia is a theater for a war in which America is one of the main
players on both sides, directly and indirectly. In the meantime,
Colombia is coming to pieces."

Lopez Caballero said guerrillas make money by being paid by drug
dealers to organize peasants and to provide protection from the
government for drug labs and airstrips.

"They are classic communist guerrillas from another age, from the
1950s," Lopez Caballero said. "You would have thought they would be
left without support for their existence after the fall of communism,
but drugs have amply compensated. But they are not gangsters. They are
basically armed politicians with a radical view of the world - pure
Marxists/Leninists. They even call each other 'comrade.'"

Lopez Caballero said the war, while fought mostly in isolated rural
areas, has reduced the authority of the government and undermined the
judicial system. He said the nation's stability is important to more
than just Colombians.

"This is not a national or local issue," he said. "It is really a
problem that concerns the whole international community. It is partly
because of the international community that we have the problem. The
problem is not only civil war, but the devastation of the rain forest
and the human rights violations that are a part of life there."

Lopez Caballero said spraying drug crops has driven growers farther
into the rain forest and they're destroying the forest by burning it
to clear areas to grow coca. Rivers are being polluted by the
chemicals sprayed on the plants, he said, and about 3 million people,
or 10 percent of Colombia's population, have been displaced because of
the violence.

"It was a dynamic, vibrant country going forward with a very well-
managed economy," Lopez Caballero said "The people are very
hardworking. But the fact is, unless some of the fundamentals of the
situation change, there is no dynamic impulse toward peace."