TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/072390/0723007.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 6.9 KB | 153 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 33

COLOMBIA

The War That Will Not End


Despite the government's costly campaign and the pain inflicted
on the drug empire, the cocaine cartels are holding their own

By JOHN MOODY/MEDELLIN -- With reporting by Tom Quinn/Bogota


    General Miguel Maza Marquez narrows his hard brown eyes when
he mentions his quarry. "He's somewhere in Medellin, and very
soon we'll get him." The chief of Colombia's secret police, or
DAS, has been offering that prediction for nearly a year. But
each time authorities announce that the capture of Pablo
Escobar Gaviria is imminent, the overlord of the Medellin drug
cartel slithers away. Just last week Escobar managed to elude
the police once again after a massive drug raid in the
northeastern part of the country. But 11 top advisers of his
drug ring, including his brother-in-law, were not so lucky and
have been detained.

    After 11 months of all-out war, the government of President
Virgilio Barco Vargas has damaged but not destroyed Escobar's
multibillion-dollar empire. Since last August, when cartel hit
men murdered presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan, dozens
of cocaine laboratories have been torched, one top drug baron
has been killed, hundreds of suspects have been arrested, and
more than a dozen extradited to the U.S. In response, Escobar
has unleashed a campaign of terror that has claimed some 300
civilian lives. After two successive weekends of violence in
Medellin took more than 40 lives, the government two weeks ago
extradited two more suspected cartel money launderers to the
U.S., reaffirming Colombia's will to win the war.

    Yet cartel profits remain solid, and Colombia is still the
undisputed axis of cocaine trafficking. "It's an
extraordinarily exhausting and frustrating fight," says a
Western diplomat in Bogota, "and it's nowhere near being over."
The stalemate raises questions about the government's inability
to defeat the bad guys.


    Why can't the 200,000 members of the Colombian armed forces
and police defeat the cartels? The top-heavy law-enforcement
agencies were not designed to be a narcotics strike force.
According to a secret government report, the army, navy and air
force -- all involved in the drug war -- are still mainly
structured and equipped to repel foreign invaders, not
homegrown terrorists. The air force bought fighter jets in
1987-88 but needs helicopters to search the rugged hillsides
and dense jungles where drug laboratories are concealed. The
navy spent $90 million to repair submarines instead of
investing in light powerboats to chase traffickers who infest
the country's rivers.

    Better coordination is also needed. Last year army troops
were closing in on cartel chieftain Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez
Gacha when an A-37 air force reconnaissance jet buzzed
overhead. The aircraft was on an unrelated mission, but it
alerted Rodriguez Gacha to the military's presence, and he
escaped. And the explosion of narcoterrorism has diverted
manpower: half of DAS's 3,000 agents guard politicians and
judges whose lives are at risk.


    Why hasn't Escobar been found and captured? Nearly 2,000
national police have been assigned full time to the manhunt,
and Escobar is almost certainly hiding in Envigado, a suburb
of Medellin. But knowing his whereabouts and bringing him to
justice are two different matters. Escobar is well protected
in Envigado, which he once represented in congress. Even on the
run, he is hard to find in a mainly rural country nearly as
large as France, Spain and Portugal combined.

    When the government put a $400,000 bounty on his head,
Escobar countered by offering $500 to $2,000 for each policeman
killed in Medellin; so far this year, 140 lawmen in the city
have died. Those who dare cross him also pay dearly: the bodies
of several subordinates suspected of betrayal have turned up
in recent months.


    Will the capture of Escobar end the drug trade? No. Escobar
may be Public Enemy No. 1, but he is not the only drug boss.
A ring in Cali, thought to control the flow of cocaine to New
York City, functions with almost no police hindrance because
the group has refrained from using terrorist tactics. It also
provides police with information about its Medellin rivals.

    Escobar's demise would probably not even slow down coke
production. Rodriguez Gacha's death last December created a
power vacuum, which a new, even more aggressive generation of
drug merchants is vying to fill.


    Are the Colombian police and army corrupt? Some are; most
are not. Colombian officials privately acknowledge that the
army and, to a lesser degree, the police are infiltrated by the
drug gangs. Says a Western diplomat: "There's too much money
to be made by being Escobar's friend. And being his enemy is
the quickest way I know to get killed."

    Last month Barco announced a shake-up of the military's top
brass. Among other things, an army captain has been sentenced
to five years in prison for warning the cartel of upcoming
antidrug operations.


    Do Colombian authorities really want to destroy the cartels?
No. The goal is primarily to drive them out of Colombia, which
would not necessarily curtail cocaine production. Officials
distinguish between drug trafficking, which mainly threatens
the consumer countries, and narcoterrorism inside Colombia,
which they are determined to stop. The constant terror bombings
and assassinations have led to widespread calls for negotiation
with the cartels. But that option has been rejected by both
Barco and President-elect Cesar Gaviria Trujillo, who has
promised to pursue the war when he takes office in August.


    Who is supporting the cartel? Anyone who buys cocaine. But
foreign governments help too. Earlier this year, Colombia
disclosed that Israel had sold a large consignment of automatic
weapons to Antigua, purportedly for its army. The guns wound
up on one of Rodriguez Gacha's country ranches, where they were
confiscated after his death. Chemicals needed to refine
cocaine, once ordered from the U.S. and Western Europe, now
come from Brazil and Ecuador, which are also becoming new
production centers.


    How much longer will the war go on? That question is asked
with fear and frustration in Bogota. As long as cocaine
trafficking is so profitable, someone is willing to kill, or
die, for it. Says a U.S. narcotics expert: "Colombia is winning
the war, but I wonder whether its economic and political
structure can withstand the long-term commitment." The signs
are discouraging. In Medellin a small boy kicking a ball around
a field built by Escobar called him a hero: "To me he's more
important than God." The crop of tomorrow's would-be drug lords
is as abundant as the marketplace of users who make such
profane comparisons possible.