COLOMBIA PARAMILITARY CHIEF STRUGGLES TO PLEASE

Carlos Castano must be very confused about the U.S. government. The
chief of the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia is
doing all he can to stay on the gringos' good side. But what you hear in
Washington is that a ceremony is being arranged to place him on the list
of international terrorists, next to his worst enemies, the FARC
guerrillas. It's not unlikely that the anti-drug agencies have prepared
a sealed indictment charging him with drug trafficking.

Castano's disappointment must be huge considering that he and his
brother Fidel have acted as voluntary firemen for the United States
since fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with the Drug Enforcement Agency
against Medellin cartel chief Pablo Escobar and associates.

From that strange -- to some, sinister -- alliance, which the United
States never investigated, emerged a stronger Castano, one who eight
years later is viewed by the U.S. government as a demonic foe of
humanity. It would be interesting if the U.S. ambassador to Colombia,
Anne Patterson, whose artillery is aimed at the paramilitaries, would
step out of her diplomatic bunker to have a cup of coffee with Javier
Pena. He, the current DEA chief in Bogota, knew firsthand of the joint
operations conducted by Los Pepes (People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar)
and the American agencies.

Here are some of the actions that Castano has taken to please the
Americans:

A great many of his close associates are DEA and FBI informers. His
associates travel freely between Colombia and the United States and tell
him how things are in the United States, a country he doesn't
understand.

Less than a year ago, Castano arranged for an unusual meeting at a hotel
in Cartagena de Indias, at which South Florida federal prosecutor
Theresa van Vliet and powerful drug trafficker Hernando Gomez, a k a
Rasguno (Scratch), worked out a plan for Gomez's surrender.

Rasguno, one of the main sponsors of paramilitaries in Norte del Valle,
offered to suspend the shipment of cocaine to the United States and, in
a goodwill gesture, predicted that in three months the price of cocaine
in New York would skyrocket due to the shortage of the drug. The talks
continue.

In the past month, the aerial spraying of herbicide on coca plantations
in Colombia has concentrated on fields held by the paramilitaries, yet
Castano has not uttered a peep. He hasn't even asked why the government
crop-dusters halted the fumigation of guerrilla plantations.

In an interview with El Nuevo Herald in August, Castano said he warned
the narcos who collaborate with his movement that, if they didn't look
for ways to negotiate with U.S. authorities, they would be declared
military targets. A DEA intermediary, Baruch Vega, got several of the
narcos counseled by Castano to sign accords with Washington.

Despite these loving gestures, all Castano has received in return --
over the table, at any rate -- is a peck on the hand from Peter Romero,
the undersecretary of state for hemispheric affairs, who told El Nuevo
Herald that the government of Colombia sooner or later will have to sit
down for talks with the paras.

The problem is that Romero is on his way out and his named successor,
Cuban-American Otto Reich -- an expert in dealing with the Nicaraguan
contras, the paras of the '80s -- is being scrutinized by human-rights
groups already looking into the scandal of manipulation of information
about the civil war in Nicaragua.

Maybe Castano can find an explanation for these slights, if he sits down
one afternoon with some friendly historians to review the subterranean
history of the United States. He would learn that there's not a single
ally in this country's secret past who didn't end up demonized once he
became a public nuisance.

If you need any evidence, call Peruvian spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos,
who had himself photographed with former U.S. anti-drug czar Barry
McCaffrey, or former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, who used to be
George Bush's employee.