COLOMBIAN DRUG WAR ESCAPES U.S. NOTICE, BUT FUELS ITS HABIT

Americans know about the war against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban
in Afghanistan, and they are at least vaguely familiar with the
fighting between Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East, the
continuing trouble in Northern Ireland and perhaps even the attempt
by Russia to put down a rebellion in the breakaway republic of
Chechnya.

But relatively little attention has been paid to a civil war that has
been going on for 38 years in Colombia, even though it is fueled by
the drug trade and the United States has a billion-dollar investment
in its outcome.

That war took a dramatic turn a week ago, when President Andres
Pastrana sent elite government troops to recapture a
Switzerland-sized tract of jungle territory in southern Colombia that
he had ceded to rebels more than three years earlier as part of a
bold plan - now abandoned - to energize peace negotiations.

An angry Pastrana moved against the rebels two days after they
hijacked a domestic airliner and kidnapped a senior Colombian senator
who was a passenger on the plane. Even as he sent troops into the
southern zone, Pastrana announced the government was breaking off
talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by its
Spanish-language acronym FARC.

The FARC rebels poked another stick in the eye of the government only
shortly after its troops were dispatched to the south; Ingrid
Betancourt, a high-profile presidential candidate and a longtime
rebel critic, was taken prisoner with her campaign manager.

The government quickly announced it would not negotiate for
Betancourt's safe return, even though FARC hinted it might trade her
and five members of Congress for captured guerrillas.

The airline hijacking, Betancourt's abduction and the countless
bombings, murders and other atrocities that preceded them, combine to
make a tragedy of Pastrana's last weeks in office. He campaigned for
the presidency in 1998 on a peace platform, and it was with a stated
view to generating a good-faith dialogue with the FARC that he
surrendered that tract of land later that same year.

Those hopes and plans are now a shambles. New elections are scheduled
for May, and Pastrana is constitutionally prohibited from seeking
another term.

Sending in the army was enormously popular with Colombians, who have
failed to see anything good materialize out of the three-year effort
to negotiate a peace with the rebels. A National Consultancy Center
telephone survey taken for a TV station showed 92% of Colombians
supported Pastrana's move. The same poll showed his approval rating
shot up - from a miserable 20% to an only slightly better 33%.
Clearly, Pastrana is among the casualties of the war.

The various combatants in the Colombian war - outlawed militias with
reported ties to the Colombian army, FARC, the smaller National
Liberation Army and other rebel groups - finance their activities at
least in part from drug sales. Colombia, in fact, accounts for nearly
80% of the world's supply of cocaine and most of the heroin sold on
the East Coast of the United States.

According to the Colombian armed forces, more than $500 million a
year from drug sales and kidnap ransom payments is fed into the
coffers of FARC and other rebel groups. The rebellion is also
financed by shakedowns - called "revolutionary taxation" - of
businessmen, farmers and others.

The U.S. financial investment in this struggle is an anti-drug
campaign called "Plan Colombia," under which $1.5 billion has been
allocated to the Colombian government over two years. In the fiscal
year 2003, President Bush is seeking an additional $500 million for
Colombia.

Almost half the $1.5 billion will pay for operations in southern
Colombia; about 100 U.S. advisers will train and equip three new
special anti-drug battalions of the Colombian army. U.S. money also
will be used to buy transport and military helicopters, radars, bases
and other items designed to strengthen the drug interdiction effort.

Last week, the White House rejected, at least temporarily, Defense
Department recommendations that would have formally elevated the war
on drugs in Colombia to the status of the worldwide war on terrorism.
Taking such a step would have set the stage for a greatly expanded
U.S. role in the war against FARC, even though it has not attacked
targets outside Colombia and has no known links to al-Qaida or Osama
bin Laden.

Attempts to restrain the flow of drugs by military means are rarely
successful. In Colombia, critics charge that efforts by the U.S. to
do so have only worsened the war, promoted human-rights violations
and generated other ills.

As long as there is a market for drugs, there will be a supply. But
the White House request for another $500 million to finance the drug
war next fiscal year reflects its growing determination to stamp out,
or at least suppress, the drug traffic by military means.

The war in Colombia, 38 years old, is likely to last many more years.

(SIDEBAR)

Great Decisions Lecture Series

The annual Great Decisions series is presented by the Institute of
World Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. This week's
topic, "Colombia and Drug Trafficking" will be presented by Robert
Ricigliano, director of peace studies at UWM.

The lecture takes place at 5 p.m. Tuesday at the Helene Selazo
Center, 2419 E. Kenwood Blvd. He also will speak Monday at 7:30 p.m.
at the Mead Public Library, 710 N. 8th St., Sheboygan, and Tuesday at
11 a.m. at Waukesha County Technical College. An interview with the
speaker will be broadcast on WMVT-TV (Channel 36) at 5 p.m. on March
10.

For more information about Great Decisions, call the Institute of
World Affairs at UWM at (414) 227-3183 or WCTC at (262) 691-5219.