COLOMBIA AID PROGRAM CRITICIZED

WASHINGTON -- Sylvester Salcedo is normally not the kind to challenge the
establishment. A retired Navy lieutenant commander, Salcedo received a Navy
and Marine Corps Achievement Medal last year for "superior performance" in
fighting narcotraffickers.

But in January, appalled at President Clinton's decision to ask Congress
for $1.6 billion over two years in counterdrug assistance to Colombia,
Salcedo decided he must register a protest: He mailed his medal to the
White House.

Salcedo believes efforts to interdict drug flows from South America are
futile. The money, he says, would be better spent on treating drug addicts
at home.

The House was due to take up the Clinton proposal today, and Salcedo, who
lives in New York City, was planning to be on hand, hoping to influence
undecided lawmakers.

A key component of the aid package is 63 helicopters, designed to provide
mobility for Colombia's counterdrug effort.

"Its chances for success are ridiculous," Salcedo said in a recent
telephone interview. "It's impractical. ...There are just too many
variables beyond our control."

Accompanying the medal he received was a certificate that cited his
"professional achievement in the superior performance of his duties" and
his "exceptional diplomatic aplomb."

He has seen the drug problem from both ends of the pipeline – from the
supply side in Latin America and the demand side in Boston, where he worked
for a time as a Spanish teacher in a low income area.

He received the medal after serving about 2 1/2 years with Joint Task Force
Six, a Pentagon unit that provides military specialists to law enforcement
agencies. His assignment, among other goals, was to penetrate drug gangs.

Salcedo said he mailed the medal to the White House public liaison office.
He has tried through e-mail and phone calls to communicate with that
office, but without success.

His view has some support in the House, but probably not enough to block
the aid proposal, which is part of a $9 billion aid package that also
includes money for Kosovo and other programs.

Among Salcedo's allies is Rep. Janice Schakowsky, D-Ill., who said
recently, "Treatment is 10 times more effective than drug interdiction
schemes."

And a GAO study last year showed that cocaine availability in the United
States was unaffected by record cocaine seizures in Colombia in 1998.

Another ally of Salcedo's is Robert White, a former ambassador to El
Salvador and now president of the Center for International Policy. The
Clinton administration, says White, has yet to explain "what is at stake in
Colombia or how massive military assistance can do anything but make
matters worse."

But critics of the proposal face an uphill battle. Most lawmakers,
especially Republicans, agree with Clinton that with the nation awash in
drugs, decisive action is called for.

The United States, Clinton said recently, is a lot better off trying to
help Colombia "fight narcotics there and keep more drugs out of this
country, than if we walk away from it.