BRAZIL SUMMIT FEARS OVER COLOMBIA AID DEAL

COLOMBIA: South American governments expressed "serious concern" in
Brasilia yesterday at a $1.3 billion US military aid package for Colombia,
at an event originally called to accelerate trade integration but dominated
by Colombia's escalating internal conflict.

The Brazil summit, attended by all South American presidents, rejected
plans for a multinational military force that would intervene in Colombia.

"Brazil will not participate in any such international force," said Foreign
Minister Mr Luiz Felipe Lampreia, in comments published yesterday, "What's
more, Brazil stands firmly against the idea of any foreign military force
in Colombia."

Brazil has refused permission for the use of airstrips, despite an appeal
by US Secretary of State Ms Madeleine Albright during an official visit
last week. Argentinian officials yesterday expressed support for Brazil's
position.

Summit host President Fernando Henrique Cardoso unveiled plans for a South
American trade bloc, combining Mercosur countries (Argentina, Brazil,
Uruguay and Paraguay) with the Andean Pact nations (Bolivia, Colombia,
Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela) and Chile in a zone stretching from Colombia's
Caribbean coast to Tierra del Fuego.

The US has already negotiated a hemispheric trade bloc (ALCA) stretching
from Alaska to Panama, but aspires to incorporating South America by 2005.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who refused US aircraft permission to
overfly his nation's airspace, used the summit to air his fears that
Colombia's conflict could become a pretext for destabilising his radical
administration.

Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, a staunch US ally in the drug war,
nevertheless described the new US-backed anti-drugs plan as "harmful" to
his nation's economy.

Ecuador's President Gustavo Noboa announced plans for a national referendum
to measure support for his privatisation agenda. Mr Noboa was named
President after popular pressure ousted elected President Jamil Mahuad last
January during a week of national protest.

Fears were expressed at the summit that the escalation of Colombia's armed
conflict, and the indiscriminate fumigation of drug-producing areas, may
precipitate a massive human exodus which would spill into neighbouring
countries, already straining under the impact of prolonged economic crisis.

"We will not get involved in the internal conflict of Colombia, nor is this
about Yankee imperialism," said President Clinton during his visit to
Colombia on Wednesday. Worried leaders in Brazil do not seem to have taken
him at his word.