ACTIVIST QUESTIONS U.S. INVOLVEMENT IN COLOMBIAN DRUG WAR

CENTRAL FALLS -- Anti-war activists say a $1.3 billion United States'
investment against drug trafficking in Colombia is actually a scheme to aid
paramilitary groups fighting revolutionaries.

"There's no 'Plan Colombia' against death squads, only poor people and
guerrilla groups, and we're against that," said Teresa Gutierrez, chair of
the International Action Center's U.S. Out of Colombia Committee. Gutierrez
spoke before a crowd of city residents at Progreso Latino Friday, many of
them Colombian immigrants, discussing what she called facts in the U.S.'
"Plan Colombia."

Instituted by former President Bill Clinton, and continued by President
George W. Bush, Plan Colombia appropriates $1.3 billion in U.S. funds to
the administration of Colombian President Frank Pastrana to help in the war
on drugs, Gutierrez said.

But she said 80 percent of the money is actually used to train the
Colombian military, and to fund war supplies and equipment.

In Colombia, there is a 40-year-old civil war between the Colombian
government and social activists and guerrilla groups.

Two major revolutionary groups have emerged to gain popularity among the
poor: the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia -- People's Army, and the
National Liberation Army.

Those groups continue to gain popularity and ground, consuming 40 percent
of Colombian land while negotiations with the government continue.

Many join the rebel groups to fight poverty, unfair employment and what
they called a corrupt government.

Yet the Pastrana government, Gutierrez said, has used the money for its
paramilitary groups -- many who belong to and are actually trained by the
government's military -- to fight the rebels.

Money is used to detect the rebels' communication, and for warfare.

Gutierrez said there has been more than 100 massacres against rebels and
community activists within the last month, many of them unarmed, she said.

"Hardly anyone from Colombia likes Plan Colombia," she said.

"Once again, the U.S. government allies itself with a corrupt government
whose military and paramilitary operations are virtually indistinguishable."

Founded by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, the International
Action Center sent a team of delegates to Colombia in November to interview
guerrilla groups and peasants.

"What is so horrible is the depth of repression in Colombia," Gutierrez,
one of the delegates, said. ""To march against Plan Colombia is to endanger
one's life."

She said Plan Government has allowed for the spraying of a microherbiside
over drug fields.

That same chemical, she said, was outlawed in Florida because its longterm
effects were unknown and scientists said it was too dangerous.

Yet the Colombian government is spraying it over peasants' fields, where
the rebel groups are, she said.

"This spray isn't for the drugs," she said, "this is getting into the
people's crops, food, and their water."

"None of this is going to help the Colombian people."