Pubdate: Sun, 06 May 2001 Source: Boston Globe (MA) Copyright: 2001 Globe Newspaper Company Contact: http://www.boston.com/globe/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52 Author: Thomas Oliphant US DRUG POLICY IN COLOMBIA A RECIPE FOR DISASTER WASHINGTON FOR MOST PEOPLE, the killing of an American missionary and her baby daughter last month by trigger-happy, allegedly antidrug cowboys of the Peruvian Air Force afforded only a tiny peek at a more horrific problem. And the fact that the killings could occur in the air under the pathetic supervision of CIA contractors afforded an equally tiny peek at the increasingly central US role in this murderous, ever-escalating mess. Representative James McGovern detests the inevitable comparison between the escalating drug wars in that region of South America and the ruinous civil wars of the 1980s in Central America. However, he is uniquely suited to make it, and the facts lead him there inexorably. As he summarizes the most important points, what you have is an essentially civil conflict poisoned further by the introduction from outside of a supposedly larger foreign policy issue, which is followed by the total militarization of the situation under the control of the United States. It is a recipe for more and more violence, never a solution, and it soils our values and reputation. Twenty years ago, the whopping international concern was said to be communism. This time around it's drug trafficking. Once again, we just don't get it. As a top aide to Representative Joe Moakley in the '80s, McGovern was a major player in exposing the truth about and then helping end the slaughter in El Salvador. Fortunately, he is at it again, focusing on battered Colombia and its sadly familiar cycle of mutual atrocities, deaths by the tens of thousands, refugees by the hundreds of thousands, the erosion of civil authority, spreading poverty, lasting environmental damage, and continuous escalation. There is a vivid metaphor for this cycle daily to anyone who searches, but two from just last week will suffice. On his way home to Worcester at the end of April, McGovern was steered to the basement of St. Mary Star of the Sea Church in East Boston, where he found nearly 500 refugees from Colombia (many if not most undocumented) gathered on short notice. Like the Central Americans who first pricked the enormous conscience of Joe Moakley, these Colombians have come through hell and are going through nightmares trying to survive here. Their message, McGovern said, besides requests for help navigating American life and bureaucracy, was a plea for his help in stopping the US-controlled military operations in their country - - at $1.3 billion a year and escalating right along with the fighting, with the usual negligible impact on the declared enemy, illegal drugs. Also last week, the House Government Operations Committee inquired into the spreading war with basic questions about command and control. Under the standard blanket of secrecy, the members got zilch, even on such simple questions as how the relatives of Americans injured or killed in the fighting are notified. The impression from the hearing was that responsibility for the military operations, with heavy intelligence community involvement, is impossible to fix. McGovern was in the country six weeks ago with another gutsy colleague, Representative Jan Schakowsky, Democrat of Illinois. Their work focused on three parts of Colombia, apt metaphors for the mess we are making. One is the province of Putumayo, ground zero in the drug wars. This is where the US Blackhawk helicopters fly and where other US planes fly high to avoid getting shot at and spray poison on the coca fields below against the wishes of the governor and all 13 of the province's mayors. On the ground, increasingly, Colombia's military moves out and drug-running paramilitary squads move in to kill. The left and right are indistinguishable to the poor victims of this madness. The two congressmen were also in the Barrio Kennedy section of Bogota, named after the president who 40 years ago tried to offer US assistance the right way. Today it is a massive, growing slum crammed with the refugees of endless fighting. They were also in San Jose de Apartado in the north, one of the fledgling peace communities trying to say no to both sides in the war and under brutal pressure from each. The McGovern-Schakowsky way would expand the assault on drug addiction in this country and emphasize steady eradication of coca on the ground in Colombia along with economic assistance and an insistence that all ties to paramilitary goons be broken. This is genuine antidrug toughness. For now, however, they will lose to the status quo of more US money for poison from the air, more mass killing on the ground, more escalation and spread of the fighting to Ecuador and Peru, and no change in operations to supply the ravenous American drug market. But if the past is a guide, McGovern's forecast about the status quo will prevail: It will only get more violent. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens