DRUGS AND POLITICS ARE A LETHAL MIX IN COLOMBIA

NEW YORK - Another Kosovo is getting ready to explode.

Don't look for it on a map of the Balkans; this one is right on our
doorstep. The anarchic narco-guerrilla war in Colombia is heading inexorably
towards a conflict that could envelop the entire region.

The first public sign of how deeply outside forces have become engaged in
the long-running Colombian quagmire came last week when a plane crashed in a
remote mountainside in southern Colombia. On board the plane were five
American soldiers.

They were ostensibly part of an American force helping the Colombian army
monitor cocaine-growing plantations in the jungle. But since those
plantations are to all intents and purposes controlled by the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the 20,000-member guerrilla army that has
been battling the government for nearly four decades, the American
reconaissance mission was also, in effect, a counter-insurgency operation.

American and Colombian officials deny this heatedly. Only 200 U.S. troops
are officially in the country, specifically to train local forces in drug
interdiction. The proud Colombians say further U.S. military intervention is
out of the question.

"We are not willing to let anyone take our place in what we must do
ourselves," said Gen. Fernando Tapias, commander of Colombia's armed forces.
He was echoed by Gen. Barry McCaffrey, head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration: "There is zero possibility that any U.S. intervention will
take place."

McCaffrey made that comment, however, on a stopover in Colombia as part of a
tour of the wider region that has fueled speculation of a multinational
force to stamp out once and for all the multi-billion-dollar narcotics trade.

The rule of the narco czars in Colombia is not a new story. Despite years of
trying to crush their power, Colombia remains the world's largest exporter
of illegal cocaine.

What has turned this running wound in the heart of Latin America septic is
the link between narcotics smugglers and political groups of the left and
right. Both right-wing paramilitaries and left-wing guerrillas have profited
- - sometimes as facilitators of the business to raise funds, sometimes as
producers.

In blurring the line between criminal and political activity (a trend at
work in many other parts of the world), they have made much of Colombia
ungovernable. And the cancer is spreading around the region.

On his tour, McCaffrey pointedly stopped in Caracas to discuss U.S.
anti-drug aid with a reluctant Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Venezuela
has become a leading transit point for Latin American cocaine smugglers
because of its refusal to allow U.S. interdiction planes to overfly its
territory.

In Colombia, McCaffrey watched the manoeuvres of a new 1,000-man special
anti-drug battalion, a combined force of Colombian soldiers and policemen
that is being trained by U.S. Special Forces troops. Americans were quick to
note that this jungle force is learning human rights standards as well as
combat skills.

But can limited forces do the job? The U.S., which already sends some $280
million (U.S.) to Colombia, making it the third largest recipient of U.S.
foreign aid after Israel and Egypt, clearly hopes so.

However, the dynamic of internal civil disorder may pull Americans in even
further, whether they like it or not. Over the next two years, military aid
is expected to reach $500 million.

The similarities with the Balkans are uncomfortably similar. There are no
ethnic disputes here, but the forces of separatism, crime and anarchy are
just as debilitating.

FARC controls a huge section of Colombian territory. The current Colombian
government negotiated the handover as part of what was supposed to be an
ongoing peace process - which is now paralyzed. FARC's killing and
kidnapping operations have taken them to the outskirts of Bogota, the capital.

So the drug-induced Balkanization of Colombia - to give the phenomenon the
eerily appropriate word - is continuing apace, spreading instability in the
northern tier of Latin America at a time when the hemisphere is discussing
the establishment of a free trade zone by 2005.

Canada's interests here are much greater than ithey were in Kosovo: Ottawa
is one of the leaders of the trade talks and will play host to the
Organization of American States Assembly next June.

But while every country in the region has a stake in wiping out
narco-politics, there is no sign of an organized regional policy to
determine whether the solutions should be political or military.

In the absence of such a policy, the creeping military option seems
inevitable. What began as a war on drugs may very well end as a war to keep
the region "safe for democracy."

Stephen Handelman's column appears every second Tuesday in The Star.