DRUGS COMPLICATE COLOMBIA'S PEACE PLAN

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA - Francisco Javier Zuluago, otherwise known as
"Gordolindo," is one of Colombia's most notorious drug traffickers,
having served as a trusted aide in one of the country's powerful drug
cartels.

But "Gordolindo" suddenly has a new calling card: political chief of
the Pacific Bloc of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC),
the country's feared right-wing death squad.

Gordolindo and other renowned Colombian drug dealers, including Diego
Montoya Sanchez, who is on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List alongside
Osama bin Laden, have suddenly undergone a political makeover. They
have donned paramilitary fatigues and begun calling themselves
"comandante."

For 22 months, the government of President Alvaro Uribe has been
trying to get the country's 20,000 irregular soldiers, who have fought
a decades-long battle with leftist insurgents, to lay down their
weapons. The first breakthrough could come this week: the AUC has
pledged to demobilize 3,000 men in what would be the biggest such move
in Colombian history. Many of them could be granted a full pardon. But
under Colombian law, that immunity would not extend to
narcotraffickers. So some of the country's biggest drug dealers are
now joining - and even buying their way into - these militias, trying
to garner the benefits of a potential peace deal. This "narcoization"
of the paramilitaries is threatening to undermine an already fragile
peace process.

"There's a dynamic in which the drug traffickers are desperately
wanting to peg their cause, their purpose, [to] that of the AUC, which
is not something that the governments of the US or Colombia have
bought into," says one US counternarcotics official. "There's an
increased desire by these terrorists to find a way out other than a
prison sentence or death."

The problem of infamous drug lords morphing into paramilitaries may
have gotten worse since the creation in July of a government safe zone
in Santa Fe de Ralito, where AUC warlords are allowed to live free of
prosecution while negotiating peace. El Tiempo, the national
newspaper, first brought the issue to light when it spied Gordolindo
and another trafficker in the safe zone shortly before it opened.
Also, Semana magazine reported that Mr. Montoya of the Norte de Valle
cartel was suddenly sporting a green uniform and had purchased the
AUC's "Heroes of Rionegro Bloc," composed of 150 men, for a whopping
$5 million from a disgruntled mid-level commander.

Paramilitaries involved in drug trafficking isn't a new phenomenon -
several renowned AUC chiefs have been indicted or are wanted for
extradition by the US on drug-related charges. But some say the AUC is
now primarily a drug cartel, a far cry from its founding as an
opposition force to the heavily armed Marxist guerrillas, who began
their war against the government in 1964.

"All of the paramilitary leaders are narcotraffickers," says Daniel
Garcia-Pena, a former peace commissioner and critic of Mr. Uribe. Mr.
Garcia-Pena says that there is no legal framework for dealing with
demobilized paramilitaries who have committed bigger crimes -
massacres, kidnapping, and drug trafficking. The more drug traffickers
in the paramilitaries, he says, the more difficult peace negotiations
become. "It affects the process in a profound manner," he says.

Renowned drug lord Gabriel Puerta Parra, wanted by the US and captured
on Oct. 7, was found with a letter to the AUC leadership asking for
asylum in the Ralito safe zone and a place at the negotiating table as
a paramilitary commander. In the letter, Mr. Puerta pointed to his
18-year relationship as a loyal ally of the AUC and said he had the
support of four AUC commanders. He was captured before he got an answer.

As well, three of the 14 members of the AUC's negotiating team
sequestered in Ralito are wanted by the US. An extradition order has
been issued for AUC military head Salvatore Mancuso, while indictments
have been unsealed for Diego Murillo Bejarano, who ran a gang of
assassins in Medellin opposed to drug lord Pablo Escobar, and Vicente
Castano, brother of AUC founder Carlos Castano, who was probably
murdered in April by other warlords angry about his criticism of the
role of drugs in the group. Several more may be under US
investigation.

Making matters even more complicated, Mr. Mancuso and Mr. Murillo have
made it clear they don't plan to lay down weapons voluntarily in order
to serve time in US jails.

Yet the Colombian government says that extradition is nonnegotiable.
The US government has been equally forceful, saying it doesn't plan to
drop drug charges against demobilized drug lords but has suggested it
will refrain from enforcing extradition requests while they are in the
safe zone.