The finish of the antidrug war in Columbia

ROBERT NOVAKMr.Novak is a syndicated columnist and a regular
panelist on CNN's "Firing Line."

WASHINGTON: When Colombia's drugtainted President Ernesto Samper fired the
respected Gen. Harold Bedoya as armed forces chief on july 25, it signified
failure of the Clinton administration's antidrug strategy. Repercussions
are likely not only in the troubled Andes nation but in affluent U.S.suburbs.

The real, undisclosed reason for the general's sacking was his refusal to
pull troops back from battle zones, in return for which narcoguerrillas
agreed not to disrupt municipal elections in October. That might seem to
justify President Clinton's on two occasions to certify Colombia as
cooperating in drug enforcement, but, in reality, decertification left
Bedoya and the nation's other drug fighters high and dry, at Samper's mercy.

Guerrilla success affects more than a country long drenched in its own
blood. Colombia, supplying 80 percent of the world's illegal narcotics,
puts an artificially low price on heroin as it becomes the drug of choice
for young, white Americans.

Colombian narcotics traffickers are protected by steadily more aggressive
guerrillas. The 20 solders who died last month when their helicopter was
shot down were among 120 solders and police killed (along with 300 wounded)
during the month of July alone.

This offensive was sparked in June when President Samper negotiated the
release of 71 captured soldiers and marines in return for withdrawal of the
army from the entire Caqueta region in southern Colombia. Gen. Bedoya was
furious since the presidential decision provided a safe haven for the
narcoguerrillas and cultivation of their lethal crops.

For now, Samper cannot get away with ousting the incorruptible Gen. Jose
Serrano as head of the Colombian National Policea law enforcement model
for the hemisphere. But Serrano's brave policemen are deprived of badly
needed U.S. aid because of decertification.

When I reported from Colombia a year to the day before Samper fired Bedoya,
Serrano was pleading with the U.S. government for Vietnamera helicopters.
They were sent to Colombia this year only because Rep. Benjamin Gilman,
House International Relations Committee chairman, leveraged their arrival
by holding up similar choppers for Mexico. But even today, essential
miniguns for helicopters have been delayed by the Washington bureaucracy.

In May,one of Gilman's staffers reported that Myles Frechette,
U.S.ambassador to Colombia, told him in Bogota that he was doing some
leveraging of his own delaying the helicopters to pressure the Colombians
on human rights. The Army's shortcomings are being laid on the National
Police,which Frechette concedes has a flawless record on human rights.

The deeper question is whether the Clinton administration is interested in
drug policy. Its postCold War stance has been to back away from helping
Latin American governments fight leftist insurgencies. But after being
battered by Republican committee members at the July 9 hearing, Franchette
told El Tiempo of Bogota in an interview published July 13 that most
Colombian guerrillas are engaged in narcotics smuggling something he and
other State Department officials previously disputed.

Gilman is trying to break the bureaucratic gridlock by seeking final
passage of a Houseapproved provision to countermand the double
decertification and provide aid to Colombia. "Two illadvised decisions now
endanger our vital national interest as well as Colombia's," says Gilman.
But his Senate counterpart, Sen. Jesse Helms,a staunch battler against
drugs, is worried about government corruption in Colombia. Congress
adjourned for the month of August without resolving this transcendent issue.