After capturing a top drug lord, Colombia's government called on
US Democrats to rethink their "irrational" resistance to funding
the Andean country's anti-narcotics efforts.
Democrats who control Congress have questioned the results of
Washington's multi-billion dollar aid package for Colombia, which
since 2000 has aimed to slash cocaine shipments to US streets
mainly by fumigating coca crops.
Colombia is the world's top cocaine producer but its government
delivered a blow against the country's biggest drugs cartel by
arresting its leader, Diego Montoya, one of the FBI's most sought
after fugitives.
"We hope these results give them an element of reason, so they can
stop with this opposition, which I consider irrational," Vice
President Francisco Santos told reporters.
"Due to minor ideological and political problems of one sector of
the Democratic party, they are about to get themselves into a mess
and that is irresponsible," he said.
Washington has provided President Alvaro Uribe - a key White
House ally in Latin America - with billions of dollars in aid to
counter the drug trade and left-wing rebels engaged in a
four-decade conflict.
But Uribe has come under fire for a scandal over the political
influence of illegal paramilitary warlords who have handed in their
arms in a peace deal, but who critics say have kept their criminal
organizations alive.
Democrats are pushing Colombia for progress in curbing
paramilitaries before approving a US free trade deal.
Some critics of the Plan Colombia drug program have called for a
reduction in aid and want to shift its emphasis on military
counter-narcotics aid to economic development they believe will
more effectively counter coca leaf production.
Colombia has sprayed the coca crops used to manufacture cocaine for
seven years and reduced production, but at least 600 tonnes of
cocaine still flows out each year and drug prices on US streets do
not reflect a supply cut.
The arrest of Montoya followed the army's report that it killed a
guerrilla commander at the heart of drug and arms trafficking for
the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the country's
largest guerrilla group.
Montoya's arrest was perhaps the biggest triumph for Colombia's
anti-drugs forces since the 1993 killing of infamous cartel boss
Pablo Escobar, but experts say other traffickers will move to fill
the gap.
"History shows finishing off the cartels isn't the end of drug
trafficking," said Alfredo Rangel, an analyst at Bogota think-tank
Security and Democracy.
"This arrest will have an important impact on the restructuring of the drug trade, but it does not mean it will disappear."
