LATINS POINT TO U.S. HYPOCRISY IN WAR ON DRUGS

In much of Latin America, outrage is growing over Clinton's pardons,
which are seen by many as an example of the hypocrisy of the U.S. war
on drugs.

While during his time in office Clinton demanded harsh punishment for
drug traffickers abroad and even revoked the U.S. visas of foreign
officials suspected of having received contributions from drug lords,
such as former Colombian President Ernesto Samper, his pardons showed
a soft spot for U.S. drug traffickers.

More than half of the 34 convicted criminals whose sentences were
commuted by Clinton in the final days of his presidency were drug
traffickers who faced long prison terms, according to a review of
their cases by El Nuevo Herald's Gerardo Reyes.

Some of the beneficiaries of Clinton's leniency are well known.
Harvey Weinig, an American lawyer sentenced in 1996 to 11 years in
prison for laundering tens of millions of dollars from Colombia's
Cali cartel, had his sentence reduced to just under six years. He is
scheduled to be released from federal prison April 16.

Weinig's case has created an uproar in Colombia, where many people
saw him as one of the few American drug lords ever caught in the
United States. How would the American public react if a Colombian
president commuted the sentence of a major Colombian drug baron?,
Colombians ask.

``There is a feeling of anger, because the same President Clinton who
used to punish President Samper and other Colombians for alleged
contacts with drug traffickers now uses his presidential powers to
pardon convicted drug traffickers,'' former Colombian President
Alfonso Lopez Michelsen said in an interview this week.

Latin American critics of U.S. drug policies already cried foul when
a U.S. judge last year gave a five-year prison sentence to Laurie
Hiett, the wife of U.S. Army colonel assigned to the U.S. Embassy in
Bogota, who used her husband's diplomatic status to ship $700,000
worth of drugs to the United States. Colombians saw the sentence as
light compared with those given to Colombians in similar situations.

Then there's the case of former President Samper, whose U.S. visa was
revoked in 1996 over reports that his presidential campaign had
received drug cartel contributions.

That same year, the Clinton administration had revoked the visa of
former Colombian prosecutor Gustavo de Greiff, for a letter he wrote
allegedly defending a Medellin cartel drug smuggler. As opposed to
Weinig, neither Samper nor de Greiff had been convicted of any crime
in their country.

The biggest double standard, of course, is that the United States
teaches lessons to the world about fighting drugs, yet remains by far
the biggest drug consuming nation in the world.

The bottom line is that, whatever you think of Clinton's pardons,
they definitely sent the wrong message abroad.