Wariness Tinges U.S. Praise of Cali Arrests : Drugs: Officials laud Colombia’s crackdown on cocaine cartel but fear little impact. Washington urges tough sentences.

Senior U.S. officials are hailing the arrest and surrender of top Cali drug cartel leaders in Colombia as a sign of the Latin American government’s resolve to seriously disrupt the source of an estimated 80% of the world’s illicit cocaine.

But privately, some acknowledge skepticism about any long-term effect of the capture last month of Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, reputed head of the cartel, and the arrest last week of Jose Santacruz Londono, the organization’s No. 3 man.

Santacruz Londono is regarded as the most ruthless member of the cartel and is believed to be the architect of its U.S. distribution system.

Even Lee P. Brown, who as director of the White House Office of Drug Control Policy is the most vociferous of government cheerleaders, described his reaction as “very encouraged” but acknowledged the importance “that these drug kingpins receive punishment commensurate with the crimes they committed.”

Another government official, who spends almost all his time on the drug battle, was more blunt: “The [Colombian] government pressure has to continue to have a lasting impact, and it has to result in these guys not merely being convicted but serving punitive sentences and giving up assets. Short sentences in which they’re able to hold on to their ill-gotten gains would be counterproductive. It would let people know you can always make a deal. The problem is that Colombia’s institutions may not be able to deliver.”

But almost all agree that the arrests are not merely cosmetic steps by Colombia, which is under heavy U.S. pressure to crack down on the Cali cartel, a consortium of trafficking groups and money-laundering systems.

Long concerned with the situation in Colombia, the U.S. government, in the form of a March 1 report from President Clinton to Congress, declared that Colombia’s anti-drug effort was falling far short of what is required for American aid to continue. But Clinton, rather than barring Colombia from receiving the aid as he could have done under federal law, gave Colombia and five other countries “national interest” waivers.

At the same time, Robert Gelbard, assistant secretary of state for narcotics and law enforcement, heavily criticized Colombia, citing the lack of any major drug prosecutions and noting that, even in those cases in which there were prosecutions, suspects drew only a “slap on the wrist” from Colombia’s courts.

More ominously, Gelbard said, the U.S. government is aware of reports that Colombian President Ernesto Samper has close ties to the Cali cartel. He said that the United States has “very great concern” about a report that Samper apologized to the cartel because police interrupted the birthday party of a cocaine figure.

A State Department official dismissed as uncorroborated the latest allegation of links between the Cali cartel leadership and the Colombian government. The charge came last month from Father Bernardo Hoyos Montoya, the former mayor of Barranquilla who claimed that four cartel leaders had shown him canceled checks and receipts for multimillion-peso payments by them to prominent Colombian politicians.

Hoyos said the cartel leaders were ready to surrender if given certain guarantees, which Samper branded “vile extortion.” Hoyos gave no names of the payment recipients, on grounds that his discussion with cartel leaders was “confessional,” a status that the church did not sanction because Hoyos had entered politics.

But Hoyos said he had listened to a cartel tape in which Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela, Gilberto’s brother and the ranking cartel leader still on the run, is said to discuss with his former publicity chief large contributions to last year’s presidential campaign in Colombia.

Gregory A. Passic, a senior agent at the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the Treasury Department’s unit to combat money laundering, said that the arrest of the Cali leaders “will have a rippling effect” on the rest of the organization “if they can be kept incommunicado.” Then those below will “vie for power,” said Passic, formerly chief of financial investigations for the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Stanley E. Morris, a former White House anti-drug official, likened the Cali arrests to the FBI’s targeting U.S. organized-crime leaders in the 1970s. Critics then said that removing “the old men” running the Mafia would have little impact because equally ruthless subordinates would take command. “But the new people were not as good as the old,” Morris said.