Colombia Canards

Free Trade: Colombia's enemies are desperate to discredit our ally to halt a U.S. free trade pact. They've smeared its government and called its drug war a failure. But new events show their arguments falling apart.

Colombia's government is bad, and the drug war lost, only if you're an enemy of the country's democracy -- like the Marxist narcoterrorists known as the FARC. A decade ago, these cocaine kingpins controlled 40% of the Andean nation, including one protected piece of land the size of Switzerland. Today, Colombia has fought them down to 5% and will likely destroy them entirely in the end.

"FARC continues to get pushed out of populated areas by police, and angry civilians, and to have their rural camps raided by troops," according to StrategyPage, a military Web site. Strong leadership from President Alvaro Uribe and $5 billion in regional U.S. support over five years is why, for the first time in 44 years, Colombia is driving the FARC to defeat.

Now the Marxists are trying to win their war by other means. They can't defeat Colombia's military, but they can strike at its elected leader and demoralize its people to break their will to fight.

Key to the FARC's strategy is halting Colombia's free trade pact with the U.S. and ending U.S. anti-drug funding. StrategyPage reports that the FARC shifted its focus to information warfare in March, relying on networks of U.S.-based left-wing activists to paint the country to Congress as a human rights violator and a failure at the drug war.

And it's working. Against a backdrop of Colombian economic and military success, most news focuses on violence against a few union officials. Meanwhile, think tanks present "experts" who claim that the drug war is a failure. Other groups, like the Washington Office on Latin America, all but endorse FARC positions and lobby Congress to squelch the trade pact. Congress seems to have it on ice.

Their efforts, however, are starting to run into problems. On Thursday, for example, an Alabama jury rejected claims that Drummond Co., a Birmingham coal company, conspired to kill union officials in Colombia. This is significant because violence against unions is the main reason Congress is denying free trade.

Drummond, Chiquita Brands, Del Monte, Dole and Coca-Cola -- all of which have investments in Colombia -- have been hauled into the dock. Democratic Rep. Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts has launched his own inquiry to support this effort to first deny Colombia free trade and then blame it on U.S. companies. The Alabama jury saw through the tactic and dismissed the case against Drummond as without merit.

Meanwhile, the drug war is actually being won. The price of cocaine is soaring, and that means tight supply. That contrasts with recent declarations by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., another Colombia critic. Claiming that the country wasn't doing enough to halt cocaine production, he recently froze $55 million in military aid.

A few months ago, he cited the flat price of cocaine as evidence that Colombia wasn't doing its job. But last week, the Office of National Drug Control Policy announced that cocaine prices had doubled in several major cities as supply dried up.

White House drug czar John Walters explicitly cited Colombia's efforts, along with the new entry of Mexico into the drug war. That in turn refutes another argument that Colombia doesn't deserve free trade.

The FARC and its leftist supporters are going to have to supply Congress with new justifications for undercutting this ally. FARC, we imagine, will be creative. But if Congress has any ethics at all, it will see through the arguments and reward Colombia's success and friendship by putting it back on the free-trade front burner.