WAR ON TERROR EXCLUDES ACTS IN COLOMBIA

WASHINGTON - On Thursday, March 14, in the Colombian city of Cali, two
American citizens were shot to death. They had been negotiating with FARC
leftist guerrillas for the release of their kidnapped father. U.S.
authorities in Colombia learned of the killings but issued no statement.
Indeed, they did not even inform their newly installed superior, Otto
Reich, assistant secretary of state for Inter-American Affairs.

I was told about the killings last Wednesday by congressional sources, who
had been alerted Tuesday by a U.S. Embassy official in Bogota. I contacted
Reich, who was travelling with President Bush in Latin America. It was the
first Reich knew of the killings seven days earlier, and he was not happy
about being in the dark.

Colombian police, following the U.S. Embassy's example, said nothing
publicly. One police official told congressional contacts in Washington
that the embassy "suppressed" news of the killings. State Department
officials informed me this was not connected with terrorism, but was part
of internal drug wars - contradicting Colombian police sources. A U.S. drug
enforcement officer said the brothers were "party to" a money-laundering
investigation, possibly as witnesses and informers. Whatever the truth, the
U.S. government kept the murder of American citizens under cover.

This fits a pattern established during the Clinton administration and
continued by the Bush administration's Clinton holdovers in Latin American
policy positions. Since 1990, 73 American citizens have been taken hostage
in Colombia (more than 50 by narco-terrorist guerrillas). Since 1995, 12
have been murdered. These atrocities go unmentioned as the U.S. minimizes
the tragedy of a Western Hemisphere neighbor left prostrate by terrorists.

The 11th and 12th murders stemmed from the FARC kidnapping last Dec. 20 in
Colombia of an American citizen held for ransom. His sons, Jaime Raul
Orejuela, 30, and Jose Alberto Orejuela, 28, residents of Fort Lauderdale,
Fla., arrived in Cali March 13 to negotiate the release of Jaime Sr. One
day later, as the brothers left a fast-food restaurant, motorcycle-riding
gunmen shot them in the back.

The Orejuela family once dominated the Cali drug cartel, but Colombian
police sources say it is not clear how the two murdered brothers and their
father were related to major drug kingpins. A State Department spokesman
said Jaime Sr. was indicted in a 1992 U.S. drug case, but a Justice
Department source found no such indictment. A police official told my
congressional sources the killings followed a botched attempt to kidnap the
brothers after ransom negotiations collapsed.

Secrecy and inattention surround the deaths. Associated Press Online
reported the murders the day they were committed, attributing the news to
"a Cali police official" talking "on condition of anonymity." The only
American newspaper account was a one-paragraph AP report on page A-24 of
the March 17 Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel.

In response to my questions, the State Department said that the U.S. is
"cooperating with Colombian authorities" in investigating the murders. In
fact, the State Department has ignored Americans held prisoner and murdered
in Colombia, dating back to three missionaries abducted by the FARC nine
years ago and probably killed since then.

The missionaries' families have been frustrated in failing to receive a
report needed to obtain death certificates. "These families have suffered
enough and should not be held hostage to the bureaucratic indifference that
would further delay this overdue notification," Chairman Dan Burton of the
House Government Reform Committee wrote the State Department last Dec. 15.

"Bureaucratic indifference"" has been the watchword. With Reich's
assumption of command delayed by the Democratic-controlled Senate, Clinton
holdovers remain in key posts. News about the Cali killing was suppressed
by the Bogota embassy on orders of Ambassador Anne Patterson, a career
diplomat who held Latin American policymaking posts in the Clinton
administration and was nominated for the Colombian post by Bill Clinton in
his last months as president.

The decision at the White House Feb. 26 not to extend the war on terrorism
to Colombia has yet to be reversed. On March 6, a bipartisan resolution was
introduced by the Republican chairman and senior Democrat on the House
International Relations Committee - Reps. Henry Hyde of Illinois and Tom
Lantos of California - calling for a change in policy. "Any attack on an
American citizen is an attack on America," George W. Bush has declared. So
far, however, Colombia is excluded.

(Robert Novak is author of "Inside Report" and a CNN political commentator.)