MOUNTIE PRESSURE: DRUG WAR EXACTS HEAVY HUMAN TOLL

More than 2,000 Canadians, including many from Calgary, have voluntarily
chosen to live in one of the world's most hostile environments. Colombia is
one of the most beautiful countries on Earth, its people are vibrant and it
has huge untapped resources. But it also is home to drug lords and guerrilla
fighters.

Herald columnist John Gradon spent 10 days there exploring the Canadians'
lifestyles and how they cope with the everyday threat of violence and
kidnapping. His series ends today.

THE DRUG NIGHTMARE AND HOW TO END IT.

Mountie Brian Brasnett, as far removed from a bald Canadian Prairie beat as
is possible, is one man who doesn't need to be reminded of the catastrophic
human toll of global drug trafficking.

But he's quick to point out there's a body count at both ends of the
spectrum.

``There's many a dinner table in this city and all over the country with an
empty chair where mom or dad used to sit. These people are really, really,
trying to get on top of this thing and it's costing them dear in human
terms,'' he says.

He's referring to Colombian law enforcement officers and troops who, day in
and day out, launch helicopter search-and-destroy missions over the
cocaine-growing fields scattered haphazardly across some of the world's most
inaccessible and daunting terrain.

``I've been out there on missions with them and I haven't been shot at. But
I've seen helicopters come back all shot up from ground fire. And I've seen
officers go out there and not come back alive.''

Out there is endless jungle and mountain territory which, in many areas, is
the forested fortresses of the drug lords and of the guerrillas and maverick
paramilitaries who either protect them and their product or, increasingly,
run their own illicit narcotics operations.

The helicopter missions are mainly targeting growing fields cultivated by
campesinos, or peasants, paid by more sinister partners in the netherworld
of drug cultivation and exporting.

Brasnett's beat is actually millions and millions of square kilometres of
several South American countries -- but for now Colombia is home.

And the men and women the Mountie is out to get are those who first
cultivate and then export Colombia's scourge to the world, those who run the
cocaine-processing labs and ship the white powder to the world, particularly
the United States and Canada.

He and his RCMP buddy here, Jaime Sebastien, can't be blamed for feeling a
tad overworked and over-stretched lately.

Coca production in Locombia, the Mad Country, is soaring.

``Five years ago,'' says Bogota metropolitan police chief Gen. Argemiro
Serna, ``there were 30,000 hectares of land used for the cultivation of
coca, now there are an estimated 100,000.''

So Brasnett is encouraged by Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy's
suggestion of sending more RCMP officers to Colombia. They will help in the
ongoing battle against the world's most conscience-deprived capitalists, the
drug lords, and the guerrilla groups who either help them or operate
independently. Drug-trafficking, indeed, makes for strange bedfellows.

When informed of Axworthy's comments after a flying visit here, Brasnett
says simply: ``Well, that's good news.''

He should be forgiven if he sounds a little like he'll believe it when he
sees it.

Officially part of the RCMPs international liaison branch, he and Sebastien
are at the sharp end of La Lucha -- the fight against those who profit
massively from the export of 80 per cent of the world's powdered misery.

At times it's a bit like trying to stop a tidal wave with a teaspoon.

But Brasnett, Sebastien and others like them are trying. And some are dying
in the process.

``These are the ways the drugs find their way to North America,'' fingering
the mapped ball of a desk globe.

He traces routes through the Caribbean from the northern Colombia coast to
places like Miami, Boston, New York in the east.

``There are labs here, here, and here,'' he says pointing to spots in
southwest Colombia nearer the Pacific coast.

His finger then does the mapping of the western shipping routes to San
Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle.

``And in Canada the drugs flow through the Caribbean to Halifax and Montreal
in the east and to Vancouver up the western seaboard, the big ports. It's
mostly done in containers. A lot of the drugs are then funnelled down into
the U.S. . . . but a lot stay in Canada.''

Latest figures indicate as much as 400 tonnes of Colombian cocaine found its
way into the U.S. and an RCMP report last year said 24 tons ended up in
Canada to stay.

``It's a war,'' he says. ``But not only is it a narco-war but we are almost
in the midst of a civil war. I've been here 18 months now and things are
definitely escalating.

``It's FARC and ELN versus the State of Colombia.''

The FARC and the ELN are long-standing guerrilla organizations said to have
abandoned ideological or revolutionary motivation to concentrate on
lucrative terror crimes like murder, extortion, kidnapping and narcotics.

FARC, nominally at least, are involved in peace talks with the government
but still remain active.

``And then we have the paramilitaries . . . ,'' says Brasnett, referring to
the ferocious right-wing foragers formed years ago to protect the interests
and property of legitimate landowners under FARC and ELN siege.

The government of President Andres Pastrana has been finding it difficult to
disassociate itself from the paramilitaries, even though five generals and
20 lesser-ranked senior military personnel have recently been dismissed
because of alleged associations with the right-wing groups now officially
declared renegade vigilantes.

And in a strange bid to enable peace, the Pastrana regime has even agreed to
a demilitarized zone southeast of Bogota for FARC, a no-go area for
government military.

Meanwhile Brasnett and Sebastien instigate investigations at the Colombia
end of the drugs chain and work with RCMP investigators in Canada.

``Calgary, for instance, might have a big investigation going on. They
follow leads from that end. From their leads we start at this end and
hopefully, somewhere along the line, we meet in the middle.''

The efforts to untangle the Colombian narcotics web through investigation
and by more direct action go on. And Brasnett knows a significant part of
any answer.

``We have to hit the labs,'' he says.

But he knows, too, the cost will be more empty chairs at family dinner
tables.