DRUG WAR ESCALATES, NEIGHBORS WARY

Clinton Visits Colombia Today To Bolster A $7.5 Billion Antidrug Offensive.

CARTAGENA, COLOMBIA

President Bill Clinton's visit to this Caribbean city today marks the
beginning of an unprecedented level of American financial - and military -
commitment to this struggling nation.

Last month, the US Congress approved a whopping $1.3 billion aid package
for Colombia - the world's biggest supplier of illicit drugs. That's more
money spent over the next two years than the US spent on military aid to El
Salvador throughout the 1980s.

The money - which includes the funding of 60 combat helicopters and up to
500 US military advisers - is the United States' contribution to "Plan
Colombia," Bogota's $7.5 billion initiative to attack the lucrative drug
trade that has rotted the country's democratic institutions yet allowed
leftist guerrillas to prosper.

But this major escalation in US involvement is being met with trepidation
from South American countries. The prevailing attitude is like a
neighborhood baseball team's uncertainty about inviting a local ruffian to
play in their next tough game. They probably need the giant to win, but
they still worry about the effect his dominance will have on their game.

Colombia's neighboring countries generally support Plan Colombia, because
their primary concern is that continuing deterioration in Colombia could
ultimately threaten regional stability. And they see the US, the biggest
power in the hemisphere, sending an important signal with its involvement
that it won't stand by as a strategic democracy sinks.

But those countries, and a growing chorus of nongovernmental critics, also
fear the large US military involvement would only worsen the bloody civil
war, create a flood of refugees, and push the drug trade to neighboring
countries.

A large American military role "is a concern for us, of course, but it's a
decision between the two countries," says a Brazilian diplomat in Brasilia.
"Our main concern is seeing some kind of regularization achieved that can
lead to a stronger democracy in Colombia."

ON ALERT: Colombian soldiers patrol along Cartagena's waterfront before
President Clinton's visit today. The US is spending $1.3 billion to help
Colombia fight the drug trade. ARIANA CUBILLOS/AP

When Secretary of State Madeleine Albright swung through South American
capitals earlier this month to drum up support for Plan Colombia, she heard
in Brasilia what she generally heard elsewhere: "We can lend moral support
to Plan Colombia, but nothing even resembling military involvement."

But since then, several neighboring governments have openly expressed
reservations about the plan even while boosting army or police presence
along their borders with Colombia. That action has followed statements by
leaders of Colombia's largest guerrilla organization, the Colombian
Revolutionary Armed Forces or FARC, that the US participation in Plan
Colombia - and Clinton's visit - will only fan the flames of the Colombian war.

Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori recently expressed his fear that Plan
Colombia could cause the Colombian conflict to spread over borders.

Venezuela's Foreign Minister, Jose Vicente Rangel, angered Colombian
officials by stating in an interview with Colombian media that Venezuela
fears the heavy US antinarcotic assistance could force Colombian peasants
to flee to neighboring countries.

Then, Brazilian Foreign Minister Luiz Felipe Lampreia appeared to hedge on
the support for Plan Colombia he had expressed to Secretary Albright,
citing Brazil's strong concern about the environmental impact an intense
chemical defoliation of Colombia's coca fields could have on the Amazon
ecosystem. Brazil also announced a fortification of crossing posts along
its 1,700-kilometer border with Colombia.

ILL HARVEST: Workers carrying the day's harvest of coca leaves in Puerto
Asis, southern Colombia. The US has boosted aid to Colombia to a staggering
$1.3 billion to fight the South American nation's narcotics trade and the
guerillas who profit from it. RICARDO MAZALAN/AP

"That's not a change in Brazil's position of support," says the Brazilian
diplomat. "It's simply stating a concern about the impact on the rain
forest if heavy chemical use were to occur." And as for the border
reinforcement, he said, "That is actually a response to the Colombian
government's request that neighbors step up border controls."

All of these pronouncements reflect an underlying concern about Plan
Colombia's impact on the region. "There is substantial fear about
spillover," says Francisco Rojas Aravena, director of the Latin American
Faculty for Social Studies in Santiago, Chile. "Even in Chile there is
concern about the impact this could have on narcotics networks here."

Bruce Bagley, a Colombia expert at the University of Miami, says the
Putumayo and Caceta regions of Colombia, where the plan's anti-coca efforts
are to be focused, are home to 250,000-300,000 peasants either directly or
indirectly dependent on the growing and processing of coca, the raw
material for cocaine.

"If only 10 percent of those peasants are driven over to the guerrillas,
that's a substantial shift," he says. "If a similar number is driven to
seek refuge across borders, that will wreak havoc with Colombia's neighbors."

Already Colombia counts nearly 2 million displaced citizens who have fled
either the guerrillas or right-wing paramilitary groups that in some cases
have been found to be working in cooperation with the Colombian Army.

With Plan Colombia attacking Colombia's coca production just as other
countries like Peru and Bolivia have cut production to historic low levels,
neighbors worry that coca eradication in Colombia will simply result in
production elsewhere.

"There's this feeling this will be like chasing flies out of one room of
the house but into another," says Enrique Obando, an international affairs
analyst in Lima, Peru.

Mr. Obando says he takes lightly President Fujimori's expression of concern
about a spillover of Colombia's conflict, because historically few
Colombians have fled into Peru. "I think Ecuador and Venezuela have more to
worry about in that respect," he says. It's more likely that Fujimori is
using the heightened attention to Colombia because of Plan Colombia as a
"smokescreen" to deflect regional attention from Peru's own political
struggle over democratization, Obando says.

But he adds that Peru's political opposition, which had begun to trust that
the US had traded in its big stick in favor of democracy in Latin America,
is experiencing new doubts. First, because of what it perceives as lukewarm
support for Peru's democratic forces, and then because of the heavy
military focus of Plan Colombia.

Some of the US's $1.3 billion contribution is for strengthening Colombia's
judicial system and alternative development, but over 70 percent is for
military equipment and training. "The US is seen on the one side speaking
forcefully for democracy, but that when things get tough, its tendency is
still to push that aside and resort to military might," Obando says.

Colombia says it will fund $4 billion toward the $7.5 billion plan and is
also asking European nations for contributions.