US DRUG STRATEGY IN COLOMBIA A 'MAJOR MISTAKE'

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Rep. Benjamin Gilman, the outgoing chairman of the House
International Relations Committee, says the Clinton administration made a
"major mistake" in shifting the bulk of its counternarcotics assistance for
Colombia from the police to the military.

Gilman outlined his concerns in a Nov. 14 letter to Gen. Barry McCaffrey,
director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Gilman's office
released a copy of the letter on Friday.

"Drug fighting in Colombia, and throughout the Andean region, has
traditionally been a police function - not a military one," Gilman wrote.

He said that as recent events in the coca-growing Putomayo area in southern
Colombia have shown, "it is evident that the Colombian Army is incapable of
controlling any of this guerrilla- and coca-infested area now, or anytime
soon."

He added that three new U.S.-trained battalions of the Colombian Army alone
"will not change this major imbalance on the battlefield. The Colombian
Army has been systematically losing control on the ground in the south."

Gilman, a New York Republican, was re-elected to another term in last
week's election, but must step down as committee chairman because of a
ceiling on the number of terms a House member can serve as chairman.

Earlier this year, Gilman had voted in favor of a $1.3 billion package of
assistance for Colombia, the bulk of which was for counterdrug activities.

In response to Gilman's critique, the State Department said the government
of Colombia decided that the mission of attacking narcotics production and
trafficking from southern Colombia couldn't be done by the National Police
without the support of the Colombian military. "We fully concur with this
assessment and have structured our support accordingly," the department said.