COLOMBIANS WEIGH THE PRICE OF DRUG WAR

Cooperation With U.S. Exacts 'Huge Sacrifice'

BOGOTA, Colombia -- The owner of an office building damaged by Colombia's
worst terrorist bombing in years stared yesterday at its shattered facade
and wondered whether her country's cooperation with the United States in
the drug war is worth the price.

"If it's going to continue like this, it's better to do away with
extradition," said Sophia Cespes, 40, crunching glass beneath her feet.
"Let's keep the mafiosos here in Colombia."

The sentiment is understandable, the country's largest newspaper said
yesterday, while urging government resolve against terrorism.

"There are some who'll ask how far and how long must Colombia pay such a
huge quota of sacrifice for a drug war promoted by the United States. And
they won't lack reasons," El Tiempo editorialized.

The car bomb that rocked an upscale Bogota avenue on Thursday -- killing
eight passers-by and injuring 45 -- recalled the nightmarish era a decade
ago when Colombian drug lords waged terror to discourage their extradition
to the United States.

While investigators are not ruling out other possibilities, the prime
theory is that drug traffickers are trying to dissuade President Andres
Pastrana from plans to extradite dozens of cocaine and heroin suspects to
stand trial in the United States.

Pastrana, however, responded to Thursday's blast by signing the extradition
papers of alleged Colombian heroin boss Jaime Orlando Lara, Venezuelan
cocaine suspect Fernando Jose Florez and accused Cuban trafficker Sergio
Bravilo Gonzalez.

That clears the way for the hand over of the first of 42 jailed drug
suspects wanted by U.S. prosecutors. The blast came on the heels of the
Supreme Court ruling in favor of Lara and Florez's extradition.

Some Colombians applauded the president's bravado, even if they feared its
consequences.

"I think there's going to be more violence, but it has to end eventually,"
said Pilar Barbosa, manager of a bank whose offices were damaged by
Thursday's bombing.

Enrique Parejo, a former justice minister, insisted Pastrana should push
ahead with extradition.

"You can't repeat the mistake of showing weakness and negotiating with
terrorist groups because that has done great damage to the country," said
Parejo, who survived five bullets to the face in an 1987 assassination
attempt by drug traffickers.

The "mistake" Parejo alluded to was Colombia's outlawing of extradition in
a 1991 constitutional reform, a capitulation to a wave of bombs and
assassinations of public officials by cocaine traffickers led by Medellin
cartel boss Pablo Escobar.

Under pressure from Washington, Colombia reversed that decision in 1997,
paving the way for new handovers. Extradition has long been a principal
U.S. objective in the South American nation notorious for giving
traffickers lenient sentences.

Former U.S. Ambassador Myles Frechette, who considers the restoration of
the extradition law a key accomplishment of his tenure here, said many
Colombians will oppose the new extraditions out of a sense of nationalism.
Others, though, will see it as an opportunity to clean up the country's
stained international image.

"You can't deal with criminals by being soft on them and I think Colombians
are understanding that now, because the rest of the world just didn't agree
with their approach," he said.

But Michael Shifter, a Latin America specialist at the Inter-American
Dialogue think tank in Washington, said that in demanding that Colombia
turn over more drug suspects the United States needs to show sensitivity to
the "sheer hell" the country is already going through.

A major terror campaign against extradition would compound Colombia's
existing ills, including sky-high murder rates and a 35-year guerrilla
conflict that claims an estimated 3,000 lives a year, Shifter added.

"It's a major price to pay in order to impress the United States," he said.
"One has to wonder whether it's a price worth asking them to bear."