Colombian drug war stalls

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BOGOTA, Colombia -- The ouster of a Colombian army general -- sacked in June partly because of secretly recorded conversations obtained by American agents -- has apparently caused distrust between U.S. and Colombian officials and hindered cooperation in the war on drugs.

It has also prompted an investigation by the Defense Department Inspector General's Office in Washington. The Pentagon has a major role in a joint $2.3 billion effort over the past three years to halt the production and export of cocaine and other drugs from Colombia to the United States.

The story centers on ousted Brig. Gen. Gabriel Diaz Ortiz, who was forced out by then-Defense Minister Marta Lucia Ramirez. Miss Ramirez resigned from the government last week.

Gen. Diaz's ouster came days before the publication of an account in Cambio magazine here linking him to the disappearance of cocaine intercepted by authorities in the northern city of Barranquilla last year.

Subsequent news accounts and a report by the Colombian attorney general's office accused the police -- not Gen. Diaz -- of having seized at least one truck carrying 2 tons of cocaine. The accounts said it appeared Colombian police accepted a payment of $769,000 from the drug traffickers and returned the cocaine shipment to them.

That was in August 2002. Gen. Diaz, at the time commander of the Colombian army's 2nd Brigade, based in Barranquilla, says he had introduced three informants to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration days before the cocaine was intercepted by police.

"That meeting with the DEA was the last time I had anything to do with the case," he said in a recent interview.

According to Gen. Diaz, the three informants -- two of whom were slain separately the following month -- had information that would have enabled the DEA and police to intercept the cocaine shipment.

In Colombia, the DEA and police often work together.