CLINTON ON DAY LONG VISIT TO COLOMBIA

BILL CLINTON left for Colombia yesterday on the first trip there by a US
President in a decade, to show friendship and solidarity with Colombians in
their war against drugs and rebels.

Mr Clinton, who returned on Tuesday from a trip to Nigeria, Tanzania and
Egypt, was accompanied by his daughter Chelsea on the flight from Andrews
Air Force base to the Caribbean resort of Cartagena.

Mr Clinton will hold formal talks with Colombian President Andres Pastrana
and have lunch with him during his day long visit to Colombia. The
President will also inspect drug interdiction efforts in the Port of
Cartagena and meet members of the Colombian national police and talk to
widows of police officers killed in the line of duty. In a videotaped
message to the Colombian people on Tuesday, Mr Clinton said he would bring
a message of friendship and solidarity for the Colombian people, for
Pastrana and for Plan Colombia, the $7.5 billion anti drug plan to which
the United States is contributing $1.3 billion.

"As you struggle, with courage, to make peace, to build your economy, to
fight drugs and to deepen democracy, the United States will be on your
side," Mr Clinton said.

Colombia is a country going through a violent period of kidnappings,
massacres by paramilitaries and insurgents and drug trafficking that funds
an insurgent conflict and feeds crime. White House National Security
Adviser Sandy Berger said the country was engaged in a life or death
struggle for democracy. The aid package includes 60 military helicopters
and training for two special army battalions that will protect Colombian
police missions to destroy drug plantations and labs in guerrilla
controlled areas of southern Colombia.

US officials are going to great lengths to try to refute any notion that
the aid package is an initial step in getting involved in a Vietnam like
quagmire in Colombia.

An initial team of what will be as many as several hundred US advisers is
already in Colombia and has begun the training.

"There is no plan, and there is no proposal, and there is no idea of
committing American forces in Colombia to do anything but ... providing
training," said Thomas Pickering, US undersecretary of state for political
affairs.

Colombia's main rebel forces and key labor organisations have condemned the
US plan. They said the aid signaled growing US intervention that could
inflame Colombia's three decade old conflict.

Other Latin American countries are watching the US plan with great
interest, some with concern and others with cautious enthusiasm at the
prospect of removing an unstable situation in the region.

Mr Clinton's waiver last week of human rights conditions in order to begin
releasing the US assistance triggered outrage among human rights organisations.

They complain that Colombian military officers who have committed serious
abuses are routinely acquitted and that dozens of prominent human rights
cases go unsolved. Mr Clinton said the US package provides human rights
training for the Colombian military and police, and denies US assistance to
any units of the Colombian security forces involved in human rights abuses
or linked to abuses committed by paramilitary forces.

"Today's world has no place and no patience for any group that attacks
defenseless citizens or resorts to kidnapping and extortion," Mr Clinton said.

A senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it would
probably take six months to determine whether the training was taking hold
and years before Colombia rebounded.

"We may not be able to pull it off, but we think our assistance can do a
heck of a lot of good. It would be tragic if we looked the other way. They
deserve a chance for a fresh start," said the official.