Pubdate: Thu, 13 Dec 2001
Source: South Florida Sun Sentinel (FL)
Copyright: 2001 Sun-Sentinel Co & South Florida Interactive, Inc
Contact:  http://www.sun-sentinel.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1326
Author: Jared Kotler, The Associated Press

A NEW MISSION FOR JUNGLE OUTPOST

TRES ESQUINAS MILITARY BASE, Colombia . Protruding above the jungle like a 
giant white golf ball on a tee, Washington's latest investment in the war 
on drugs scans the horizon for small planes ferrying cocaine over the Amazon.

The $13 million radar station was just inaugurated by President Andres 
Pastrana and the U.S. ambassador to Colombia and even given a blessing by a 
Roman Catholic priest. While skepticism about the drug war grows among some 
critics, so does this jungle outpost where the campaign is anchored.

Tres Esquinas sprawls alongside a roiling brown river in southern Colombia 
within striking distance of drug labs and plantations that are guarded and 
taxed by leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitaries.

Built in the 1930s, the base was long a sleepy outpost to defend Colombia 
from attack by Peru. Now, its runways are paved and expanded, long enough 
to handle jet fighters and Hercules transport planes.

A large dock is being completed for U.S.-donated patrol boats that prowl 
the rivers that are the highways for rebels and drug smugglers in this 
roadless region. U.S. and Colombian intelligence officers watch banks of 
computers in a hangar-like building and compile data from satellites and 
reconnaissance planes.

During recent inauguration ceremonies, U.S. and Colombian officials gave an 
upbeat assessment of the war on drugs. They were also treated to a loud 
demonstration of the kind of firepower Washington is providing under a $1.3 
billion aid package approved last year.

The weapons and U.S. Green Beret training of Colombian troops is providing 
security for raids on drug labs and aerial fumigation runs over illegal 
plots of coca, the plant used to make cocaine.

For some, the drug war is a dud.

Human rights activists fear the U.S. support will embolden the military to 
abuse people's rights, or lead to direct U.S. troop involvement in this 
South American country's 37-year-old civil war.

Environmentalists say the herbicides being used to wipe out coca fields may 
harm humans and upset fragile and diverse Amazonian ecosystems.

Still other critics say the world's drug supply won't ever be reduced until 
demand for narcotics is curtailed in consumer nations like the United States.

With American lawmakers echoing those concerns, the U.S. Congress appears 
ready to slash about $100 million from the Bush administration's $731 
million follow-up request to last year's aid plan.

At Tres Esquinas, Brig. Gen. Mario Montoya, the commander of Colombia's 
southern forces, brushes aside the criticism.

"We are winning this war," he said over a lunch of catfish at an officer's 
club overlooking the Orteguaza.

Montoya rattled off statistics he said showed progress, including the 
destruction of hundreds of thousands of acres of coca and the combat deaths 
at the hands of the U.S.-trained troops of 166 "drug traffickers" -- rebels 
and their paramilitary foes.

Montoya said his men have also destroyed more than 600 cocaine labs and 
intercepted thousands of gallons of drug-processing chemicals, helping push 
up the price of semi-processed cocaine here by 30 percent. U.S. officials, 
however, have not reported changes in the price or availability of cocaine 
in the United States.

U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson insisted progress is "accelerating," and she 
said the U.S.-trained troops "have not had a single human rights complaint 
against them."

She predicted spraying will double next year with the scheduled arrival 
soon of dozens more helicopters and crop dusters from the United States.

Even if the offensive meets its own stated goals, that would mean only a 50 
percent reduction in cocaine production in Colombia over five years' time.

A carved wooden sign beside a barracks at Tres Esquinas reminds the 
soldiers that this war will be long. "God grants victory to perseverance," 
it says.
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