Colombia Suffers a Narcotics Overdose

In Colombia, there is a bill in Congress that no legislator who values his life or his reputation wants to handle. The legislation, introduced in November, would annul a two year-old treaty that authorizes the extradition of drug-trafficking kingpins to the United States to stand trial.

If ever there was a no-win issue facing a politician, this is it. Any position taken means being quemado-- burned--either literally or figuratively: Those who support the bill risk political death by being viewed as Mafia mouthpieces, while those who don’t risk death at the hands of the narcotraficantes-- drug dealers--who have already threatened to incinerate any supporters of extradition.

The congressional dilemma is merely a reflection of one of the greatest crises in Colombian history. As the spread of narcotic trafficking becomes uncontrolable, it carries confusion and fear into every aspect of Colombian life. A bloody parade of assassinations over the past year has stunned Colombians with the realization that no one is safe anymore.

Most recently, the slaying of one of the country’s most respected journalists exposed Colombians for the first time to the threat of death for even daring to speak in favor of extradition. Guillermo Cano, editor and co-owner of the Bogota newspaper El Espectador, was gunned down on Dec. 17 outside the paper’s offices after signing a series of editorials demanding that traffickers be sent to the United States for trial.

His death, however, follows a series of bloody murders linked to extradition that has increasingly shocked Colombians. In November, police Col. Jaime Ramirez, considered an international leader in the war against drug trafficking and a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency ally, died in a machine-gun attack on his car.

The list stretches back much longer: Minister of Justice Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, original sponsor of the extradition treaty; the federal judge who investigated Bonilla’s assassination; Magistrate Baquero Borda, the official who wrote the treaty; 14 federal judges involved in investigations of narcotraficantes.

Murder has become an effective deterrent. “There is no local authority that now wants to risk his life catching any of them,” said one official, also declining to give his name.

After Cano’s murder this month, the federal government adopted special measures to expedite the capture and conviction of drug lords. For its part, the press organized “a day of silence” without newspapers, radio or television broadcasts and took part in a six-mile march through Bogota to demand stronger government action.

But the day after the news blackout, Colombians were responding with greater pessimism than before. “The measures of the government are not going to be useful,” one Bogotano told a wire-service reporter. “Nobody can stop the narcos.”

Reuters’ correspondent in Bogota, Gilles Trequesser, summarized the general opinion: “These measures should have been taken 10 years ago. Now it’s too late.”

But 10 years ago, only a few in Colombia paid any attention to drug running. In the decade that followed, Colombians--police and politicians alike--were indifferent while the narcotics trade seeped further into the culture.

As the country sank deeper into an economic mire that still affects it today, vast private fortunes--blatant in their excess during a growing recession--began showing up with embarrassing frequency in the country’s major cities. While the domestic economy threw more people into financial trouble and Americans welcomed ever larger quantities of Latin drugs, more Colombians saw an easy route to fast money.

During those early years in operation, drug traffickers were able to build their empires with impunity, undisturbed by successive administrations that chose to ignore them. Narcotics have been viewed by Colombians as more a U.S. problem than a Colombian one. The assassination of Lara Bonilla was the first alarm that the problem had come home. Then-President Belisario Betancur declared war on the narcotraficantes.

But the result of a joint Colombian-U.S. assault on the narcos produced little more than a blood bath. Now, Cano’s death rings the second major alarm in the battle. Ironically, the audacity of the drug lords signals the power and reach they now wield.

“Private economic powers that treble the national budget try to do alone what the state is unable to do,” Cano wrote in an editorial.

Posing as nationalists, these “personalities”--at times popularized as Latin Robin Hoods--apply their own systems of justice and law. Supported by their staggering fortunes, they organize private armies to protect their families, associates and friends, construct public works such as roads and parks and build housing developments for the poor.

But their brand of helping the community doesn’t come cheaply. Assassinations, kidnapings, extortion, torture, bribery and constant threats accompany their largess.

Trapped in such a dangerous situation, the majority of the population--honest but unprotected--is unable to react. As one Colombian sociologist put it, the nation has become “a hysterical society paralyzed by general insecurity.”

For such a critical situation, new steps must be taken. Among those suggested by some observers are several that can only be regarded as extreme--and extremely unlikely. For example:

--Government acceptance of a recent proposal by the leading narcotraficantes to pay off the country’s $13.5-billion foreign debt, transfer their enormous assets from foreign banks to Colombia and surrender their processing laboratories in exchange for a guarantee of prosecution in Colombia, where they can expect more lenient treatment than in the United States.

--Mediation by the powerful Roman Catholic Church of negotiations between the drug traffickers and the government, aimed at reaching an end to the violence. Church leaders have already tendered an unprecedented offer to handle any talks.

--Legalization of the production, trafficking, and use of cocaine and marijuana, as a way to establish legal controls over the business and eliminate the current lawlessness.

But any measures chosen must have national, regional and international support, as well as the endorsement of Colombia’s major institutions such as the Catholic Church and the press. The likelihood of finding means agreeable to such a diverse list of supporters is less than encouraging.