Andres Pastrana

A year ago, Colombia was deemed a pariah state by the U.S. Congress. Today, it is the largest recipient of U.S. aid in the hemisphere and the third-largest in the world, after Israel and Egypt. This tectonic shift in policy is largely because of the June 1998 election of Andres Pastrana as president.

With the support of both the White House and the GOP-controlled Congress, U.S. assistance may increase even more because of a growing consensus that Colombia’s problems pose a threat to regional security.

Colombia has been at war with itself for generations. From 1948 through the mid-’60s, as many as 200,000 Colombians died in the political instability known as la violencia. During that time, two powerful Marxist guerrilla groups emerged. Their war against the government in Bogota continues to this day.

Revolutionary violence is not the only problem. Right-wing paramilitary forces, created by landowners in the 1980s in response to the guerrillas, are now an independent source of terror. Even more destabilizing are powerful drug cartels that virtually run such Colombian cities as Medellin and Cali.

Until recently, the country’s economy was relatively stable. Today, it is mired in deep recession, with 20% unemployment and more than 1 million people displaced.

To manage these problems, Colombians turned to Pastrana, the son of late President Misael Pastrana Borrero. A former journalist, Andres Pastrana, 45, was himself a victim of the terror. In 1988, he was kidnapped and briefly held by drug lords when they attempted to force then-president Virgilio Barco Vargas to stop extraditing drug suspects to the United States.

To rescue his country from left-wing, right-wing and drug violence, Pastrana has devised Plan Colombia, an ambitious and costly endeavor. But his supporters are many, including officials in Washington. Pastrana and the U.S. political establishment believe that peace can be achieved and that Colombia an become a major regional power.

Last month, negotiations to end the 30-year conflict between the largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and the government began in earnest. Talks with the National Liberation Army (ELN), the other guerrilla group, are underway in Cuba.

Yet, ironically, as Plan Colombia gains adherents in the United States and the European Union, Colombians seem increasingly fatigued and skeptical about Pastrana’s ability to bring about domestic peace.

Pastrana is married and has two children. Educated in Colombia and the United States, he can charm an audience in both English and Spanish. He was in Houston last week to drum up foreign investment. By the time the question-and-answer session ended, as many as 500 business people gave him a standing ovation.

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Question: Why should U.S. taxpayer money be spent in military and economic assistance for Colombia?

Answer: First of all, I would not call it assistance. What we are doing is fighting against the illicit trade of drugs, and that is something that affects us all. Drug trafficking is the engine of all violence in Colombia; most of the so-called self-defense groups, the guerrillas and even some common criminals are financed by the drug cartels. We are asking many nations, not only the U.S., to join in a partnership in which we all pitch in. Colombia is putting forward $4 billion, but we need another $3.5 billion. This as a joint venture to put an end to this tragedy called drug trafficking.

Q: How much of that $3.5 billion do you expect will come from the U.S.?

A: As much as possible, but it should be at least half of it. Colombia spends 40% of its budget fighting the shipment of drugs into the United States and Europe. This is money that we could spend building schools and roads and bridges and dams in our country. We have to understand that this plan is predicated on a partnership whose success depends on the resources we have available.

Q: What should Washington expect in return for this money?

Sergio Munoz is an editorial writer for The Times.

A: Our goal is to break the spine of the cartels, which finance most of the violence in my country. I know that if we have enough resources we could do more stings like Operation Millennium, which netted the arrest of more than 30 drug lords. These men were responsible for shipping about 30 tons of drugs monthly to the U.S. And by catching them, we disrupted the flow of at least half the cocaine sent to the U.S.--considering annual consumption now is about 300 tons.

Q: Many Colombians say you embarked on this war against drugs under pressure from the U.S. Is that true?

A: The main victims of the drug traffickers are the people of Colombia. Some people mistakenly believe that drug trafficking has helped the country’s economy. Well, let me tell you, it has done nothing positive. The violence associated with drugs has killed our best journalists, soldiers, policemen, judges and politicians. Not only that, we are now beginning to feel the effects of drug consumption in Colombia. Drug trafficking is the engine of violence, which in the southern part of the country is fueled by the left, and in the north is sponsored by the right.

Q: Are you saying leftist guerrillas in Colombia are drug traffickers?

A: The guerrillas have a political weight in Colombia, and we cannot take that away from them. They make a lot of money from illicit drugs, but they are not a cartel. They do not sell, commercialize or export drugs, but they guard the land where coca grows and charge a tax for it, and this brings in money to their coffers.

Q: Will this long war among Colombians ever end?

A: Yes, I believe we can end the conflict, but it will take time. Peace cannot be achieved in 24 hours. I believe we Colombians want everything done immediately. This attitude creates false expectations, and some may believe that peace is around the corner. But that is not the case. We have to build up peace, and that will take time.

Q: Some people in the U.S. are opposed to the idea of giving money to the Colombian armed forces because they see them linked to the paramilitary forces. Is this true?

