International Herald Tribune

Wendesday, January 22, 1997

(The Washington Post)

A bad joke of a campaign against drugs is going on in Colombia, the Latin American country, whose traffickers are responsible for much of the drugs suply that washes into the United States. A laughable jail sentence has just been handed down that will let the two reputed leaders of the infamous Cali cartel, brothers, run their business from jail.

As expected and as justified, the sentence has been sharply criticized by the White House drug-policy director and the American ambassador in Bogota. But look at who else is criticizing these sentences: none other than Colombia's president, Ernesto Samper, the very one accused of taking $6 million in campaign funds from these same brothers. "This prison sentence gives Colombia a black eye and undermines everything else we are doing to figh the drugs war," Mr. Sampers says.

One can guess what President Samper is up to. He wants to stay president. Given the outrage that many Colombians feel to see their politics and judicial process corrupted by drug money, he has been forced to go through at least the motions of a serious campaign against the traffickers. Hence his administration's success in getting the legislature to enact an asset forfeiture bill last month. Hence his current call to heavy up sentences for traffickers. But for all of these gestures, Mr. Samper remains an unconvincing anti-drug crusader. Colombia will be fighting the traffickers with one hand tied behind its back as long as its favorite candidate is still president. His tenure weakens the hand of the Colombian police and prosecutors who actually are fighting the cartels.

Drugs are not just a Colombian law enforcement problem. They also are an American law enforcement program, and before that they are a problem arising from American demand. So there can be no cheap posturing against Colombia. But it remains outrageous that the person who normally would be regarded as leader of the battle against the drug plague is in fact a hostage of the enemy. That for reason of his own he may attempt to reinvest himself as an anti-drug crusader does not endow him with the credibility and indipendence to be effective in that role.

Colombians in the drug trade are accustomed to dismissing criticism from the united States as politically motivated. They also need to be embarrassed and confronted by their honest countrymen.