COLOMBIA

More Questions Than Answers In Narco-infested Country

The three-part series "The Drug Quagmire" (July 16, 17 and 18),
written by Chronicle correspondent John Otis about U.S. involvement in
Colombia, painted a painful, sobering picture of the superproblems a
superpower faces in today's high-tech world.

Here is a country, slightly smaller than Texas, Louisiana and New
Mexico combined, weighing on our collective conscience almost as
heavily as did Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s.

When it comes to Colombia, there are far more questions than
satisfactory answers:

* Can the central government of Colombia ever end the communist
insurgency that has endured three decades and controls vast areas of
the country?

* Can the powerful paramilitary units that grew out of the
conservative opponents of communism be dismantled?

* Can the military, even with U.S. assistance, bring the whole
country back under government control?

* And the big question: Can the drug war ever be won on the ground
in Colombia, even with massive U.S. aid, like the $862.3 million
recently approved by Washington?

Critics of the drug war say more emphasis should be put on controlling
demand for drugs in the United States, but Peru has proved that drug
wars can be won, even if it means the problem simply moves to another
country. There an insurgency was whipped and coca production was cut
drastically in a tough anti-narcotics program.

The lure of big money has kept the drug trade growing in Colombia
despite everything its government, with U.S. aid, can throw at it.
Narco-dollars permeate Colombia's economy and pollute its politics.

Part of the U.S. aid program is earmarked for alternative income
programs for Colombian farmers, who have increasingly been drawn into
coca production and other phases of the drug industry. But competing
against narco-dollars is tough.

The United States could have said in the early 1960s that Vietnam was
not an American problem, but we didn't. We got involved because it
seemed to be the right thing to do, to save a sovereign country, and
its neighbors, from communism. The situation was far more complicated
than anybody at first imagined, and once involved there was no easy
way out.

We face equally vexing problems in Colombia. There are no trouble-free
solutions. We know that. The question is: Can we afford to stand by
and watch a hemispheric nation disintegrate? Obviously, we can't.

We can look back at Vietnam and learn a few things about
overinvolvement, but mostly the United States will have to take due
caution every step of the way in the Colombian mine field.

Index for "The Drug Quagmire" series:

Colombia's War On Drugs Getting Hotter
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n992/a05.html

Escobar's Drug Cartel Put Colombian Cocaine On Map
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n992/a06.html

Mules Ferry Drugs Across Borders In Game Of Chance
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n993/a01.html

US Aid Package For Colombia
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n992/a01.html

Colombia Rolling In Cocaine Crop
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n996/a10.html

Despite Risks, US-Backed Crop-Dusters On A Mission
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n996/a09.html

Drug War Options
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1004/a03.html

Officials Urge Farmers To Try Alternative To Coca
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n1023.a10.html