COLOMBIA TO REASSURE US OF ITS ANTI-DRUG COMMITMENT

BOGOTA -- President Andres Pastrana will meet U.S. lawmakers in Washington
next week to outline his controversial plan to order a troop pullout from a
vast swath of Colombian territory to promote peace talks with Marxist rebels.

Defence Minister Rodrigo Lloreda announced the previously unscheduled visit
in an interview with Colombian radio on Thursday, saying it would allow
Pastrana to address growing concerns among U.S. congressional leaders
about the troop withdrawal and its possible implications in terms of the
country's booming drug trade.

Pastrana had already planned to visit the United States next week to
address the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Sept. 23. But
his stopover in Washington, on Sept. 24, was prompted by an amendment to a
bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives late Wednesday making
Colombia ineligible for future U.S. anti-drug aid if the troop pullout
interferes with counternarcotics efforts in the area where it occurs.

Lloreda, who will join Pastrana in his talks with U.S. congressional
leaders, said the amendment was based on a series of misunderstandings
about the planned demilitarization of five southern and eastern
municipalities, an area about the size of Switzerland.

National Police chief Gen. Rosso Jose Serrano, who left for his own U.S.
visit on Thursday together with armed forces chief Gen. Fernando Tapias,
conceded in brief remarks to reporters that the area set for
demilitarization accounted for up to 12 percent of Colombia's illicit opium
poppy crops and coca, the raw material for cocaine.

Police say the area is crisscrossed with at least 100 clandestine, dirt
airstrips, used to smuggle drugs and weapons in and out of the area.

But Lloreda said no anti-drug efforts in the area would be affected by the
troop pullout, which is expected to occur in early November and remain in
effect for at least 90 days.

``The pullout is not going to turn into an opportunity for impunity in the
anti-drug fight,'' he told the Radionet all-news radio network.

``The corridors giving access to the area, a good part of it, are
controlled by radar, and other parts of the area will be controlled through
aerial supervision,'' he said. ``The government has laid out a plan whereby
planes dedicated to narco-trafficking won't be able to enter and leave this
place with impunity.''

Lloreda added that Colombia's U.S.-backed drug crop eradication programme
- --which centres on aerial spraying of drug crops with herbicides-- would
not be affected since the programme was concentrated on areas outside of
the demilitarized zone, where drug crops are denser and more widespread.

Pastrana agreed to the demilitarization in secret talks in July with Manuel
Marulanda, head of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Latin
America's largest and most powerful guerrilla army.

The FARC demanded the troop pullout in return for agreeing to hold its
first peace talks with the government in six years.

Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited

Checked-by: Pat Dolan