A VISIT TO BOGOTA

Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca MP Keith Martin's trip to Colombia last week
was anything but boring.

"It's a very dangerous place, we were in a bullet and bomb-proof
vehicle the whole time there with armed guards," the Canadian Alliance
MP said on the phone from Ottawa about what is was like being escorted
around Bogota, Colombia's capital.

Martin, who is the Alliance's foreign affairs critic for Africa and
Latin America, joined secretary of state and Liberal MP David Kilgour
on the trip to Colombia for two days last week where they sat down
with Colombian president Andres Pastrana and various other officials
and discussed a wide range of topics including foreign trade, the
Colombian drug trade and the ongoing conflict between guerrillas and
the government in that country.

Martin didn't spend the entire two days in Colombia talking to
government officials and examining the country's drug trade.

He points out he also visited a place that is home to a United
Nations-sponsored program that provides assistance to children who are
prostitutes and/or drug addicts.

"You have six-year old girls who are put on the street by their
mothers," says Martin about what he was told by workers at the centre
in downtown Bogota.

He notes he was told one story about young girl who's mother had her
raped by three men before the woman put her daughter on the street to
work as a prostitute so the child could earn money to support her
mother's drug habit. The mother later hired two men to kill her
daughter, who was pregnant at age 12, because she thought her daughter
was going to turn her in to the police, Martin says.

He says the child sex trade in Colombia is big business as it attracts
pedophiles from Europe and North America.

"They actually advertise through the underground to send North
American men and woman to Colombia to have sex with children," says
Martin.

Then there's the turmoil between the Colombian government, the drug
traffickers and the leftist guerrillas.

Martin notes the Canada is currently sponsoring peace talks between
the Colombian government and the guerrillas in an attempt to address
the conflict that has been ravaging that country for decades. He says
Canadians with the Lester Pearson Institute have been showing the
Colombians the mechanics of peacemaking.

And for a good reason.

"This war has been going on for fourty years. It's the bloodiest
conflict in our hemisphere," says Martin, noting that about 80 people
are killed every day in the conflict.

Not only does Colombia have the highest murder rate in North America
and South America, but the country is also the number one cocaine
producer in the world, says Martin. Colombia has also gotten into the
heroin producing business, he notes.

"Now they're producing highly pure heroin and very cheap heroin at $2
a gram," says Martin.

The coke and heroin business in Colombia is controlled by various
players including the cartels, Marxist guerrillas and paramilitary
groups that are hired by wealthy landowners to protect them from the
guerrillas. The paramilitaries are also hired by the Colombian army to
go after the guerrillas. However, says Martin, at the end of the day
the paramilitary organizations wind up killing more peasants.

"They extort, kidnap and murder," he says about the paramilitary
groups' involvement in the Colombian drug trade.

At the Summit of the Americas will be taking place in Quebec City in
April, Martin says he's hoping the dialogue that transpired in
Colombia will be helpful in establishing a commitment from countries
in the Western Hemisphere to effectively deal with the problems
associated with the trafficking and consumption of narcotics and the
money laundering that's part of the illicit drug trade.

Now that Martin has had a look at the Colombian drug trade first hand,
he is putting together a plan that involves what he feels are
solutions to everything from drug consumption to trafficking.

In terms of dealing with the problem of drug abuse, Martin says much
of his plan is based on European models that are aimed at tackling
drug abuse. The plan also covers preventative methods at dealing with
drug abuse that are outlined in the Headstart program that Martin has
been pushing to get implemented for the past few years.

As far as dealing with drug trafficking is concerned, Martin is
calling for the decriminalization of marijuana on the premise that law
enforcement resources would no longer be wasted on going after pot
smokers. Stiffer penalties for drug dealers and giving the judicial
system the power to go after drug traffickers' money and possessions
are also featured in Martin's plan.

At the end of the day, argues Martin, it is crucial that Western
governments make progress in the area of reducing the level of drug
consumption in their countries. After all, he says, simply going after
drug traffickers in places like Colombia isn't going to make the
narcotics trade go away.

"If you eliminated the (drug) production in Colombia it would just
rise up somewhere else," he says.