BOGOTA CONFLICT CROSSES BORDERS

MEDELLIN, Colombia -- Colombian President Andres Pastrana will ask the
United States for more aid when he visits Washington this weekend - but
President George Bush is already faced with a foreign policy nightmare as
US military aid sanctioned by his predecessor, Bill Clinton, sends
Colombia's 37-year civil conflict over its borders.

"We are a poor country," Mr Pastrana said in a recent interview in the
presidential palace in Bogota. "But we are spending $ 1 billion a year of
our money to keep drugs off the streets of Washington and New York. We need
more help. This is a long-term plan, maybe 15 to 20 years."

Mr Clinton handed Colombia more than GBP 1 billion of mainly military aid
for the war against drugs last year, using a presidential waiver to bypass
human rights conditions normally attached to such aid, conditions that
Colombia could not, and cannot, fulfil.

The US aid is centred around three US-trained and equipped anti-narcotics
battalions backed up by 60 helicopters. Under a campaign called Plan
Colombia some of the assets have been unleashed in southern Colombia in the
world's largest aerial drug eradication programme. But the impact of the
aid has already become apparent.

The war has escalated, as have human rights abuses, and respected observers
are saying the plan is fundamentally flawed. "I agree that this is an
enormous problem and that there is great danger. But we cannot simply start
something and later not have a plan if it does not work out. That is how we
got involved in south-east Asia," Henry Kissinger, the former US secretary
of state, told the Council for International Relations this week.

The Colombian president is unlikely to ask for more military aid, but
rather cash for some of the social investment programmes he promised under
Plan Colombia, but which his government cannot finance.

But Mr Bush is under pressure, not only at home as the debate rages over
how to handle a Colombia on the brink of open war, but from Colombia's
neighbours, who say they are paying the price of flawed US policy and could
be drawn into the conflict. "Our northern border was traditionally
peaceful, without conflict, until decomposition and delinquency settled in
southern Colombia and started spreading their poison beyond that border,"
Ecuador's president, Gustavo Noboa, said this week.

More than 7,000 refugees have fled across Ecuador's border from the
US-backed drug offensive, escalating fighting between right-wing
paramilitaries and Marxist guerrillas intent on controlling the lucrative
drug trade. Last month paramilitaries and rebels fought a pitched battle in
Ecuador's Amazon region.

Venezuela is also suffering. More than 3,000 refugees have fled fighting
and paramilitary massacres along the border, while Colombian guerrillas
have kidnapped 40 Venezuelan landowners for ransom.

Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, an outspoken critic of US military aid
to Colombia, said: "Peace negotiations are the only way; the US (military)
aid could lead to a military escalation of the conflict. It could lead us
to a Vietnamisation of the whole Amazon region."

Panama, without an army, disbanded after the 1989 US invasion that toppled
Manuel Noriega, is also vulnerable. Last year Colombian paramilitaries
burned a Panamanian village to the ground and factions attacked another
community, killing a 12-year-old girl.

Brazil has set up a task force to stop the fighting and drug trade from
spreading over the border, boosting troops along the 960-mile frontier to
over 12,000. "For Brazil, Plan Colombia is causing the biggest worry," said
General Alberto Cardoso, the presidential security adviser.

Peru's caretaker government has offered lukewarm support for Plan Colombia,
but fears its consequences. "(The violence) is serious ... we are guarding
our borders for possible infiltration not only from Colombia but via
Ecuador," the prime minister, Javier Perez de Cuellar, said.

Mr Bush on Thursday said he was eager to have Mr Pastrana report on how his
government is faring against the drug trade and the guerrillas. But he
added: "I share the concern of those who are worried that at some point in
time the United States might become militarily engaged."