COLOMBIA: US ABIDES FIRST NARCO-STATE

WASHINGTON- Gen. Charles Wilhelm,commander in chief of the U.S. Southern
Command, told Congress last week that narcxotics-financed leftist
guerrillas now control 40 percent of Colombia. An exaggeration by a tough
Marine? Hardly. The heroic Gen. Jose Serrano, drug-busting commander of the
Colombian National Police, says 50 percent of his country is gone.

Hence the question from Rep. Benjamin Gilman, chairman of the House
International Relations Committee: "Who lost Colombia?" The obvious answer
is the corrupt Colombian governing establishment, but dishonor must be
shared by the Clinton administration. To avoid "another Salvador," U.S.
policy is: Hands off Colombia.

While the United States deepens its engagement in the far-away Balkans, it
ignores the tansition of Latin America's oldest democracy into its first
narco-state, providing 80 percent of the U.S. cocaine supply. At the Gilman
committee's March 31 hearing, the State Department promised no badly needed
helicopters but did announce a $21 million increase in last year's $90
million in aid. That compares to $100 million a month provided to
guerrillas by the drug trade.

Maj. F. Andy Messing of the National Defense Council Foundation, an expert
on small wars, sees Colombia moving from the limited military engagements
of what he calls Phase 1 in narco-guerrilla conflict to escalating in Phase
11. A "war of will and sustainment" in Phase 111 was presaged March 2 in
southeastern Colombia's Caqueta region when some 800 guerrillas overwhelmed
152 elite troops - killing 80, capturing 40 and sending the bloody remnant
into retreat.

This deterioration accompanied a drastic change in U.S. policy. Senior
Clinton administration officials told me in 1996 that with the conclusion
of the Cold War, blanket support for anti-guerrilla operations had ended.
Residual help was trimmed because of President Ernesto Samper's ties to the
drug cartels. The resulting cutoff of $35 million in aid is blamed by the
General Accounting Office for the failure of anti-drug activity.

At last week's hearing, Gen. Wilhelm described the Colombian army as
"ill-prepared to fight." The country's military budget has been cut 30
percent, leading Rep. Lee Hamilton (ranking Democrat on International
Relations) to comment: "I don't think the Colombian government has the will
to get the job done."

That will was not stiffened by the Clinton administration's refusal to send
three state-of-the-art Blackhawk helicopters authorized by the
appropriations bill signed into law last year by President Clinton. Gen.
Serrano testified in Washington last week that his national police (who
have suffered 4,000 deaths) desperately need the Blackhawks' greater range
and altitude.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has quoted Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the
federal drug czar, as saying the Blackhawks are not needed in Colombia.
"Madeleine misquoted me," McCaffrey said in a recent private conversation.
"I gave her the points, and she screwed it up. I never said we didn't need
them. We'd like them, but this is the wrong way to do it." The general has
told Republican Blackhawks would be "over my dead body."

Modern helicopters aside, 12 obsolete Superhuey choppers promised Sept. 11,
1996, were never delivered. "Why is it taking so long to get nothing done?"
asked Republican Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri last week. Randy Beers, the new
assistant secretary of state for narcotics, responded that "I've been
wringing necks since I got this job. I'm not satisfied where we are."
Chairman Gilman commented: "There's a war going on down there, and we're
sitting back saying, 'We'll get to it.'"

The failure to supply helicopters is explained by an unnamed State
Department official quoted in the March 28 Washington Post: "We are really
not interested in getting sucked into this."

Bogota's alternative to help from Washington is increasing accommodation
with the narco-guerrillas, the direction that President Samper has taken
and that would be accelerated by his ally and possible successor Horacio
Serpa. Considering Serpa's drug ties, his election next month would surely
doom all U.S. aid.

Andy Messing's Phase 111, with "real power ... effectively transferred to
narco elements," would be at hand. "In six months," Messing told me, "we
will have reached the point where no amount of military or economic aid
will do any good." Narcotics would flow here from Colombia unimpeded.