Anyone who paid a bit of attention to Colombia’s 2002 presidential election will remember the allegations of drug trafficking raised against then-candidate and eventual winner, Álvaro Uribe. I remember the election because Ingrid Betancourt, a Colombian senator, presidential candidate and generally remarkable person was kidnapped by Colombia’s leftist guerillas, FARC, at the height of the campaign. Betancourt was among those who raised the allegations against Uribe, now a valued US partner in whatever it is we’re doing down there.

As it happens, according to a newly declassified Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report now available on George Washington University’s National Security Archive site, she was right. The Archive obtained the report this year in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed in 2000.

The report says that Uribe was a close friend of Pablo Escobar, the now deceased head of the Medellin cocaine cartel, had business dealings with the cartel and participated in Escobar’s campaign for a parliament seat.

In a statement issued on July 30, the Colombian government took exception to several items reported in the document, saying that Uribe has never had any foreign business dealings, that his father was killed while fleeing a kidnap attempt by FARC guerrillas, and that he had not opposed the extradition treaty, but merely hoped to postpone a referendum to prevent the possibility that narcotraffickers would influence the vote.

The communiqué, however, did not deny the most significant allegation reported in the document: that Uribe had a close personal relationship with Pablo Escobar and business dealings with the Medellín Cartel.

So one wonders whether the “war on drugs” in Colombia is being fought less to eradicate the industry than, with the assistance of the US, to consolidate it under the control of the current government, or whether waging the war is more profitable for Uribe than participating on the production and distribution side.

Both the state department and the Pentagon have disavowed the report.

Our man in Bogota …

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