POLITICS AND THE DRUG WAR

U.S. Election Called Key Factor in Colombian Aid

WASHINGTON - Latin American specialists, narcotics experts and
political analysts agree on many of the factors behind President Bill
Clinton's $1.3 billion aid package for Colombia: serious concern over
the persistent U.S. drug problem, an effective sales job by President
Andres Pastrana and real worries about one of the most-troubled Latin
democracies, and by extension, its neighbors.

But several analysts said they also suspected that another factor
played a major role: election-year U.S. politics.

"This is very driven by electoral politics," said Carol Wise, a
political economy professor at Johns Hopkins University who
specializes in the Western Hemisphere and who visited Colombia recently.

She bluntly attributed congressional approval to "all these incumbents
up on the Hill that don't want to look like wimps on drugs" and to Mr.
Clinton's desire for "half-baked" bipartisanship in his final months
in office.

Congress approved the new package with bipartisan support. But the
debate brought sharp questions: Were the chances of stemming the flow
of illicit drugs more than a pipe dream? Was the threat to regional
stability so grave? Or was the United States simply pouring serious
money into a complex situation in a chaotic country where violence is
as deeply rooted as the coca plants that flourish there?

"It's no coincidence that this package was adopted in an election
year," agreed Mathea Falco, a former assistant U.S. secretary of state
for international narcotics matters.

"If you go back and look, a major drug package has passed in the
campaign period leading up to every major election period," said Ms.
Falco, who now heads a nonprofit organization called Drug Strategies,
which seeks ways to deal with the drug problem.

The Clinton administration has portrayed the Colombian stakes in
dramatic terms.

General Charles Wilhelm, who as head of the U.S. Southern Command
oversees anti-drug military operations in Latin America, has warned
that the drug trade is "a corrosive force without precedent,
relentlessly eroding the foundations of democracy in the region,
corrupting public institutions, poisoning youth, ruining economies and
disrupting the social order."

"Colombia," he added, "is the key to the region's stability."

U.S. officials estimate that 90 percent of the cocaine consumed in the
United States originates in or passes through Colombia. They say the
new aid, including military helicopters for aerial eradication of coca
plants, is desperately needed.

Facing such arguments, said Ms. Falco, "very few members of the House
or Senate are willing to say, 'This package doesn't make sense.'
Politicians feel they need to look tough on drugs."

While still in the government, she supported the notion that attacking
the sources of illicit narcotics was the best approach. Now, she said,
"We have accumulated overwhelming evidence that it doesn't work."

Instead, she favors greater spending on drug prevention and treatment.

A few American politicians have advocated drug legalization as a means
to taking the profit out of trafficking, but they, noted Anthony
Pereira, a political scientist at Tulane University in New Orleans,
"have been pretty much marginalized."

Spending more money to fight drug production, he added, "is a very
popular position, one that neither of the major presidential
candidates is questioning, one that conveys a sense of toughness about
the problem."

Ms. Wise also denounced what she called "this mushy throwing of money
at a very old problem that has not been resolved by throwing money at
it."

Despite some progress in such countries as Peru and Bolivia, she said,
"The fact is that use is still buoyant, demand is still buoyant, the
problem is still the same or even getting worse."

Mr. Pereira said some officials in Washington viewed the Colombian
problem through a faulty historical lens, believing that "the
successful way wars in El Salvador and Guatemala were negotiated and
ended" could be "replicated in Colombia."

In El Salvador and Guatemala, he said, strong, well-organized and
centrally directed guerrilla movements sought to seize control of the
nation; when they lost the support of Cold War patrons, a negotiated
peace became a relatively simple matter.

In Colombia, various factions are profiting from the status quo, with
no real desire to seize control of the nation, he said. "They have
quite a bit of territory and they're making money through drugs and
kidnapping.

"You've got several decentralized actors, and it's not clear whom you
can really make a deal with," he said.

Other analysts called the U.S. approach in Colombia flawed but added
that it was preferable to doing nothing.

"We certainly had fears in the previous Colombian administration that
this extra-powerful collection of people running the drug trade were
making major strides in terms of taking over the whole country," said
Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

"There's a sense that's not happening with this administration, and we
ought to do what we can to make sure it doesn't happen."

He added that there was a "legitimate fear" in Washington that "you
could end up with people in Colombia who have mind-boggling resources
working their way through the political system and the police system
with a combination of bribes, threats and murders, and actually taking
over a state.

"That would be horrific in its consequences."

Mark Chernik, a political scientist at Georgetown University who
specializes in Colombia, called U.S. drug policy "obviously flawed"
but said he saw "a lot of good things" in the aid package for
Colombia, including assistance to protect human rights, to support
alternative crops and promote economic development and to reform the
justice system.

"Those are new and interesting ideas," widely supported in Europe and
by nongovernmental organizations, he said. Spain and Norway have
offered to help Mr. Pastrana's plan, as have the United Nations and
the Inter-American Development Bank.

U.S. military aid, said Mr. Chernik, who recently spent two months in
Colombia, "is not going to have an effect on the flow of drugs to the
U.S. But it can push the drug flow out of Colombia, and can change the
balance on the ground in Colombia.

"Will it stimulate more violence or will it stimulate negotiations to
go forward? That we don't know."

Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, offered a candid verdict
on aid for Colombia: "We support it because we are at a loss for
viable alternatives."