Hard Questions About the Coming War in Colombia

(Washington, D.C.): Over the past two nights, Dan Rather, reporting from Colombia, has
capped
off the CBS Evening News with a stark wake-up call: The United States is becoming
increasingly embroiled in the narcotics-underwritten mayhem that is engulfing that
Central American nation, putting vast quantities of drugs on this country’s streets and
threatening to destabilize Colombia’s region from Brazil to Mexico.

The Shape of Things to Come

As the CBS broadcast of 11 August put it:

“Very rapidly in recent weeks, the following things have happened — it appears
suddenly — to put Colombia very much on Washington’s radar screen: First, the crash
of a US military reconnaissance plane that killed five Americans on an anti-drug
mission last month. Two of the bodies were returned today. Then, the sudden arrival
of the Clinton administration’s drug czar, Barry McCaffrey, who, in a reversal of
policy, called for up to $1 billion to be spent fighting what he now calls narco-guerrillas….The
highest level talks in Bogota in a decade were held this week between
U.S. and Colombian officials. That reflects general confidence in the new Colombian
government, but also alarm over the fact that an estimated 40 percent of the country is
already in rebel hands.

“There is also a growing fear, even among government officials, that the crisis in
Colombia could spread to the surrounding countries. These nations, many of
which are newly established democracies, including Ecuador, Peru, Brazil and
possibly even Venezuela and Panama, can not afford to have their fragile
democracies wrecked by insurgents as is happening in Colombia.”

This “fear” was most recently publically described by Assistant Secretary of
State for
International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Rand Beers in testimony on 6
August
before the Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources Subcommittee of the House
Committee on Government Reform and Oversight. Despite a determined effort to find grounds
for optimism, Secretary Beers opened his remarks to Congress by declaring:

“It is difficult to describe the current situation in Colombia without sounding
alarmist. Colombia’s national sovereignty is increasingly threatened by a resurgent
guerilla movement, a violent illegal paramilitary movement, and wealthy narco-trafficker
interests. Although the central government in Bogota is not directly
threatened at this time, control over large swaths of the countryside is limited to non-existent. It
is in these very areas where the guerrilla groups, paramilitaries, and
narcotics traffickers flourish.”

A Need to Know

Now that the American people and their elected representatives are being encouraged to
focus on
the unraveling state of affairs in Colombia, they are entitled to answers to, among others, the
following pertinent questions that have bearing on Clinton Administration policies beyond
Colombia:

• What role, if any, is Fidel Castro’s government currently playing in aiding and
  abetting
  “narco-guerrillas” with which his regime has had long-standing ties? At a minimum,
  according to a 29 January article in the London Financial Times, the Colombian
  drug
  traffickers are using Cuba as a drug market and as a favored “cleansing route” employed to
  reduce the opportunities for detection, contributing to what is said to be a more-than-doubling
  during 1998 over previous years in the frequency of drug cargoes dropped by air traffickers
  into Cuba waters for pickup by smugglers. The principal destination for such narcotics is the
  U.S. market.

Were Castro to be exploiting this opportunity to achieve two of his well-established
objectives — subverting democracies in Latin America and inflicting harm on the United States —
the case for rejecting the Clinton Administration’s efforts to normalize relations with his
brutal totalitarian regime (the most recent manifestation of which is the sanctioning of
charter flights to Cuba from New York and Los Angeles) is all the stronger. ¹

• What part is Communist China playing in fomenting narco-activities that are
  destabilizing a key country in the hemisphere? China is no stranger to the drug trade.
  Its
  People’s Liberation Army has, for example, been actively exploiting the PRC’s de
  facto
  colony, Burma, for drug-running operations. In addition, given China’s warming relationship
  with Cuba — China is now using and improving the Cuban signals intelligence facility in
  Lourdes — and its desire to further entrench itself in the United States’ “backyard,” ² it may
  become more closely involved in the Colombian situation, if it has not already done
  so.

• To what extent is the Clinton Administration putting at risk sensitive “sources and
  methods” of intelligence as part of its reported program of providing Colombia with
  real-time intelligence? The Administration has repeatedly seen intelligence-sharing as
  a
  technique for endearing itself to those like Russia, the UN, Cuba and the PLO that are
  more likely to use such information against the United States and its vital interests than
  be constructively influenced by this practice. ³ Under its
  current president, Andres
  Pastrana, the Colombian government may be less prone to such behavior than other
  beneficiaries of what the Clinton team seems to regard as noblesse oblige.

Given that government’s history of corruption, the suborning influence of drug operatives
and
the incompetence of the Colombian military, however, it is not unreasonable to question whether
American intelligence will be compromised by the narco-guerrillas, or even foreign governments
with whom they have ties that are hostile the United States.

• Why is the Clinton Administration encouraging the Colombian government to
  pursue a
  doomed “peace process” with the insurgents? Although Secretary Beers told the
  Congress,
  “We have made it very clear to the Pastrana government….that we cannot accept ‘peace at any
  price,'” the Clinton team’s support for negotiations between the Colombian government and
  the leftist guerillas known as the FARC is likely to have the same result as its encouragement
  of peace processes elsewhere: Generally, they have the effect of making it more difficult,
  if
  not impossible, to protect democratic societies and law-abiding populations against the
  predations of those who employ violence to achieve their ends. It seems likely that, in
  Colombia, such a false “peace process” will only serve to make the country more susceptible
  to total dominance by the narco-guerrillas and their drug-lord backers.

The Bottom Line

Whatever the answer to these questions — and whatever the ultimate decisions about the
nature
and extent of U.S. involvement in Colombia — one conclusion seems inescapable:
Neither the
cause of a secure democracy in Colombia nor the United States’ interest in promoting
stability in the hemisphere more generally and curbing the drug trade will be served by
completing America’s withdrawal from the Panama Canal Zone at the end of this year.

Fortunately, incoming Panamanian President Mireya Moscosco has
signaled a welcome
willingness to see an American presence in her country, but only after the treaty is full
implemented and all American troops leave. Present circumstances in neighboring
Colombia —
to say nothing of the penetration of Panama by enterprises with ominous ties to the Chinese
military — argue for suspending the final stages of the withdrawal and retaining U.S. bases in the
Canal Zone from which to run counter-drug operations, protect the Canal and, if necessary,
project American power.

¹ See the Casey Perspective entitled
Administration Move To Normalize Relations with
Castro’s Cuba Bucks Tide of History, Business (No. 99-C 77, 8 July 1999).

² See the Center’s Security Forum entitled
Carter-Clinton Legacy: Chinese Penetration of
Panama (J. Michael Waller, No. 99-F 11, 10 August 1999).

³ See the Center’s Decision Briefs entitled
Mission Impossible: Wye Deal Poses Threat to U.S.
Intelligence — As Well As Israeli Security, American Interests (No. 98-D 178,
30 October
1998) and Before U.S. Intelligence Can Be Reformed, The Clinton
Administration Must Stop
Deforming it (No. 96-D 44, 6 May 1996).