Word: colombia
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Clinton has given the Republicans plenty of ammunition. Ever since the departure in 1998 of his senior counselor Thomas ("Mack") McLarty, who had the Latin America portfolio, Colombia has been off the White House's radar screen. From February to June of last year, a period during which the Colombian crisis worsened, the top aide for Latin America on the National Security Council was detached to deal with Kosovo. With Republicans threatening last summer to ram through their own billion-dollar aid package, McCaffrey began lobbying the White House for a plan...
...meanwhile, began warning that Colombia was spiraling out of control. The coca fields in the south were protected by guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), an 11,000-strong force, which, along with the 6,000-member National Liberation Army, operates in 40% of the country. The FARC was earning at least $100 million a year from the traffickers. Its well-armed guerrillas, who have choppers, signal-intelligence equipment and even R.-and-R. resorts in Panama, were becoming better paid and equipped than Colombian army soldiers...
...Administration had cooled relations considerably with Colombia's previous President, Ernesto Samper, accused of taking $6 million in campaign contributions from narcotraffickers. But current President Andres Pastrana, who was elected in 1998, is considered a hero in Washington. Senior State Department aides began working with him last year to carve out a long-term aid deal and antidrug alliance...
There's just one problem: Pastrana is more popular on the Potomac than in Colombia, where unemployment is at 20% and the nation is enduring its worst recession in 70 years. According to a Human Rights Watch report released last week, the Colombian army is still fighting guerrillas with the help of some 5,000 paramilitary thugs "responsible for gross human-rights violations." Though the White House publicly insists its aid will fight drugs and not guerrillas, Clinton aides privately admit it will be impossible to separate the two in many future battles...
...drugs but also to shore up a crumbling economy and judicial system that has enabled the traffickers and guerrillas to flourish. "We know that we have to take difficult and unpopular measures," says Pastrana. That's good, because an awful lot ails his nation. The question will be whether Colombia--and the U.S.--can survive the cure...