COLOMBIA PLAN WON'T BE A VIETNAM, COHEN VOWS

Latin American Defense Ministers Fear Escalation Of The Drug War.

MANAUS, Brazil -- U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen promised Latin
American defense ministers Tuesday that Colombia's expanding drug war will
not become a Vietnam-like quagmire.

But in interviews, defense leaders from countries bordering Colombia said
they fear they will suffer escalating cross-border movements of Colombian
drug traffickers and the guerrillas that thrive on protecting them.

Addressing 30 Western Hemisphere defense ministers, Cohen stressed that
Plan Colombia, an international anti-drug effort that includes $1.3 billion
in U.S. military aid, is essentially a training and equipping mission. It
is not, he insisted, the first stage of a U.S. military intervention.

``Anything you read or hear to the contrary is false and fabricated. We
want to be of assistance. We will work with Colombia. We hope others can
help in their own individual ways,'' Cohen said.

The Clinton administration insists Colombian units can break up drug
operations without U.S. troops getting involved in an escalating civil war
against rebels protecting Colombia's narcotics.

But its neighbors say Colombian rebels are already trying to draw them into
a widened conflict to weaken regional support for Plan Colombia.

The kidnapping last week in eastern Ecuador of a group of oil workers,
including five Americans, is part of that campaign, Ecuadorean military
officers said. They said intercepted radio communications indicate that the
kidnappers are rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or
=46ARC.

``I don't have information as to who is responsible. . . . That will not
alter Plan Colombia,'' Cohen said at a news conference. ``Plan Colombia is
designed to deal with narco-trafficking and other elements that are trying
to basically take democracy away from the people of Colombia.''

Venezuelan forces reportedly crossed into Colombia over the weekend in
pursuit of suspected drug traffickers.

``Worries remain in the countries that are neighbors of Colombia,'' said
Venezuelan Defense Minister Gen. Ismael Eliezer Hurtado.

A group of Colombian insurgents stormed across the northwest border into
Panama's Darien region on Saturday, killing an 11-year-old girl and
wounding nine civilians and three border policemen, according to Panamanian
officials.

``This makes us think that in some form, they want to push Panama, into the
[conflict] that Colombia is experiencing now,'' said Pablo Quintero Luna,
chief of Panama's national security board.

Colombian Defense Minister Luis Ramirez Acu=F1a countered that Colombia's
neighbors need to better protect their borders.

``What is needed is that we act together, the neighboring countries, to
strengthen our borders so that Panama has more military presence at its
border, so that Ecuador also has it and Venezuela,'' he said, noting that
drug traffickers will continue operating where they meet the least resistance.