A: If you look at the record of human-rights violations since I began my term you’ll see it’s quite different from that in the immediate past. I’ve been working hard to clean up the record of the armed forces, and many generals who have been accused of human-rights violations are no longer in the armed forces. The claims regarding abuses have been kept to a minimum.

But I agree we should remain vigilant. That is why we embarked on a complete restructuring of the armed forces. We are so committed to a clean slate that we have assigned $60 million to educate, promote and inculcate respect for human rights within the armed forces.

Q: Some of your neighbors complain that the conflict in Colombia poses a national security threat to them. Is that true?

A: Colombia does not present a continental threat. We have told the neighboring countries that we must reinforce the mechanisms, contacts and exchanges that may allow us to reactivate military cooperation in our borders. Yet, smugglers move arms and chemical precursors and planes from one country to the other, and that is why we should activate the security systems we have in place. We have not had a single problem with Peru or Ecuador in seven years. We have not had any problems with Venezuela in a year and a half.

Q: The Venezuelans, however, have been blunt. President Hugo Chavez has said he’ll deal with the Colombian guerrillas because they are the ones who hold power in Colombia. How do you respond to that?

A: The Colombian ministry of foreign affairs has informed the Venezuelan authorities that Andres Pastrana governs in Colombia with the mandate of the people. Furthermore, we have said we won’t tolerate any interference on the internal affairs of Colombia.

Q: Has Cuba’s Fidel Castro played a role in helping you with the guerrillas?

A: We have said that anything that Cuba can do to help us achieve peace we deem important. Cuba has played a very important role in the peace process, helping us pull it along when it’s been stuck. Castro has helped in a discreet way, avoiding a protagonist role in this delicate and complicated negotiation. His public statements have been direct and clear. For example, he said that Colombia’s problems cannot be solved by rising up in arms, they require political negotiation.

Q: Let’s go back to Operation Millennium. Are these drug lords extraditable to the United States?

A: The U.S. has asked for the extradition of all 30, and as none of them are charged with a crime in Colombia, the office of the attorney general has petitioned the Supreme Court to extradite them. So we are waiting for the decision.

Q: Every time drug lords fear being extradited, they retaliate with terrorist acts, such as widespread bomb attacks. Are you afraid they’ll do this again?

A: No. If they explode one bomb, I’ll extradite them immediately. The law allows the president this prerogative when he declares there is a domestic commotion affecting the country.

Q: Aerial spraying to eradicate drugs has been a failure on many fronts. The people reject it, it creates ecological problems and the areas where drugs are grown are cultivated every year. Why do you do it? Is it due to U.S. pressure?

A: I am not sure I agree with that characterization, because we can argue whether aerial spraying has been a failure. You have to consider also what would have happened if we had not fumigated. The problem is that, in the four years before my term, coca cultivation doubled and we have yet to find out why it happened. Also, on this issue you have to differentiate between the social problem created when drug traffickers hire poor peasants to grow coca leaves in their small parcels and we fumigate that land. The long-term solution, however, is to create alternative crops for these poor peasants. Regarding coca cultivation in large holdings of land, fumigation has proven a huge success.

Q: The U.S. Congress has warned you that the new U.S.-trained and financed antinarcotics battalion should not engage in combat against the insurgents. But given that many coca cultivation areas are under guerrilla control, is it possible to avoid confrontation with the guerrillas?

A: This battalion was created as a rapid-deployment task force to attack whomever is protecting the fields--whether they are self-defense groups or guerrillas. In four years, we will have between 4,000 and 5,000 men well trained for their task, with a clean slate in human rights and zero corruption. The armed forces will concentrate on fighting the insurgents, the police will fight the drug traffickers and this battalion will support the police.

Q: Who are the biggest supporters of your plan in the United States?

A: We have the full support of the White House and bipartisan support in Congress. [Senate Majority Leader] Trent Lott and [Speaker of the House] Dennis Hastert sent a letter to President Clinton urging him to support Colombia. Fifteen days later, [House Minority Leader] Richard Gephardt did exactly the same.

Q: Yet, there are some members of Congress who insist on narrowing the assistance to combating drugs.

A: Yes, there are some differences of opinion. That is why we insist that we have to look at the military and economic aspects of the problem. We have a drug-traffic problem and a social problem; 55% of the money in the Plan Colombia would be devoted to the modernization and reform of the armed forces, and the other 45% would be used for social investment.

Q: You’ve been criticized for ceding a big chunk of land to the guerrillas. Is that criticism fair?

A: No one has given up any territory. What we agreed to do is to create, under the law, a demilitarized zone to hold negotiations, because the guerrillas did not want to negotiate outside Colombia. Besides, most of the accounts on the size of the area are grossly exaggerated. The area where the FARC is amounts to one quarter of 1% of the national territory; in terms of population, it comprises 90,000 people, not even one-quarter of 1% of the 40 million people in the country. We should clarify that once and for all. *