‘Get Your Own House in Order’

Shortly after taking office in August, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos created the post of national-security adviser and filled it with Sergio Jaramillo Caro. Jaramillo, as deputy minister of defense, was a key architect of Colombia’s strategy against the FARC guerrillas who once threatened the state, and the consolidation policy he oversaw—which pairs military efforts with basic development—has made previously elusive coca production cuts in some of the country’s most embattled regions. Colombia now advises Afghanistan and Mexico on combating narcotrafficking. Jaramillo spoke with NEWSWEEK’s Mike Giglio. Excerpts:

The Colombian military recently killed the FARC’s second in command, Mono Jojoy, and the FARC has dropped from 20,000 to 7,000 members. Are the guerrillas still a threat?

They are past the tipping point. Mono Jojoy was the heart of the FARC’s military strategy and of their ambitions—which were always an illusion, but kept them going—of seizing cities and taking power. That, I think, is gone. But it doesn’t mean the FARC are going to disappear.

Many Americans view the billions of dollars in U.S. aid that have been sent to Colombia as money spent on the drug war. Is that how Colombia sees it?

There’s a false dilemma between counterinsurgency and counternarcotics. They’re both a problem of governance. The thing you need to understand is that the security problem and the drug problem feed off each other and are really both part of the same problem, which is governance. If you sort that out, you solve both problems at the same time.

Despite years of U.S.-backed coca-eradication efforts, meaningful reductions in production came only recently. What changed?

It’s the difference between being tactical and being strategic. If you’re just tactical, you can go around eradicating coca fields and counting them, but somebody’s going to keep on planting them. If you’re strategic, you integrate that person into society, so he stops. That means turning around entire regions, socially and economically, and integrating them into the country. Don’t forget that large tracts of Colombia were never properly governed.

What can Mexico learn from Colombia’s success?

The government is getting better at taking down the ringleaders of the cartels. That’s important, but it isn’t enough. You need at the same time to have a strategy to regain authority. I think that’s the bit that’s still perhaps missing in Mexico. Governments tend to focus too much on how these various criminal organizations and insurgencies are behaving, and not enough on their own problems. The biggest challenge is to get your own house in order.

Could success in Mexico push the problem back into Colombia?

To use the usual metaphor, organized crime is like water; it takes the easiest course it can find. So it’s unlikely that the problem will return here. What is likely, unfortunately, is that states that aren’t as strong as Mexico and Colombia—and this is already happening—will find some of the big traffickers moving into their territory. That’s why this really must be a regional effort. President Santos is pushing for an approach that supports the smaller countries, so that they don’t become victims of our successes.

What role should the U.S. play?

I think the U.S. has a duty to cooperate with these countries. The question is how. And I think the best answer is by supporting these regional efforts.

What makes you use the word “duty”?

It’s a waste of time to point fingers about who’s responsible for the problem of drugs. What we need to work on is solutions. But clearly this problem is not just of our own making, and in that sense I do think consumer countries have a duty to make sure smaller ones like those in Central America and the Caribbean don’t collapse under the weight of organized crime.