Colombians Denounce Decertification Officials Say Process Unfair, Impedes Anti-Drug Efforts

By branding Colombia an inadequate ally in the war against drugs, the Clinton administration has hurt efforts to destroy the country’s cocaine- and heroin-producing crops, officials said Wednesday.

President Clinton is to announce this week whether Colombia will be decertified for a second straight year, which would mean a continued moratorium on all but anti-narcotics aid and further stigmatization.

Colombian officials complain that the certification mechanism is unfair, citing evidence of widespread drug corruption among security forces in Mexico, which was not among the six countries decertified last year. Mexico’s top anti-drug official was arrested earlier this month for alleged links to drug traffickers.

“Certification is a political and imperial process,” Interior Minister Horacio Serpa told reporters Tuesday.

“It’s bad-neighborly,” another senior government official said Wednesday, blaming “erratic U.S. cooperation” for the mixed results of Colombia’s drug crop eradication program in 1996.

Planes only sprayed herbicides on drug crops for five months of last year because of those difficulties, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Also Wednesday, Defense Minister Guillermo Gonzalez said a delay in acquiring the aircraft and spare parts needed for the eradication program was a direct result of decertification.

And even though the United States offered a list of more effective herbicides last year, it later withdrew the offer, saying the one chosen by Colombia, Imazypyr, was too expensive.

The herbicide currently used, glyphosate, is liquid and dissipates in five hours, making it useless in rainy conditions.

Imazypyr, on the other hand, is a granular compound that can be sprayed from higher altitudes, a major consideration because guerrillas who guard drug crops frequently fire on the planes.

Many Colombians believe that if their country is again decertified, it will be chiefly because President Ernesto Samper has refused to step down despite evidence he was elected in 1994 with $6 million in contributions from the Cali drug cartel.