COLOMBIA NEIGHBORS BACK U.S. DRUG WAR

BOGOTA, Colombia - Only a few months ago, Colombia's neighbors were
sounding loud alarms and hastily preparing for a drug war backed by
Washington, D.C., to send cocaine and guerrillas spilling over their
borders.

Ecuador girded for refugees and added troops along a lawless frontier.
Brazil sent police and fretted about whether napalm would be dropped
on the Amazon. With Green Berets training Colombian troops in the
jungle, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela warned of a new Vietnam War
in the making.

Now, their complaints are giving way to pragmatism.

By seeking U.S. aid and trade benefits for their collaboration in the
war, the countries are trying to cash in on their fears.

"These countries are now negotiating for goodies," said Professor
Bruce Bagley, a Colombia and international relations expert at the
University of Miami.

The new strategy - likely to be evident at this week's 34-nation
Summit of the Americas in Quebec - was on display during a five-nation
preparatory summit that concluded Thursday in Cartagena.

Presidents Andres Pastrana of Colombia, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Hugo
Banzer of Bolivia, Gustavo Noboa of Ecuador and Peru's foreign
minister, Javier Perez de Cuellar, drafted a letter to be presented to
President Bush in Quebec appealing for greater market access.

They are seeking U.S. renewal and expansion of the Andean Trade
Preferences Act, a 1991 law expiring in December which exempts Andean
exports including flowers, minerals and oil from U.S. duties.

Chavez - who has been the region's most blunt critic of the
U.S.-backed strategy to drive rebels from Colombia's coca fields and
give aid to poor coca farmers - said he had changed his mind about the
plan.

"Where there were doubts about Plan Colombia, now there is clarity,"
declared Chavez.

During a recent visit to Washington by Pastrana, Bush said he supports
extending the Andean Trade Preferences Act. His $731 million budget
request for the Andes also sweetens the deal for countries in
Colombia's vicinity.

Despite leftist opposition charges that Ecuador could become a staging
ground for operations against Colombian guerrillas, the country
already is receiving $62 million in U.S. improvements on an airport
the Pentagon uses for counter-drug surveillance flights over the region.

The ratcheting down of rhetoric about the U.S.-backed drug campaign
does not mean Colombia's suffering has ceased to be a worry around the
region.

Venezuela, responding to reports that ranchers were going to form
paramilitary squads to defend themselves against kidnappings by
Colombia rebels, said this month it had fortified the border with troops.