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US officials are raising alarm over Colombia's cocaine boom, but they may be 'missing most of the picture'

A potential hardline by the US on drug production in Colombia could complicate the country's efforts to demobilize rebels and fight cocaine cultivation.

  • Cocaine production is up 134% in Colombia.
  • US officials have criticized the Colombian government for its response to that increase.
  • But alienating Colombia could undermine relations with other countries in the region.

US officials in Congress and the White House over the past week have expressed deep concern about developments in Colombia, where efforts to demobilize the country's oldest rebel group are proceeding alongside a boom in cocaine production.

On Tuesday, during a Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control hearing, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley and Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein pressed a panel of US law-enforcement and military officials over the rise in cocaine production, zeroing in on the role played by Colombia's pursuit of peace with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Grassley said the peace accord has had a "staggering" impact on the country's cocaine trade, and Feinstein criticized the government of President Juan Manuel Santos over its promise not to extradite FARC members, suggesting US aid to Colombia be "conditioned on extradition when the US requests it."

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William Brownfield, the State Department's assistant secretary of international narcotics and law-enforcement affairs, stressed that Colombia's military and national police had been "terrific partners" but echoed the idea the Colombian government had dropped the ball on counternarcotics efforts for the sake of peace negotiations.

"It is my personal belief that the government of Colombia and its president [were] overwhelmingly focused on the peace negotiations and the peace accord. I believe that by so focusing their attention, they by definition focused less on the issue of drugs and drug trafficking," Brownfield said. "I believe in addition they concluded that in order to reach a successful peace accord, they had to cede to the FARC on issues related to drugs."

Brownfield also criticized the Santos government's efforts to combine manual eradication of coca crops with voluntary crop-substitution program. The US has pushed to restart aerial fumigation with glyphosate, which Colombia discontinued in 2015.

Feinstein also cast doubt on the prospects of the peace process, saying she didn't believe "for one second" that the FARC would become "a peaceful, law-abiding institution."

Dissident FARC rebels do appear to be asserting themselves in Colombia's criminal underworld, but the cocaine boom — production rose 134% between 2013 and 2016 — has been driven by a variety of factors, not all related to the FARC.

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Later on Tuesday, Colombian Defense Minister Luis Carlos Villegas said the country had reached 62% of its goal to eradicate 50,000 hectares of coca crops this year, and the country continues to work closely with the US to seize cocaine as well.

While the Santos government has been criticized for the slow pace with which it is implementing elements of the peace accord, the hardline measures mentioned during the Senate hearing, if adopted, could exacerbate issues like public resistance to Colombia's crop-eradication efforts as well as recidivism among demobilized FARC rebels.

The hearing made scant mention of Colombian criminal groups other than the FARC, even though Colombia itself considers groups like Los Urabeños the most significant threats to the country. Little was said about drug trafficking in Ecuador, whose proximity to Colombia has made it prime territory for traffickers who take advantage of its long coastline.

Moreover, the tone of the hearing suggested to some that an outdated mindset persisted among US officials.

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The concerns expressed during hearing on Tuesday may not necessarily become official US policy, but a memo released by the White House on Wednesday signaled the potential for a much more drastic shift in US dealings with Colombia.

The threat to decertify Colombia and put it on the same "blacklist" as Venezuela and Bolivia — which the memo said Trump would keep as "an option" — elicited dismay in the US and Colombia.

Colombia was last on the blacklist in the late 1990s, when then-President Ernesto Samper was threatened with impeachment over campaign contributions from the Cali cartel. Decertifying Colombia now could not only imperil tens of millions of dollars of US aid but also access to aid from international organizations.

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