U.S. PLANS GREATER ANTI-DRUG TRAINING

Colombian Troops Would Be Used To Fight Narcotics Trafficking

BOGOTA, Colombia -- The United States is planning to expand its training
role in Colombia, instructing military units to fight drugs in parts of the
country where leftist guerrillas are becoming increasingly involved in
narco-trafficking, according to the top U.S. official in the country.

So far, the United States has focused its training efforts on three special
counter-narcotics battalions that operate in southern Colombia, the source
of nearly half the cocaine sold in the United States.

But a plan under consideration by Ambassador Anne Patterson calls for the
United States to begin training additional Colombian army units to take
down drug labs protected by leftist insurgents elsewhere in the war-torn
nation.

Under the plan, U.S. forces or private contractors would conduct the
training, embassy officials said.

Patterson said she envisioned a modest training regime, working with
perhaps one battalion at a time during the next several years.

The plan would have the added benefit of helping reform the Colombian army,
which has a long history of human rights abuses, she said.

"We can do a lot under the counter-narcotics rubric," Patterson said in
extensive remarks to a group of reporters Tuesday at her heavily guarded
residence in an upscale neighborhood of Bogota, the capital. "We think we
can do a lot to professionalize the army."

News of the training plan comes one day after several members of Congress
expressed fears about deeper involvement in the Colombian conflict during
debate on the military, social and economic aid packages for Andean
nations. The Senate will consider a similar proposal today.

Opponents of current U.S. policy in Colombia said the new plan would risk
drawing Washington deeper into Colombia's messy, 40-year-old internal war.

"We're definitely getting further into this," said Adam Isacson, a Colombia
expert with the Center for International Policy in Washington.

"Not only would there be more battalions and trainers, but they would be in
new, conflicted parts of the country."

Additional counter-narcotics troops could be used to help secure new
cocaine-growing areas protected or controlled by the leftist Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, Colombia's largest rebel group, or by
right-wing paramilitary forces, whose ranks have soared in recent years.

In addition to allowing police safe entry to wipe out the cocaine crops,
the troops would have the additional effect of attacking a prime revenue
source for both the guerrillas and the paramilitary fighters, who have
becoming increasingly involved in the drug trade.

Colombian police estimate that the guerrillas make more than $500 million a
year taxing and trafficking drugs.

"The urgent issue is to take the money (earned from drugs) out of the hands
of the armed groups," Patterson said.