Latin America : Drug War Allies Colombia, U.S. Turn Sights on Each Other

As Colombia prepares to install a new president whose reputation already seems compromised by the corrosive effect of drug money, the relationship between the United States and the South American nation has deteriorated so much that international anti-narcotics programs are in grave jeopardy.

President-elect Ernesto Samper, who takes office in Bogota on Aug. 7, “comes in under a tremendous shadow as far as we are concerned,” a senior U.S. government official said Friday, referring to reports that Samper’s campaign accepted money from cocaine barons headquartered in the Colombian city of Cali.

Nevertheless, the official said, Samper is the democratically elected president of a country that stands “at the very heart of our counter-narcotics strategy.” So the United States has no choice but to get on with the job while trying to ease Colombian outrage at what the Bogota government regards as a series of recent U.S. insults.

Shortly after Samper’s election, the official said, the U.S. government bluntly warned that Colombia would face serious consequences if it failed to remain engaged in the fight against cocaine traffic. The message was delivered, the official said, “under instruction from the highest levels of the (U.S.) government”--a strong hint that it came from the White House.

Concerns about Samper were raised by the discovery of several tape recordings of telephone conversations between two Cali cartel leaders and a journalist who has long served as the cartel bagman. The tapes revealed efforts by the traffickers to contribute more than $3 million to Samper’s presidential campaign.

Samper, counterattacking, declared himself “truly indignant” at what he described as a U.S. attempt to “smear the name of Colombian individuals and institutions, beginning with the very president of the republic.”

“This campaign is producing great harm internationally to Colombia insofar as it seeks to ignore the fight which we have waged, at incredibly high costs, against the worldwide scourge of drug trafficking,” Samper said.

U.S. officials agree that U.S.-Colombian cooperation against the drug trade has been generally good. But they say Colombia’s efforts dropped off during the first half of this year, possibly because Colombian officials relaxed after smashing the Medellin cocaine cartel late last year.

Moreover, a series of recent incidents in both countries has soured the relationship.

From Colombia’s standpoint, the most grievous insult came July 15 when the U.S. Senate voted 94 to 0 to cut off all assistance to Colombia unless President Clinton certifies that the Bogota government is investigating corruption and taking concrete steps to fight the Cali cartel.

Colombian Foreign Minister Noemi Sanin Posada went on national television and radio a few hours after the Senate vote to declare that Colombia would “unilaterally reject any type of (drug-war) assistance from the United States” if the measure became law.

The Clinton Administration opposes the measure, which has not yet been acted on by the House, and will try to prevent it from becoming law.

In another incident that ruffled feelings in Colombia, the country’s national police chief, Maj. Gen. Octavio Vargas Silva, was snubbed during a visit to Washington when Thomas Constantine, chief of the Drug Enforcement Administration, refused to receive him.

The DEA blamed confusion over the meeting’s agenda. But other U.S. officials said the DEA attache in Bogota had blundered by inviting Vargas to Washington knowing that the U.S. government “has reason to believe that Vargas is corrupt.”

Despite the snags, Colombia--the world’s leading producer of illicit cocaine--and the United States--the largest consumer--have little choice but to continue to cooperate against the drug barons. In an indication that relations may be on the mend, a U.S. official said the Administration was pleased, so far, with the individuals Samper had named to his Cabinet.