Colombia’s President Andrés Pastrana has decided to take on the guerrillas, ending years of fruitless talks. He ordered the air force to bomb the jungle bases of the FARC guerilla army. It is sad that it has come to this, because deepening the 38-year civil conflict will cost many lives and probably lead nowhere. Why? Because it is very hard to defeat a guerrilla movement, particularly one that is funded by hundreds of millions of dollars in drug money.
The fighting in Colombia started a long time before the international trade in drugs really took off. Drugs are now one of Latin America’s biggest exports. They are also the most profitable. Last year, the dollar value of Latin America’s (legitimate exports) fell 3.4%, but export prices are unlikely to recover much this year. Drugs, though are profitable, quick and easy to produce and require minor up-front investments. The entire industry is of course unregulated by governments. It is run by vicious but highly organized criminal syndicates sometimes in league with guerrillas. In Colombia, as elsewhere, crime bosses give overworked and underpaid judges, soldiers and governments officials charged with controlling the trade a choice of “plomo o plata” – a bullet or cash.
It is time the civilized world gave up on the notion that the demand and supply of drugs can be dictated by laws and regulations, which must be enforced by soldiers, police and civil servants outgunned and outspent by the drug lords. A vast underground financial system has sprung up to manage the billions of dollars the trade generates. It is a joke to think that a Free Trade Area Of The Americas can work without coming to terms with one of Latin America’s biggest export items of all. It would be healthier for all to legalize drugs now. Criminalizing the trade will perpetuate corruption, despoliation of tropical jungles, growth of guerrilla armies, not to mention worsening street crime and prison populations in the consuming countries.