RED RIBBON WEEK: COLOMBIAN ARMY COLONEL SAYS WAR AGAINST COCAINE CHANGING

A colonel who fought drug lord Pablo Emilio Escobar and the Medellin
cartel in Colombia said the current war against cocaine is nothing
like it was in the 1970s and '80s.

In an exclusive interview at the Western Hemisphere Institute for
Security Cooperation Thursday at Fort Benning, Col. William A. Galindo
said through interpreter Ana Brewington that the impact of cocaine in
Colombia and the United States has declined due to the presence of the
police force and law enforcement.

Galindo, an instructor at the institute for the last 18 months, has
served in the Colombian Army since age 15 and has more than 30 years
of service. The war against cocaine has taken him to jungles, remote
villages and urban areas to combat the manufacturing and trafficking
of the drug.

"Yes, I saw Pablo and we fought him," Galindo said. "It was in
1985-1986. We saw the problems from the bombs they placed and they
were well armed and had money."

Escobar's drug empire was dealt a setback in December 1993 when he and
his bodyguard were shot and killed while running across the rooftops
of houses in Medellin.

The world faced a phenomenon in the 1970s and '80s with the planting
and harvesting of the coca plant to make cocaine. At the same time,
networks started to open to deliver the product around the world.

"In those years, the ideal market was the United States," Galindo, 46,
said of drug traffickers. "The reason was when the product arrived in
the United States, they were very well paid."

The route of the drug starts in Central America, goes to Mexico and
finally makes its way to the United States. The route includes travel
by boats, aircraft and vehicles over the road.

"They look for everything to make the product get to the final
destination," Galindo said.

When those borders between Central America, South America and North
America were compromised, Galindo said the governments of those
countries were committed in trying to fight what was called a "cancer."

"We started to fight those cartels," he said. The fight against
cocaine has endured with support dating back to President Jimmy
Carter's administration in the late 1970s.

"The military and law enforcement forces in Colombia had a war against
these cartels," Galindo said. "The drug traffickers that were left
started to decline at the end of the '80s and beginning of the '90s."

Ten years after Escobar's death, the capture of Gilberto Rodriguez
Orejuela by Colombian authorities in March 2003 was a blow to the Cali
cartel, which once supplied 70 percent of cocaine in the United States
and 90 percent in the European market.

With many avenues closed to the drug traffickers, Galindo said
alliances were later formed among FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia, and ELN, the National Liberation Army.

"When they saw that they were being exterminated, they united with
guerrilla groups FARC and ELN and they started to have control," the
colonel said. "The money power was so big in the fight against the
government, plus the great income to their activities, that provoked a
very big change. The change in the war became something more violent."

The groups are terrorists and they are financing drug trafficking, he
said. Alliances between the Zetas cartel in Mexico and Colombia
started in order to produce cocaine.

"This is what we are having right now," he said.

To eradicate cocaine use, Galindo said drastic policies are needed as
long as there are producers in the fields and there is a demand for
the product. He said $50 worth of coca plants is worth 100,000 pesos
to a farmer.

"When you convert that $50 into a kilo of cocaine, the kilo costs
$1,000," he said. "When that kilo arrives in the United States, it is
$20,000."

Through courses taught at Fort Benning, the institute has played a
major role in combating the manufacturing and trafficking of cocaine.
About 60 percent of the students in the institute are from Colombia.
Lee Rials, a spokesman for the institute, said the post has a mock
cocaine lab in Alabama to help train students on what to look for in
the jungles of Colombia and other Latin American countries.

"Because of the experience we bring here and instructions given, we
know exactly what we need to do to fight this problem in the fields
and rivers," Galindo said. "We get the training and capabilities to be
able to confront this."

Among the 18 courses offered at the institute, some include
instructions on human rights, counter drug course and operation
information. The institute trains soldiers, law enforcement officers
and civilians from 22 Latin American countries and the United States.

"In Colombia, we did not realize the importance WHINSEC has not only
for the country, but the whole hemisphere," said Galindo, who returns
home in January.