COLOMBIA MILITARY CHIEF EXPECTS WAR WITH DRUG TRAFFICKERS

BRASILIA (Reuters) -- Colombia's armed forces chief, Gen. Fernando Tapias,
said a U.S.-backed intensification of its war on drug traffickers and
rebels marked "a point of no return" in the country's peace process.

In an interview published Sunday in Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo,
Tapias said that the U.S.-backed "Plan Colombia" would force Marxist
guerrillas to end their three decades of struggle by eroding their main
source of income: the lucrative drug trade.

"What is clear: there will be peace, but first there will be war," Tapias said.

"I would say that Plan Colombia creates a point of no return in the peace
process," said Tapias. "With Plan Colombia, there will be a radical
reduction in financing from drugs. They will have to accept a negotiated
solution from the government."

President Clinton arrives in Colombia Aug. 30 to show support for
Colombia's struggle to slash cocaine production and free up to 50 percent
of the war-torn Andean country from the control of rebel guerrillas.

Clinton's trip to Colombia, the first by a U.S. president in a decade,
comes after he signed a law in July that gives $1.3 billion for U.S. aid to
fight drugs and rebels in Colombia.

In a separate Folha interview published Sunday, Raul Reyes, the chief
negotiator for the country's biggest rebel army, the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC), said rebels were preparing for the worst
conflict in Colombia's history.

"If they implement the Plan Colombia in practice they will have the worst
conflict that this country has ever seen. And we will be ready for it,"
said Reyes, a senior FARC commander.

But Tapias said he doubted that the level of violence in Colombia would
worsen. The last ten years has left 35,000 dead.

"The guerrillas and the paramilitary (forces) are already doing everything
they can," Tapias said. "With or without Plan Colombia, things are not
going to get worse."

Both U.S. and Colombian authorities accuse the rebels of raising up to $500
million per year from the drug trade. U.S. officials estimate that 90
percent of the cocaine that turns up the United States originates in or
passes through Colombia.