POWELL JUSTIFIES ANTI-DRUG AID AS SUPPORT FOR DEMOCRACY

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell justified U.S. aid for
anti-drug efforts in the Andes Tuesday as support for that region's ailing
democracies, saying, "They are in a war."

In testimony before the Senate's appropriations committee, Powell defended
the U.S. commitment of 1.6 billion dollars for Plan Colombia and more than
800 million dollars for regional efforts in Peru and Bolivia, known as the
"Andean initiative".

Powell called the aid "a worthwhile investment in our overall drug strategy
but also in our overall development strategy". The aid, he said, helps "to
improve the lives of those people, help their democracy become stabilized,
fight off the corrosive effect of narco- trafficking on their democracies".

Powell was responding to criticism from Senator Patrick Leahy, the ranking
Democrat on the foreign operations subcommittee, who said the anti-drug
programmes had been "barely negligible" in stopping the flow of narcotics
to the United States or improving human rights in the region.

Leahy expressed concern that U.S. aid to Colombia's military was winding up
helping that country's paramilitary groups in their semi- private war
against guerrilla forces. He also questioned the potential health effects
of herbicides sprayed on coca or poppy fields to destroy the crops.

Leahy said U.S. aid to Colombia, especially, was similar to a Cold War
mentality, when the United States would "shovel aid" into a despotic regime
that was anti-Soviet without regard to its human rights abuses.

Powell responded that human rights were "an essential part of our strategy".

"If they (the government) really want to be successful at the end of the
day in defeating not only the insurgencies but the narco- traffickers, they
have to show to their population a commitment to human rights and
democracy," he said.

"The problem Colombia has is their democracy is being put at serious risk
by these people, so they are in a war," he added.