DATE=8/12/1999
TYPE=LATIN AMERICAN ISSUES ABOUND
TITLE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP
NUMBER=6-11420
BYLINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
EDITOR=ASSIGNMENTS
TELEPHONE=619-3335
CONTENT=
INTRO: While a good deal of U-S press and foreign-
policy staff attention has been focused on the Kosovo
situation, or the North Korean missile threat, or
relations with China, serious problems have been
expanding in Latin America.
Nowhere else is the situation more serious than in
Colombia where the new president's peace efforts with
guerilla groups have apparently stalled. And, there
are U-S papers that see the potential emergence of yet
another Latin dictator in nearby Venezuela.
We get a sampling now of editorials on these topics
from ____________ who joins us with today's U-S
Opinion Roundup.
TEXT: The U-S drug czar, former-general Barry
McCaffrey returned recently from a tour of Colombia.
He told Congress more money and a higher degree of U-S
involvement is needed to help the government of
President Andres Pastrana cope with narco traffickers
and insurrection. Those comments, and reports from
the field have caused a renewed debate on the U-S role
in Colombia, and the country's immediate prospects on
both fronts.
We begin our sampling with "The Los Angeles Times"
which mentioned the country's 35-year-old civil war,
which has taken at least 35-thousand lives, and then
suggests:
VOICE: Achieving peace will not be easy. The
drug traffickers, the paramilitaries and others
have profited from the absence of the rule of
law in Colombia. They will resist any
diminution of their power. The Clinton
administration has been a staunch supporter of
[Mr.] Pastrana's peace initiative, and it is in
Washington's interest to help where it can
without pushing. A negotiated peace in Colombia
offers America a long-term answer to a big part
of the drug menace. But this view is not
universally shared in Washington. A small, but
powerful, group of conservative Republicans,
including .Senator Jesse Helms (of North
Carolina), believes it knows what is best for
Colombia. [Senator] Helms and company have
placed their bets on a continued militarized
anti-drug policy despite its evident failure. .
Colombia does not need more guns from America.
Instead Colombia's leadership must reach out to
the deprived in the jungles and the highlands
and offer them an opportunity to build
communities based on a fair standard of living.
TEXT: Going from the specific to the general,
Hawaii's "Honolulu Star-Bulletin" feels in general,
the Clinton administration has not been minding the
store in its Latin American relations.
VOICE: The United States can not afford to
ignore disturbing developments in these
countries. The Clinton administration is
accused of ignoring disturbing trends in Latin
America. Critics cite weakness of democratic
systems in many countries, accelerating urban
crime, persistent corruption, drug trafficking,
low rates of economic growth, wide gaps between
rich and poor, and high rates of extreme
poverty. . no secretary of state has attended
the annual meeting of Western Hemisphere foreign
ministers in a decade. .. In Colombia, civil war
and drug trafficking are tearing the country
apart. In neighboring Venezuela, widespread
disgust with 40 years of multi-party democracy
has led to the emergence of a populist leader,
President Hugo Chavez, who might assume
dictatorial powers. Violent crime is soaring in
Mexico and at least three states are controlled
by drug traffickers. Mark Falcoff, a Latin
American specialist at the American Enterprise
Institute, says, "All the Andean countries are
falling apart."
TEXT: As regards General McCaffrey's call for
expanded funding and military support for Colombia's
anti-narco trafficking efforts, "The San Diego Union-
Tribune" sums up a recent commentary with these
conclusions.
VOICE: While [General ] McCaffrey and his
Office of national Drug Control Policy deserve
praise for investing considerable sums in
treatment and prevention, we need a sweeping
public-policy shift in support of demand
reduction. Clearly, our heavy emphasis on
cutting supply is not working.
TEXT: In Florida, with its proximity to the region,
and a large number of expatriates from many Latin
nations, "The St. Petersburg Times" opines that,
whatever may be going wrong in Colombia, it is not our
war.
VOICE: The recent crash of a U-S anti-narcotics
reconnaissance plane in the jungle of southern
Colombia should send a wake-up call to officials
who determine U-S policy there. For a nation
that claims a war on drugs as its primary goal,
the United States is treading on the verge of
Vietnam-like involvement in Colombia's ever-
growing political violence. . despite U-S
counter-narcotics aid to Colombia, which totaled
289-million-dollars in 1998 alone, coca
cultivation has risen 50-percent. Drug
trafficking is a billion-dollar business, and it
will not disappear as long as cartels continue
to profit. A more concerted effort to reduce
narcotics consumption in the United States might
do more damage to Colombian drug lords than
attacks on their home turf.
TEXT: Not to slight the disturbing trends in
Venezuela, we turn to the Rhode Island capitol,
Providence where the "Journal" titles a recent
commentary "Venezuela's budding dictator". The paper
reminds readers that president Hugo Chavez, winner of
last December's election, and an avid admirer of
Cuba's Fidel Castro, led an unsuccessful military coup
in 1992 against the democratic government in Caracas,
and now he is President. But . there is more.
VOICE: Since his inauguration in February,
President Chavez . has caused independent
observers earlier concerns to turn into stark
fears. The way things appear headed; it will be
a miracle if Venezuela can manage to avoid
becoming a burial ground for constitutional
democracy. There are vast gaps between rich and
poor in Venezuela. Too many in the elite are
enmeshed in political corruption. . But
dictatorship is not a cure for the defects of
constitutional democracy. /// END OPT ///
TEXT: To conclude we read "The [Cleveland, Ohio]
Plain Dealer's" foreign affairs correspondent,
Elizabeth Sullivan, who suggests:
VOICE: Colombia is losing its 35-year war with
the rebels, who recently murdered three U-S
missionaries. But America is losing its war
against drugs in a nation where - despite
intensive U-S-financed eradication - coca-
growers have prospered. Colombia is now the
world's top producer of cocaine and Number-one
supplier of heroin to eastern U-S cities. More
potent coca now in the ground means another 50-
percent hike in output over the next two-years,
the congressional General Accounting Office
warned last month. .after suppressing the Cali
drug kingpins, Colombia now must confront an
insurgency that has become one of the best-
financed on Earth, thanks to drug money. .in
Mexico, they are talking about the "Colombia-
zination" of politics-of society and of the
anarchy that has resulted. .It is wake-up time
for U-S policy. It is time to help a land just
south of our shores, rich in talent and funds,
awake to its own dangers and confront them. It
is time to invest in the rescue of a society,
and not just in a war.
TEXT: With that assessment from Ohio's North Coast,
and the Cleveland, Ohio, "Plain Dealer's" senior
foreign policy analyst, Elizabeth Sullivan, we draw
this Opinion Roundup on Latin American problems to a
close.
NEB/ANG/RAE
12-Aug-1999 13:28 PM EDT (12-Aug-1999 1728 UTC)
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Source: Voice of America
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