PRESIDENT Ernesto Samper faces an uphill struggle for political survival this week after the Clinton administration decertified Colombia's efforts to combat drug traffic.
"What more proof does the world want of our commitment to this unequal struggle against drugs?" said Mr Samper. "We pay the costs, we suffer the deaths while others simply sit in judgment." Mr Samper, under investigation for allegedly receiving campaign funds from the Cali drug cartel, played up the anti American sentiment which greeted the decision.
The annual certification process, whereby countries deemed key producers or transshipment points for drugs entering the US are rated on their efforts to combat the traffic, was introduced in 1986. Negative certification means the US will cancel aid support, investment and loans and vote against Colombia before international financial institutions.
"This ruling benefits only the drug cartels themselves," the foreign minister, Mr Rodrigo Pardo, commented.
While taking time to sink in, the ruling will have serious consequences the key Colombian industries, notably oil and coffee. Decertification means a likely cut in trade privileges and a rise in import tariffs from zero to 8 per cent.
"How dare they sit in judgment on us, it's us who should certify the gringos," a middle aged shopper said in Bogota yesterday.
After a virtual dead heat in the presidential election in 1994, Mr Samper won a narrow victory in the run off. Taped telephone conversations and the declaration of campaign officials left little doubt that Mr Samper knew about the contribution of up to £4 million by the Cali cartel, which supplies 80 per cent of the cocaine entering the US.
The cartel has channelled billions of dollars into legitimate Colombian businesses, buying football teams, holiday resorts, shopping malls and politicians.
President Samper insists on his total innocence and has agreed to hold an inquiry. A previous parliamentary inquiry found no grounds to proceed against the president, but an independent commission linked 20 Liberal deputies to the illicit fund scandal.
"If a serious independent inquiry was ever held, the congress and the senate would be wiped off the map," Mr Eduardo Umana Mendoza, a leading anti corruption lawyer, told The Irish Times.
Recent polls augur badly for Mr Samper, as 65 per cent of Colombians said the parliament "could not be trusted" with the investigation. The decertification process may finally unseat Mr Samper, as Colombia's business leaders feel the pinch and withdraw a vital source of support.
The Samper administration performed well in combating drug traffic in 1995, as six of the seven Cali cartel leaders were imprisoned, 25,000 hectares of coca cultivation were destroyed, 573 processing laboratories dismantled, and 2,364 alleged drug traffickers arrested.
Such successes should have guaranteed full certification, but the doubts hanging over Mr Samper tilted Mr Clinton towards punishment rather than reward.