Colombia’s Tactics in Drug Fight Under Attack After Hostages Die : Narcotics: Critics say recent events show that government can’t control the military. President refuses to alter his policy in war against cartel.

BOGOTA, Colombia —  The Medellin cartel’s recent assassinations of two hostages have stoked criticism of the government’s carrot-and-stick policy of unleashing military offensives against drug traffickers while offering them legal incentives to surrender.

But the battering taken by President Cesar Gaviria in recent days has not swayed his decision to forge ahead with the anti-drug policy, an official said Friday.

“This policy will not be modified because certain criminals decide to carry out more cold-blooded assassinations,” Rafael Pardo, the president’s national security adviser, said in an interview.

For weeks, foreign officials have been privately criticizing Gaviria’s guarantee that surrendering drug traffickers will not be extradited and will receive reduced prison terms. Despite continued military operations against the cartel and the recent surrenders of two of its leaders, Western diplomats and others say the president’s policy delivers more carrot than stick.

The critics express fears that violent traffickers may receive negligible prison sentences in Colombia.

For a time, Gaviria had solid internal support of the policy to help him fend off criticism. Many Colombians, relieved by an end to the cartel’s bombings and other indiscriminate terrorism, praised the president’s approach.

The first serious crack in national support came on Jan. 25, when one of the traffickers’ hostages, Diana Turbay, was killed as police raided a cartel stronghold near Medellin.

An official report of the incident says the captors forced Turbay and another hostage to run ahead of them as they fled police helicopters. When their capture appeared imminent, the gunmen opened fire on their hostages’ backs, fatally wounding Turbay, a prominent magazine publisher and daughter of former President Julio Cesar Turbay.

The other journalist being held hostage escaped unharmed.

Diana Turbay’s mother, Nydia Quintero, called a news conference hours after her daughter’s death to accuse Gaviria of partial responsibility for the tragedy. Quintero said she had feared such an outcome when she personally warned the president not to order police to try to rescue her daughter.

It was an unprecedented, emotional attack against a head of state by a woman whose former husband still holds considerable power in the ruling Liberal Party. And it led many observers to speculate that Gaviria would call off operations against the cartel to placate the Turbays and their supporters.

The president instead reacted by saying police had every right to hunt down criminals. Administration officials maintain that the police raiding the cartel hide-out had no idea that two hostages were there.

A similar police operation had led to the Jan. 22 killings of two of the cartel’s main hit men. Medellin traffickers, who refer to themselves as the Extraditables, responded to the killings by declaring a renewal of their terrorist campaign.

The cartel’s threat may have convinced Gaviria to keep the government’s stick ready for the next swing. But it did not stop the president from again dangling the carrot. Last week, Gaviria announced new concessions to the cartel, including extending lenient court treatment to cover all recent crimes.

After the president’s sweetened offer, the cartel revoked its decision to renew terrorism but admitted to killing another hostage, Marina Montoya. The body of the 65-year-old sister of Colombia’s ambassador to Canada turned up in Bogota on Jan. 24. Authorities were unable to identify it until alerted by the drug cartel’s statement.

The confused and bloody events of the past two weeks have caused some Colombians to question whether the leadership of Gaviria, 43, and his young advisers has fallen prey to events.

Gaviria’s problems are compounded by an offensive by leftist guerrillas that cost the lives of more than 200 people in January alone.

A columnist for Bogota’s El Tiempo newspaper said last week that Gaviria is not only unwilling, but unable, to facilitate peace with traffickers because he cannot control military operations.

“Everything takes place as if there were two policies dealing with drug trafficking and subversion, one designed by young people in the presidential palace and the other carried out by the military,” wrote the columnist, Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza.

Eduardo Pizarro, a Bogota political scientist, agreed that Gaviria must either try to curb the military’s power or let his anti-drug policy be ruled by it.

“What died with Diana Turbay was ambiguity,” Pizarro said. “Gaviria must end the duality and choose whether he is at war with drug traffickers or not.”

Administration officials appear unlikely to accept that advice in the near future. They point to the surrenders of two cartel bosses, Jorge Luis Ochoa and his brother Fabio, as evidence that the policy will still work.