U.S. must help to fight `narco-guerrillas'

Published Tuesday, July 27, 1999, in the Miami Herald

JESSE HELMS

U.S. must help to fight `narco-guerrillas'

Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Five years ago, Colombia was a pariah state whose then-president, Ernesto Samper, was in bed with the nation's drug barons. Prodded in part by U.S. sanctions, the people threw Samper's party out of office and elected Andres Pastrana. He has taken enormous strides in his first year toward restoring his country's good name.

But Colombia is not out of the woods -- not by a long shot. And because Colombia is the source of more than 80 percent of the cocaine flooding America's streets, what happens there is certainly of interest.

Under Samper, the immediate threat to Colombia was narco-corruption within the Colombian government. Today, the threat is from without -- from murderous communist guerrillas in league with narco-traffickers.

Without U.S. help, Colombia could lose this war. That is why the United States must move swiftly to help President Pastrana.

After taking office, Pastrana attempted to launch a peace process that Colombia's people demanded. The guerrillas answered his call for peace with a relentless campaign of violence. The main guerrilla fronts -- the Revolutionary Armed Force of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) -- are criminals and terrorists led by a disciplined, ideological cadre (schooled by Fidel Castro) whose aim is to conquer Colombia. They thrive on lawlessness, collecting more than $1 billion annually from drug trafficking, kidnappings, extortion, and ransoms.

These outlaws face a vastly underfunded and outgunned Colombian military. Two-thirds of Colombia's 120,000-man army spends its time and resources protecting bridges, oil pipelines, and power stations. That leaves only 40,000 soldiers, with a mere 30 helicopters, to take on the guerrillas in a rugged, mountainous country almost twice the size of Texas. The 20,000-plus terrorist army, by contrast, wreaks havoc with its hit-and-run tactics.

Despite dramatic -- and, quite candidly, questionable -- concessions by Pastrana the guerrillas pay only lip service to the peace process. Since March of this year, a senior FARC commander ordered the cold-blooded murder of three innocent Americans; the ELN has hijacked a Colombian jetliner and committed two mass kidnappings, including one attack on worshipers as they were leaving a church in Cali. On July 8 a 500-man terrorist column was intercepted just 15 miles short of Bogota, Colombia's capital.

What is the United States doing about this growing threat? Very little. At present, virtually all U.S. support to Colombia goes to the anti-drug efforts of the Colombian National Police, whose courageous efforts (even under Samper) earned them strong American backing. This is not enough. The U.S. government must exercise bold leadership.

First it must mobilize international support behind Colombia's new government, its democratic institutions and the rule of law. There must be no more incidents like the one earlier this year, in which Clinton administration officials held unprecedented meetings with Colombian guerrilla leaders.

Second, we must bolster Colombia's military-beginning with its counter-drug unit by expanding our training and intelligence assistance, upgrading communications, and by increasing their mobility with Blackhawk helicopters.

Last year, the Clinton administration fought (unsuccessfully) to stop Congress from giving Blackhawks to Colombian police. Yes, these helicopters are expensive, but the costs of inaction are much higher.

Colombia is one of the most important U.S. trading partners in the Americas, home to $4.5 billion in direct U.S. investment in sectors other than petroleum. The guerrillas have expressly targeted American citizens who live and work in Colombia for kidnappings and murders. Further, the threat to regional stability is acute: Venezuela, Peru and Ecuador all have massed troops on their borders with Colombia. Panama, which has no army, is helpless to secure its frontier from smugglers of drugs and weapons.

U.S. law requires that any military units receiving U.S. aid must be ``scrubbed'' for human-rights violations, and we must encourage President Pastrana to continue his reforms. However, I am persuaded that increased American support for Colombia's military - which today is slogging through a lonely and desperate struggle with inadequate training and equipment -- will in the long run promote human rights.

If America fails to act, Colombia will continue to hurdle toward chaos.

If the war drags on -- or if desperate Colombians lose their struggle or are forced to appease the narco-guerrillas -- the United States and the rest of the Hemisphere will pay a price. The longer we delay, the higher that price will be.