Pubdate: Mon, 26 Jun 2006
Source: Chicago Sun-Times (IL)
Copyright: 2006 The Sun-Times Co.
Contact:  http://www.suntimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/81
Author: Robert Novak, Sun-Times Columnist
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

DEMS BALK AT SUPPORT FOR COLOMBIA'S DRUG WAR

MARIQUITA, Colombia -- At the Colombian National Police base here 
last Wednesday morning, a small air fleet took off. Hours earlier, a 
Fairchild Metroliner intelligence plane scouted poppy fields in the 
jungles 40 miles northward. Now several well-armed Huey helicopters 
embarked. They were followed by three Turbo fixed-wing aircraft 
spraying the fields to eradicate plants producing narcotics destined 
for U.S. and European users. Taking off last to complete the day's 
operation was a Blackhawk helicopter, fulfilling "search and rescue" 
requirements.

Such hazardous operations -- subject to ground fire from 
narco-guerrillas -- take place in the Colombian Andes every day, amid 
disapproval from Western European government officials, Democrats in 
the U.S. Congress and critics inside Colombia. In contrast, CNP 
officers asked for more eradication aircraft paid for by U.S. 
taxpayers. While that would be small change compared with massive 
outlays in Iraq, the extra money is not forthcoming.

Colombia provides 50 percent of the American market's heroin and 90 
percent of its cocaine. It is the only South American country that 
permits aerial eradication of its poppy fields. Yet, U.S. spending 
here is frozen, in size and shape. The CNP hears nothing positive 
when it pleads to launch a maximum assault on the drug fields by 
expanding the air fleets from three to five.

That abandoned opportunity is frustrating to Gen. Jose Serrano, the 
former CNP commander who is now Colombia's ambassador to Austria (and 
was in Bogota last week).

"It is the campaign, all over the world, of the drug traffickers to 
claim there is environmental damage [resulting from aerial 
eradication]," Serrano told me. He credits the narco-terrorists 
influencing the European Union's refusal to participate in aerial 
eradication even though close to half of Europe's heroin supply comes 
from Colombia.

Figures by both the United Nations and the U.S. State Department show 
poppy production slightly increasing, but American officials admit 
privately that is largely a statistical aberration based on an 
original acreage underestimate.

But enough additional aircraft are needed to hit coca crops 
throughout the country in all of the year's four growing cycles to 
finally root out the plants. Col. Henry Gamboa, chief eradication 
officer at the CNP, told me 15 more planes would meet this goal.

In the absence of additional planes, the CNP sends out teams of 
jungle fighters for manual eradication -- a slow and bloody business. 
An operation requires 300 men cutting coca plants, protected by 1,400 
armed police. Their defoliation of five acres in a day, suffering 
ambushes by narco-guerrillas and heavy casualties, compares with 200 
acres sprayed in the same time by an aerial eradication team.

Brig. Gen. Jorge Baron, director of the CNP's anti-narcotics 
division, told me he would entirely depend on aerial eradication if 
he only had the planes.

The casualties taken by ground eradication operations are inflicted 
by the FARC leftist militia and new, supposedly right-wing 
paramilitary units that now operate side by side in the area hit by 
Wednesday's aerial eradication. Antonio Costa, Vienna-based head of 
the U.N.'s anti-narcotics office, told me in Colombia last week, that 
he considers both groups criminal organizations without political content.

The FARC's Marxist-Leninist orientation has been eclipsed by its role 
as a narcotics kingpin. Colombians I saw here, including critics of 
President Alvaro Uribe's regime, are outraged that Rep. Jim McGovern 
of Massachusetts called FARC's murderous, hated attacks a "civil war."

During the June 9 House debate, floor manager McGovern and other 
left-wing Democrats harped on the May 10 drug-related slaughter of 10 
crack national anti-drug policemen by the army's High Mountain 
Battalion. The unit's commander, Col. Bayron Carvajal, has been 
imprisoned and removed from jurisdiction of military court-martial 
(which has a conviction rate of 4 percent). Carvajal is being 
prosecuted by Colombian Attorney General Mario Iguaran, who has 
evidence of the colonel's ties to drug trafficking.

In response to this evidence of Colombia's escape from degradation as 
a narco-terrorist state, Democrats in the House voted 161- 28 for 
McGovern's disastrous cut in U.S. aid. The House Republicans saved 
Colombia, but ardent young officers of the national police are 
anxious to win this war. They need more help from Washington, and 
they deserve it.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman