HAGEL VOWS FIGHT ON DRUG TRADE

Colombian students at the University of Nebraska at Omaha remained
frustrated Saturday, despite a commitment by U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel to
seek remedies to the cocaine trade and internal turmoil in the Latin
American country.

Killings and kidnappings have marked Colombia's drug war. A $1.6
billion aid package approved by the Clinton administration last year
is providing U.S. military support, equipment and air surveillance.

On Saturday, Hagel told the students that he realizes his country's
appetite for cocaine is fueling the drug trafficking. The United
States, he said, is trying to counter domestic demand for cocaine
through education and law enforcement.

"The senator touched an important point about demand," said Santiago
Guzman, a UNO student. "That's the issue for us. What is the American
government doing about demand?"

Hagel was invited to speak to the students about his February
fact-finding trip to their homeland, where that government's forces
are fighting a war against the cocaine trade and anti-government
rebels. About 30 students and faculty attended the meeting at UNO.

Hagel, a Vietnam War veteran, has noted his concern that U.S.
involvement in Colombia could escalate.

He told the students he is convinced that the United States should
play a role in stemming drug trafficking.

Anti-drug programs for U.S. youths are but one ingredient in a
strategy, Hagel said. Colombian farmers must have other ways to make
money. Trade barriers must fall, he said.

"In a time when the world is intimately tied together," Hagel said,
"we do not have any option but to deal with all the dynamics of world
affairs. We are all connected."

Several students said that they were impressed that Hagel took time
to speak to them. But they said that the Colombian organized crime
that feeds drugs into the United States requires more drastic
measures than those backed by politicians like Hagel.

Guzman and Cesar Hernandez said the United States should explore the
legalization of drugs. If proper education and controls were in
place, the Colombian students said, demand might diminish.

Jose Cogua and Javier Pineros said the United States also should
focus more on reasons why people turn to illegal drugs.

"The core issue is we've got a sick society and we don't want to talk
about it," said Jonathan Benjamin-Alvarado, a professor of political
science who helped organize the event.

Youths are taught that drugs are bad, but on the other hand, the
professor said, they live in a culture that promotes over-the-counter
drugs as an answer to too many ills.

"Even with all of your best efforts," Benjamin-Alvarado told Hagel,
"we're fighting windmills."

Cogua was skeptical as well, questioning what type of equally
lucrative crop or trade might replace the narcotics trade that puts
food on peasants' tables.

Hagel told the students his interest in the region began before he
was elected to the Senate, as he visited Latin American countries in
the 1980s as a businessman.

"It certainly did not make me an expert," he said. "There is much
work yet to be done. There are deep, wide societal problems that
we're all going to have to deal with."