COLOMBIA SAYS KEY TO DRUG FIGHT IS FOR U.S. TO TAME DEMAND

CARTAGENA, Colombia, Aug. 29 -- President Andres Pastrana said today that
Colombia cannot put a dent in international drug trafficking until the
United States and other countries do much more to control their citizens'
appetite for drugs. "Colombia can put a stop to drugs here at some point,
but if the demand continues, somebody else somewhere else in the world is
going to produce them," Mr. Pastrana said in an interview at a restored
monastery overlooking the cannon-studded colonial walls that once protected
this port from English and French pirates. "We are already getting
intelligence reports of possible plantings in Africa."

"What we are talking about is the most lucrative business in the world," he
added, "unless the recent spike in oil prices has made it the
second-most-lucrative business in the world."

To be sure, reducing the South American drug trade has proven a difficult
and complex matter, and drug-producing nations have long made the same
contentions. But Mr. Pastrana's wary words seemed to strike a dissonant
note, coming on the eve of President Clinton's arrival here Wednesday, when
the leaders are to open a $7.5 billion plan to address the spreading
trafficking problem in Colombia.

The joint plan aims to cut coca plantings here by 50 percent in five years
through a combination of military pressure, plant eradication and social
reforms.

Mr. Clinton's visit will be the first by a United States president in 11
years, and it had been seen here as a triumph for Mr. Pastrana's presidency,
now at the midpoint of his four-year term.

The plan includes $1.3 billion in aid to train and outfit a Colombian
anti-drug brigade to support police efforts in eradicating coca and in
halting processing and shipment of coca and cocaine in two southern
provinces that are largely controlled by Colombia's largest guerrilla group.

Regional leaders have expressed fears that the plan will widen the guerrilla
war and spill refugees and coca plants across the Brazilian, Ecuadoran and
Peruvian borders. Mr. Clinton and Mr. Pastrana will attempt to counter those
concerns with clear public commitments for more alternative agricultural
development and with relief for coca growers who lose their illegal
livelihoods.

Mr. Clinton tried today to ease local concerns about American intervention
in a videotaped message to Colombians. "Please do not misunderstand our
purpose," he said. "We have no military objective. Let me be clear about the
role of the United States. First, it is not for us to propose a plan. We are
supporting the Colombian plan."

As a former television journalist and the son of a former president, Mr.
Pastrana has a casual charisma. But rising unemployment and stalled peace
talks with Marxist rebel groups that control large areas where the drug
industry is spreading have made him an unpopular president. It is not easy
to be optimistic in a country where the government has lost control of half
of its territory, two million people have been displaced and parents of
means buy bullet-proof vests for their children.

He said he was confident that the guerrillas could be persuaded to negotiate
a peace and even to encourage volunteer eradication of coca crops by peasant
farmers.

He also said the United States should play a more active role in the peace
efforts, to encourage the guerrillas to join the fight against drugs. State
Department officials met with leaders of the country's largest guerrilla
group two years ago in Costa Rica, but all contacts were broken after rebels
killed three Americans last year and refused to turn over any suspects.

Mr. Pastrana said the United States could go a long way toward helping him
revive a lagging economy by granting Colombia trade preferences. He
suggested that Colombia could join the United States, Mexico and Canada in
the North American Free Trade Agreement or that his country and the United
States could enter into the special trade relationship. American officials
have said that the possibility of such steps will be up to the next
president and Congress.

Mr. Pastrana was also sanguine that his armed forces are working to sever
their relations with marauding right-wing paramilitary bands, which have
frequently massacred peasants, adding, "I am not only committed to human
rights because President Clinton is committed to human rights."

Mr. Pastrana was dressed casually in a short-sleeve shirt and khaki pants,
as if he were just another tourist trying to keep cool under the sweltering
Caribbean sun. But in an interview that was otherwise characterized by
hearty laughs and easy conversation, it was on the subject of the
international drug trade that Mr. Pastrana expressed the most caution.

"There are short-term, medium-term and long-term things we can do, but I
think we need more of a commitment from the world community," he said.
"Maybe if we had more money, we could make more progress."

The 50 percent reduction in coca cultivation that Mr. Pastrana hopes to
achieve would return Colombia to the levels of 1997. Coca production has
exploded here, despite a large increase in American aid, as Peruvian and
Bolivian eradication efforts made great strides. When Colombian traffickers
could no longer rely on Peruvian and Bolivian sources, they began large
plantings here, and the crop strains have become more potent.

The increase in Colombian plantings, in turn, has added hundreds of millions
of dollars of protection money to guerrilla coffers, American and Colombian
officials say, expanding rebel ranks and refueling the 40-year-old guerrilla
war.

In recent months guerrillas have attacked small police detachments around
the country, forcing the police to abandon scores of towns and villages.

Mr. Pastrana said the United States had come a long way from viewing the
drug traffic as merely "a police problem" and to understanding it as a
social disease that requires a multipronged effort to resolve. He saved his
toughest words for Europe (without naming any countries).

"The perception I have of Europe," he said, "is that the Europeans like to
think this problem doesn't touch them. But every day the new trafficking
routes are targeting Europe. A big market is developing there."