Colombia rebukes Bruce Willis

2006-03-11 11:21

Bogota - Colombia has it in for Hollywood's ultimate tough guy.

Andres Pastrana, the country's ambassador in Washington, scolded actor Bruce Willis on Friday for suggesting that the US should consider invading Colombia as part of its war on drugs.

At a media event in New York to promote his new film, 16 Blocks, Willis said the US should weigh "going to Colombia and doing whatever it takes to end the cocaine trade".

Willis' comments, on screen and off, have landed him in trouble before. But this time his remarks have irked normally stone-faced diplomats.

In a harshly worded letter made public, Pastrana told the outspoken actor that the source of the lucrative cocaine trade was an "enormous appetite for drugs, in particular in the US and Europe".

Willis' publicist in Los Angeles declined to comment.

Pastrana, who as president in 2000 launched an anti-drug effort with billions of dollars in aid from the US, added that no country has sacrificed more than his own to rein in drug trafficking. Thousands of innocent civilians are killed each year as a result of anti-drugs efforts, he said.

Pastrana invited Willis to visit Colombia, saying "if you accept, you will see that, beyond Hollywood cliches, 44 million Colombians are waging a real war against drugs".

The US has spent $4bn over the past five years under the so-called Plan Colombia to fumigate drug crops and train local forces battling leftist rebels and far-right paramilitary groups that control much of the drug trade.

Although the effort has led to record cocaine seizures and the extradition of dozens of druglords to the US, Colombia remains the world's largest supplier of cocaine.

Pastrana's diplomatic rebuke was likely to be well received by Colombians, who on television and in letters to newspapers have called the Die Hard actor's remarks disparaging and insensitive.

President Alvaro Uribe, whose hot temper is famous in Colombia, last week called the actor arrogant and ignorant and said his comments were "a shock to Colombia's dignity".

Willis, who's gone from a working-class New Jersey upbringing to cheques of up to $20m, was married to actress Demi Moore. He has appeared in 12 Monkeys, Nobody's Fool, Pulp Fiction, and The Sixth Sense, among other films.

- SAPA