CLINTON VISIT TO TOUT DRUG WAR FUNDING FOR COLOMBIA

Will Make Quick Stop Wednesday To Talk Up $1.3 Billion Effort

PUTUMAYO PROVINCE, Colombia - On Wednesday, President Clinton will
spend six hours in Colombia to tout the $1.3 billion that the United
States is spending here this year to turn the tide in the war against
drugs, a war being fought on American streets as well as the jungles of
Colombia.

The aid, mainly military in nature, is going to three Colombian army
anti-narcotics battalions - about 3,000 men, U.S.-trained and -
equipped, along with 60 helicopters designed to give them mobility in a
country of mountains and jungles. This force is intended to take the
war
on drugs to where the drugs are grown, in the southern province of
Putumayo.

Putumayo is home to 150,000 acres of coca, the raw material for
cocaine. The U.S.-inspired plan is to use the anti-narcotics
battalions to destroy drug labs and to protect the largest aerial
fumigation program in the world.

This will serve not only to stop the flow of drugs from the country,
but
to attack the revenues of Colombia's left-wing guerrillas and right-
wing paramilitaries, which both finance their activities largely
through
income from the drug trade. With these forces weakened, the reasoning
goes, the state can regain control of the half of the country they
dominate and bring peace to Colombia, which has known civil conflict
for
36 years.

The plan sounds great - but there are a few catches.

For starters, Putumayo is a densely jungled region of some 300 square
miles. There is almost no infrastructure, and the main means of
transport are along the rivers that lace the area.

It is also home to the most feared fighting units of the largest rebel
group, the Southern Block of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC).

Of FARC's estimated 17,000 fighters, more than 3,000 are in Putumayo,
perfect terrain for guerrilla warfare. The guerrillas have already made
it clear they relish the chance to take on the U.S.-trained anti-
narcotics battalions and have prepared several "surprises" for them.

Furthermore, much of Colombia's coca is grown by subsistence farmers,
who grow coca alongside pineapple, maize and plantain, as a cash crop.
They already live well below the poverty line, mostly in shacks without
electricity and running water. These people will be the victims of the
fumigation program to eradicate coca plants, and there is already
evidence of what harm aerial spraying will do to them.

One of the aerial fumigation programs in Putumayo was conducted in
Puerto Guzman. Estaban Torres, a teacher in the community, described
what happened.

"In this area, there is no water supply, and the people drink water
from the streams which pass alongside the fields. So when the planes
flew over, spraying these toxic chemicals, people drank this water or
prepared their food with this water and fell sick, some very sick," he
said.

Puerto Guzman is not an isolated example, according to the staff at San
Francisco Hospital in Puerto Asis, one of the biggest towns in
Putumayo.


"Well, cases of poisoning come in often, due to the chemicals from
fumigation, but also there are cases of skin rashes, eye conjunctivitis
and breathing problems due to contact with these toxic chemicals. The
worst hit are the children," said Marta Cecilia Guapacha, head nurse at
the hospital.

Then there is the question of human rights.

Human rights groups have long alleged that the Colombian military
maintains ties to the right-wing paramilitaries. Scores of officers,
right up to general rank, have been charged with complicity in
paramilitary massacres. In order to get approval for his $1.3 billion
request, President Clinton had to use his presidential waiver, as
Colombia failed to fulfill the basic human rights requirements
stipulated for U.S. aid.

"Not a single one of the five human rights provisions contained in the
legislation has been satisfied," said Jose Miguel Vivanco of Human
Rights Watch. "A waiver that ignores Colombia's dismal human rights
situation would send a clear message to the Colombian government and
its security forces that the U.S. commitment to human rights does not
go beyond rhetoric."

While Colombia welcomes the U.S. aid - indeed, President Andres
Pastrana's beleaguered government desperately needs it - neighboring
countries range from lukewarm to fearful of the consequences.

Brazil has expressed worries about the environmental effects of the
fumigation chemicals on the region's delicate ecosystem. Peru has just
uncovered an arms smuggling ring, which supplied the FARC with 10,000
rifles, in its territory. Venezuela has already seen many of its
citizens kidnapped for ransom by Colombian guerrillas.

Ecuador, which borders on Putumayo, fears there may be an exodus of up
to 40,000 poor Colombian peasants who will have their crops destroyed
by the aerial fumigation program. Panama has already had border
settlements destroyed by warring Colombian factions.

Not all the Colombian authorities are convinced the U.S.-inspired "Plan
Colombia" will work. German Martinez, a government-appointed official
in Putumayo, says that the plan reveals a flawed understanding of the
drug trade, which he sees as divided into growers, dealers and
consumers.

"The people of North America are not distinguishing between the
different links in the chain of narco-trafficking. The Colombian state
should regain autonomy in policy for dealing with coca cultivation,
because this plan is not the vision of Bogota, but responds only to the
drug and counterinsurgency interests of the United States," Martinez
said.

There also is evidence that the fumigation program may help rather than
hurt the guerrillas and paramilitaries.

Torres, the teacher from Puerto Guzman, could hardly contain his tears
while describing the effect of the fumigation on his community: "I
actually had two ex-students of mine, girls, who left the school to
join the guerrillas. After the crops are destroyed, legal and illegal,
with no alternatives, no employment, the young people went to the
guerrillas."