PERU'S FUJIMORI QUESTIONS U.S. AID FOR COLOMBIA

LIMA (Reuters) - Peru on Wednesday cast doubt on Washington's wisdom in
giving $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid to Colombia, saying it could spread
conflict across the region instead of calming it.

President Alberto Fujimori, still smarting after Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright left Peru off a Latin American tour last week, said
bluntly that he knew better than Washington what was at stake in the region.

Noting the announcement on Monday that Peru had smashed a ring that smuggled
some 10,000 guns to Colombian rebels, Fujimori said, ``We're not asking for
congratulations from any government.''

``We just feel satisfied that we've done our bit and perhaps the Americans
don't understand the threat to democracy posed by terrorism...as happened
with (rebel groups) the Shining Path and the MRTA,'' he told a news
conference.

Fujimori, who won a third term in office in May after widely criticized
elections, is credited with beating Marxist rebel groups that sowed terror
in Peru in the 1990s.

Under the aid package known as ``Plan Colombia,'' U.S. military advisors
will train special battalions in fighting the drugs trade and leftist
guerrillas who protect and profit from the trafficking.

But Fujimori suggested that spending $1.3 billion on military aid could
backfire with ``effects that could spill over to other countries.''

Colombia's neighbors, to varying degrees, say they recognize the gravity of
the crisis in Colombia, where the government controls barely half the
country.

But they worry that the conflict will spill over into their territory,
either in the form of refugees, cocaine production, guerrillas or drug
traffickers seeking shelter from a widely expected military offensive.