U.S. WILL SEEK MORE SOUTH AMERICAN ANTI-DRUG AID

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. administration will urge Congress to give
Colombia's neighbors more money to prevent the escalating war on drugs in
Colombia from driving traffickers across its borders, a senior U.S.
official said on Monday.

Under Secretary of State Thomas Pickering, who visited Colombia last week
for the fourth time in 16 months, said the United States would have to pay
more attention to regional aspects of the drug trade as the Colombian
offensive begins.

The U.S. Congress has approved $180 million for anti-drug programs in the
neighboring countries as part of the $1.3 billion package for Colombian
President Andres Pastrana's multinational Plan Colombia -- a three-year
program aimed at wiping out the cocaine and heroin trade and making peace
with leftist rebels.

Colombia's neighbors, such as Ecuador, Brazil, Peru and Panama, have said
either that that amount is not enough or that Plan Colombia will encourage
production and trafficking on their side of the Colombian border.

Another U.S. official said earlier on Monday that the new Peruvian
government can expect to receive more anti-drug money, now that the
Peruvian Congress has ousted President Alberto Fujimori (news - web sites)
and named Valentin Paniagua to replace him.

Case Made For Regional Approach

Pickering said that most of Colombia's neighbors would benefit from
increased funding.

He said: "As we increase our efforts in Colombia, there will be a tendency
to find new areas, either in Colombia or outside of Colombia, in which to
move the cultivation and production of cocaine and heroin."

"The need in the surrounding and nearby areas is going to increase.
Enlargement of the programs through increased funding in a regional effort
... is probably going to be necessary, and that's what informs our thinking
in current budget planning."

"We are now thinking very clearly of a regional program ... as a
centerpiece of next year's effort to support the Andean region in its
efforts to deal with cocaine, heroin and the associated multifarious
problems in the region," he added.

Pickering's talks with Pastrana last week came after Colombian rebels broke
off peace talks and before Pastrana's own Dec. 7 deadline for a decision on
whether to extend an arrangement giving the rebels an area free from
interference by government forces.

Demilitarized Zone Criticized

Pickering emphasized that the idea of this "demilitarized zone" was to
encourage the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to negotiate.

"It should not be unilateral ... . It is not possible to defend the
existence of the despeje (the zone) when there are no negotiations," he said.

Pickering's colleague on the Colombia trip, White House drugs control chief
Gen. Barry McCaffrey, was critical of the demilitarized zone while in Bogota.

He said the zone, in Colombia's southern jungle and savanna, had turned
into an armed bastion of the FARC and a staging area for a trade in drugs
and arms.

McCaffrey said the FARC, Latin America's largest and oldest guerrilla
organization, was now receiving between $500 million and $1 billion a year
from the drug trade.

But Pickering said on Monday that the United States, in supporting the
Colombian military, could continue to draw a distinction between anti-drug
and anti-FARC operations.

He said the Colombian government was making progress as it prepares for an
offensive in the cocaine-producing southern regions where the FARC holds sway.

"The Colombian government is making steady progress, fine-tuning its
planning, raising the funds needed and carrying out the first stages of
their plan. But there's still a very tough road ahead," he said.

"Extraditions to the United States from Colombia continue, and have this
year nearly reached double digits in terms of the numbers of people sent to
the United States," he added.