Pubdate: Wed, 25 Sep 2002
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2002 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Karen DeYoung

U.S. INDICTS THREE IN COLOMBIA PARAMILITARY

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft yesterday unsealed drug-trafficking 
indictments against three members of Colombia's violent right-wing 
paramilitary forces, including paramilitary chief Carlos Castano, in an 
announcement U.S. officials said was timed to coincide with new Colombian 
President Alvaro Uribe's first official visit to Washington.

Ashcroft said at a news conference that the paramilitary United Self- 
Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, were not the "freedom fighters they 
claim to be" but "criminals . . . who poison our citizens and threaten our 
national security." He noted that the AUC was on the State Department's 
Foreign Terrorist Organization list, and praised Uribe's "leadership and 
commitment . . . to proceed vigorously against drug traffickers and 
terrorists wherever they are found."

All three of the indictees remain at large in Colombia, although Castano 
yesterday sent a letter to the U.S. Embassy in Bogota repeating an earlier 
offer to surrender to U.S. authorities to prove his innocence.

The indictment, issued in U.S. District Court in Washington, charges 
Castano, AUC military commander Salvatore Mancuso and group member Juan 
Carlos Sierra-Ramirez with bringing more than 17 tons of cocaine into the 
United States and Europe since 1997, and alleges that Castano himself 
participated in kidnapping and threats and used violence to maintain direct 
control over both production and distribution.

News of the indictments provided Uribe with ammunition for use during a 
visit yesterday to Capitol Hill, where lawmakers have raised questions in 
the past about ties between the paramilitary forces and the Colombian Army 
in a joint fight against leftist guerrillas. Leading human rights 
organizations have long criticized those ties and called for U.S. military 
assistance to Colombia to be withheld.

But as the United States enters its third year of major funding and 
participation in Colombia's guerrilla and drug wars, such criticism has far 
less impact than it did as recently as last summer, when both Republicans 
and Democrats raised the specter of U.S. involvement in "another Vietnam" 
in Colombia's mountains and jungles.

Even as the aid and the fighting continue, Colombia is last year's war, 
replaced in both urgency and attention with events in Iraq, Afghanistan and 
the Middle East.

Uribe, who will have lunch today with President Bush and meet with a number 
of Cabinet officials, is hoping to gin up more U.S. interest in helping his 
country's flailing economy, and to speed up implementation of promised new 
intelligence sharing and military training programs, according to Colombian 
and U.S. officials.

In a televised speech to Colombians on Sunday night, Uribe warned that the 
government could move into significant deficit territory this year. Noting 
that the first payments of a new, 1.2 percent "war surtax" on 
upper-middle-class and wealthy Colombians are due this week, Uribe said the 
government had cut back on official trips, vehicles and even cell phones, 
and that he had ordered the closure of 14 embassies and 10 consulates abroad.

Included on his wish list for Washington are some form of subsidy for 
Colombian coffee farmers, whose business has been devastated by the 
freefall in international coffee prices, and a possible bilateral trade 
agreement with the United States along the lines of one being negotiated 
with Chile. Administration officials said there was little to no interest 
in such initiatives here, although there may be willingness to help 
Colombia restructure its mounting debt and receive new funding from 
international banks.

Colombia also seeks movement on the Andean Trade Preference Act, passed as 
part of last summer's trade promotion authority bill but still not 
implemented pending administration "certification" that outstanding U.S. 
public and private company trade disputes with Colombia have been settled.

The United States has spent more than $2 billion on Colombia since Congress 
first approved funding for Plan Colombia in 2000. At the time, the military 
component was outlined as only one part of an overall plan to solve 
Colombian problems, all of which were tied by U.S. officials to 
Washington's concern over Colombia's drug exports. Officials estimate that 
Colombia supplies more than 90 percent of the cocaine and more than half 
the heroin used in this country.

Military training equipment, along with shared intelligence and extensive 
aerial fumigation to destroy coca and opium poppy crops, was to be 
restricted to Colombia's southernmost coca-growing region, where leftist 
guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, were 
said to tax drug cultivators and traffickers in exchange for protection. 
Separate plan components called for major U.S. investment in alternative 
agriculture development for small-scale coca farmers, and for "institution 
building" to help Colombia develop a legal and social services system that 
was more responsive.

But "beginning in the summer of 2001, this administration began taking a 
hard look at Colombia policy," said a senior administration official, and 
it launched a review leading to a new emphasis on counterterrorism that 
developed more urgency after Sept. 11. The administration sought, and 
received, new congressional authority to provide more equipment and 
training and to target insurgents beyond the southern drug region.

Increased intelligence sharing was authorized -- although officials from 
both countries say none of the new provisions has yet been activated.

The administration has asked for about $450 million in new assistance for 
Colombia during fiscal 2003, more than 60 percent of it for the security 
forces.

U.S. officials have largely scrapped the initial alternative development 
plan after deciding it was unworkable. Despite a massive increase in 
U.S.-funded aerial fumigation, the estimated amount of coca under 
cultivation throughout Colombia has increased.

Assessments of the "institution building" leg differ vary widely, with the 
U.S. and Colombian governments saying significant progress has been made, 
and human rights organizations and others charging that the judicial system 
and legal protections for Colombian citizens have, if anything, gotten 
worse over the past year.

Overall, the senior administration official said, "I'd give us a 'C.' "

Hopes have been raised by Uribe, who promised to spend more of Colombia's 
money on the war, to significantly increase the size of the army's fighting 
capability, and to present a much tougher front to the FARC than his 
predecessor, Andres Pastrana, did. But restrictions on civil liberties 
Uribe has imposed in the name of counterterrorism, along with proposed 
cutbacks in the operations of government human rights officials, have 
raised concerns.

Although he consistently has pledged otherwise, questions have long been 
raised here and in Colombia over alleged Uribe ties with the AUC 
paramilitaries.

Yesterday's indictments appeared to provide a valuable counterbalance for 
both the Bush administration and Uribe. Human Rights Watch, among the 
fiercest administration critics on Colombia, called them an "extremely 
positive development."
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens