U.S. Says People of Colombia Still Have Faith in Democracy

By Eric Green
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington - Despite ongoing problems with narco-traffickers,
guerrilla warfare, and the high level of "common mayhem," the people
of Colombia "still have not given up" their belief in democracy as a
system, and continue to hope for civil order, says General Barry
McCaffrey, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control
Policy (ONDCP).

In remarks to the Atlantic Council of the United States on November
28, McCaffrey said the "good news" about Colombia is that recent polls
show that 60-70 percent of the people there still have "enormously
high confidence" in the civilian police force, the armed forces, and
in democratic values.

Those same polls show that less than 10 percent of the people support
anti-government guerrillas who control drug-producing areas in
Colombia. On that score, McCaffrey praised Colombian President Andres
Pastrana for his attempts to negotiate with the largest and the oldest
of those groups, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
McCaffrey said the Colombian people support talks because they are
"saturated and sick of the violence" that has racked the country for
40 years.

McCaffrey said the United States has "no choice" but to help Colombia
overcome its massive drug production problem. The country produced 520
metric tons of cocaine last year, much of which ended up in the United
States. Another significant figure, he said, is that eight metric tons
of heroin were produced in Colombia in 1999, as opposed to a decade
ago when the country produced virtually no heroin. McCaffrey predicted
it will take about five years for a $1,300 million U.S. aid package to
Colombia to produce a "dramatic" cut in drug production in that
country.

McCaffrey said he hopes that the change in U.S. administrations next
January will launch the beginning of a four-year partnership between
the Andean region and the new team in the White House. "We ought to be
pretty optimistic that at the end of the day our stand with the
Colombian people will pay off," he said.

At the same time, McCaffrey painted a gloomy picture of current
conditions in Colombia, saying the country's problems are "enormous
and getting worse." He said most people outside Colombia have a
difficult time understanding the level of violence there, which
includes assassinations, extortion, bank robberies, kidnappings, the
blowing up of oil pipelines, and "26,000 or so heavily armed
narco-insurgents from at least three major terrorist organizations in
the country, which some of us believe are fueled by drug money."
McCaffrey said his figures show that each year between $500 million
and $1,000 million of drug money flows into these insurgent
organizations.

McCaffrey said there is no rule of law in many parts of Colombia, with
Colombian police having been expelled by the heavily armed
narco-insurgents.

But the United States cannot afford to abandon Colombia, McCaffrey
argued. "Colombia is too close geographically for us to pretend we are
not affected," he said. "It is in our national interest to support
Colombia's strategy for combating illegal drugs and strengthening its
democracy. Our families and communities are poisoned by the drugs
produced in Colombia." Without help from its international partners,
he said, the Colombian government will be unable "to reduce drug
trafficking or stop the cycle of violence and chaos that the drug
trade produces."

(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International
Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site:
http://usinfo.state.gov)