AMBITIOUS ANTIDRUG PLAN FOR COLOMBIA IS FALTERING

WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 - Three months since the United States approved a huge
aid package for Colombia, the overarching $7.5 billion plan to stabilize
that nation and thwart its guerrilla movements and drug traffickers is
already showing signs of disarray, officials and experts say.

European nations have balked at providing donations to help Colombia
address its social problems, Latin American leaders are voicing concerns
about creeping United States militarism and the government of President
Andres Pastrana has been reluctant to promote the plan at home or to
dedicate funds to it, American officials concede.

In a report to Congress this week, the General Accounting Office said "the
Colombian government has not demonstrated it has the detailed plans,
management structure and funding necessary" to meet the plan's goals, and
international financial support from beyond the United States "has yet to
materialize."

Mr. Pastrana announced the so-called Plan Colombia as an initiative of his
government a year ago. But the skepticism it has met reflects a concern
abroad that the plan was drafted by the United States as a way to ease its
own drug crisis and not as a coherent strategy to lift Colombia from a
quagmire involving two guerrilla insurgencies, right-wing death squads, a
faltering economy and a crisis of confidence in government.

"They see it as something that was cooked up in Washington," said Michael
Shifter, a senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue, a forum for
leaders from the hemisphere. "If other countries saw this was moving in the
direction of being more responsive to Colombian concerns, they would
support it."

Mr. Pastrana set a goal of reducing the coca cultivation and distribution
of Colombian narcotics by 50 percent over six years. Pledging $4 billion in
Colombian funds to the effort, he asked for an additional $3.5 billion from
the United States, Europe and multilateral lenders in order to advance
Colombia's peace efforts, promote economic development and judicial reform
and fight drug traffickers.

The Clinton administration in July approved $1.3 billion in mostly military
aid to Colombia - including more than a dozen Black Hawk helicopters - to
help the Colombian Army strike into southern territories under the control
of drug traffickers and guerrillas.

American officials acknowledge the plan cannot succeed without
international support for the "softer" programs to raise Colombians' living
standards and provide alternatives to drug trafficking and war.

But European nations so far have failed to pledge funds at hoped-for
levels. At a donor's conference in Madrid in July, Spain promised to
contribute $100 million, and Norway pledged $20 million. The United Nations
promised $131 million, and Japan and international lending institutions
offered $70 million and $300 million in loans, respectively.

Europe, which is the second-largest consumer of Colombian narcotics, after
the United States, is still considering its role and may announce
additional funds at a followup to the Madrid conference on Oct. 24.,
diplomats said.

But one European envoy said the European Union has no intention of
supporting Plan Colombia.

"The E.U. and member states are supporting the peace process in Colombia
and not specifically the Plan Colombia, which is an American project," the
envoy said.

Although the Clinton administration has portrayed Plan Colombia as Mr.
Pastrana's work, much of it was drafted by American officials, according to
people familiar with its preparation.

The plan emerged last year after Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the White House
anti-narcotics coordinator - under pressure from Congressional Republicans
- - declared that Colombia was a foreign policy "emergency." He noted its
steady increases in drug cultivation, the widening influence of rebels and
its general potential to destabilize the region, given Colombia's position
between the Panama Canal and Venezuela, the largest foreign supplier of oil
to the United States.

"We've been totally naive in this process, in thinking that's going to
shake loose some matching funds from the donor community," said a senior
administration official. "From their perspective, this is our problem."

Mr. Pastrana, who took office on a pledge to bring peace to his country,
has himself proven a lackluster champion of the plan, American officials
say, and has only allocated $15 million to the project.

Analysts say Mr. Pastrana is torn between hopes that the American attention
and largess could provide Colombia with a rare opportunity for foreign
investment, on the one hand, and concerns, on the other, that deepening
ties to the Pentagon could unleash greater violence in Colombia and
possibly draw in its neighbors.

Members of Colombia's largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia, were suspected this week of kidnapping five American
oil workers and five of their colleagues in neighboring Ecuadaor. The rebel
group denied responsibility for the unusual cross- border operation, but
Ecuadorean authorities said the guerrillas had carried it out in
retaliation for Plan Colombia.

Colombia's most influential neighbors - Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela -
last month voiced support for peace negotiations in Colombia, but pointedly
refused to back the military aspect of the plan. Mr. Pastrana is now
touring the region trying to broaden their endorsement.

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has "reservations with respect to the
military component of the Plan Colombia," said Toro Hardy, his ambassador
in Washington. "It risks projecting Colombia's internal conflict into the
neighboring countries."

Clinton administration officials counter that the risk of doing nothing is
far greater.

"Colombia's historic neglect of the nation's outlying areas has allowed the
problem to fester, and it has been exacerbated by an economic downturn of a
magnitude Colombia has not seen for 70 years," said Rand Beers, assistant
secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs.

Republican lawmakers who have vigorously pressed the administration to
expand its military aid to Colombia say there are sufficient legal
constraints on the American presence in that country - including on the
size and nature of training programs - that there is little danger that
American troops will get drawn into a decades-old civil war.

"Colombia does not want - and has never asked for - American blood to be
shed on its battlefields," Representative Benjamin Gilman of New York, the
chairman of the House International Relations Committee, said in a hearing
on Colombia this week. "Let's not be fooled by that old `it's another
Vietnam' canard."

But some critics voiced concerns that the United States is allying itself
with an army that has a notorious human rights record.

Amnesty International warned that increased support for Colombian security
forces would result in a "humanitarian catastrophe" in the country's
conflict zones.