What to Do About Colombia

(Washington, D.C.): Afghanistan’s Taliban regime relied heavily on cash from illegal drug production and trafficking to keep itself in power as the world’s pre-eminent terrorist government. U.S. destruction of that regime effectively has denied al Qaeda and other terrorist groups a state-sponsored safe haven from which to operate.

Enter the FARC

Another narcoterror regime may be in the making, however. Its potential host country shares a border with the United States’ largest foreign oil supplier. It is one of the world’s largest sources of illegal narcotics. It straddles a vital maritime chokepoint. It is nearly twice the size of Afghanistan and more than twice as large as France. Heavily armed militias wedded to discredited, obsolete ideologies and bent on seizing total political control, and financed by profits from drugs cultivated or trafficked under their domain, murder the country’s elected and spiritual leaders with impunity. The largest of those militias, deemed international terrorist organizations by the State Department, is linked to terrorists from around the world.

This is not happening on the opposite side of the world. It’s happening in our own hemisphere. That country is Colombia.

This year indeed, the next few months may well determine whether Colombia remains a pro-U.S. democracy or becomes a full-fledged narco-terrorist state run by an ideologically fanatical regime.

The prime-mover behind seeking the latter outcome is the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by its Spanish initials FARC. (A second, smaller enemy is the National Liberation Army, or ELN, currently negotiating with Colombia in Havana talks under the guiding hand of Fidel Castro.) The FARC, which began as an offshoot of the Colombian Communist Party and which remains committed to imposing a single-party dictatorship, has been fighting for nearly four decades. Over the past few years — thanks to a misguided U.S.-backed “peace process” that gave the FARC a safe-haven the size of Switzerland, and to a massive inflow of narco-dollars mainly from American drug abusers — the terrorists have grown ever stronger.

A Sea-Change in Washington, A New Lease on Life for Democracy in Colombia?

For years the Clinton administration maintained the fiction that there was no real connection between the producers and smugglers of cocaine and heroin the narco- traffickers and the FARC and ELN guerrillas. During this period, Washington provided Colombia with equipment and training for its superb anti-narcotics police, but stipulated that U.S. assistance could not be used to fight the guerrillas. Colombian President Andres Pastrana, on his own and with American encouragement, continued that fiction.

By contrast, the Bush administration seems committed to telling the truth and to doing something about it. The Department of Defense has prepared what appears to be an extremely well- thought-out plan to help Colombia save its democracy and to destroy a major threat to the American people at the same time. But the administration is still divided, particularly in the National Security Council, where Director John Maisto, a career foreign service officer known for his soft line on narcoterrorism and other security issues, remains a major roadblock to realization of the President’s agenda.

Unfortunately, Colombia does not have much time. Spirits are high within the FARC, even though its public support is in the low single-digits. The FARC has benefitted from years of U.S. policies that denied Colombia the tools and training it needed long ago, and runs a significant information warfare operation. It also enjoys support among those in the United States who took to the streets for the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and Communist guerrillas in El Salvador in the 1980s. And the FARC can benefit from any blocking actions that the chairman of the Senate Western Hemisphere Affairs Subcommittee, Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), might choose to throw in Colombia’s path.

That said, both Colombia and the United States government have a lot of cards to play. Colombia’s political leadership and its people are more united than ever against the FARC. For its part, the FARC has incontrovertibly proven its unwillingness to act within the democratic process, continuing to kidnap and assassinate elected officials, including federal representatives and senators. Consequently the FARC has lost significant support abroad, even in Europe’s socialist ruling class, which recently came out in favor of President Pastrana’s new military campaign. There is even new support in the U.S. Congress for helping Colombia fight the FARC. And President Bush finally has a good team settling into place for doing what needs to be done in the American hemisphere (Maisto notwithstanding), with his able policy shop at the Department of Defense, and his beefed-up State Department with newly installed Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Ambassador Otto Reich.

The Bottom Line

Given President Bush’s position on fighting international terrorism, and the role that illegal narcotics production and trafficking plays in fueling terrorism, the United States should look at foreign cocaine and heroin production as less of a law-enforcement problem, and as more of a military one. Therefore, instead of trying to stop illegal drug production in Colombia with cumbersome and ineffective read-’em-their-rights legalities, the U.S. and its partners should place more emphasis on the military component exactly as it did in hunting down individual members of the al Qaeda network. The United States must take the following steps:

• Lift the ban that prevents Colombia from using U.S. aid to fight and defeat the FARC and ELN;
• On an emergency basis, provide equipment, technology, training and other resources to the Colombian National Police and the Colombian Armed Forces so they can bring the war to the narcoguerrillas;
• Provide Colombian forces with timely, actionable intelligence, particularly electronic intelligence, to destroy FARC and ELN units and forces;
• Hold open the option for U.S. air power to be used against the FARC and ELN, especially in areas difficult for Colombian forces to reach; and train and equip Colombian special forces to use laser designation devices for that purpose;
• Launch a substantial public diplomacy effort to explain the stakes in Colombia, the nature of the FARC and ELN, and the U.S. mission there; and
• Treat the FARC as one would treat al Qaeda: Destroy it once and for all.