U.S. TROOPS TRAINING COLOMBIANS

Will Anti-Drug Effort Turn Into Another Vietnam?

CARTAGENA, Colombia Government soldiers trained and equipped by Green
Berets scour the jungles for the enemy. It's an image that recalls the
early days of the Vietnam War.

But with the arrival of elite U.S. troops on an anti-drug training mission,
Colombian leaders and Clinton administration officials are vowing that this
South American nation will not become another Vietnam for the United States.

"We are not offering to engage U.S. troops. It's not on the table. It's
simply not going to happen," said Barry McCaffrey, President Clinton's
point man in the war on drugs.

McCaffrey, a Vietnam veteran and retired four-star general, spoke Thursday
about implementing Washington's $1.3 billion aid package for the anti-drug
fight.

Under the initiative, U.S. Special Forces soldiers are training Colombian
army anti-narcotics troops. With U.S.-supplied weapons and helicopters, the
Colombians are to seize drug crops from leftist guerrillas and other armed
groups and allow their subsequent eradication by crop-dusters.

About 100 American servicemen, including members of the Army and the Air
Force, have begun training Colombian troops, the Pentagon said.

No more than 500 American soldiers and 300 contract employees can be in
Colombia at one time, and they are barred from going into combat. Colombian
officials say such restrictions ensure the United States isn't wading into
this Andean nation's 36-year civil war, which pits the Colombian state
against at least 20,000 rebels.

"The American support is very regimented," said Gen. Fernando Tapias, head
of Colombia's armed forces.

President Andres Pastrana said it will be Colombian troops who go into the
danger zone.

U.S. troops "are here only to help in specific ways," Pastrana said in an
interview while watching military maneuvers at a sweltering army base near
Bogota. "The United States does not face the concerns here the way that we
do."

But as Washington's assistance program begins, questions are being raised
about what separates anti-narcotics efforts and anti-insurgency missions.

Already, U.S.-donated combat helicopters have been diverted from anti-drug
missions to rescue Colombian policemen under attack by rebels, and critics
see many other quandaries developing.

"The (Clinton) administration has sworn up and down it knows what it's
doing and where to draw the line on this issue, but as we get into this
fight, the U.S. is going to realize that there is no line," said Adam
Isacson, an analyst at the Center for International Policy in Washington.

McCaffrey insists the U.S. role will remain as clearly delineated as the
drug-producing plantations in Colombia's Amazonian jungles and Andean
highlands.

Human rights groups say Washington is tightening links with a military that
has committed human rights abuses and that has ties to right-wing
paramilitary groups which make money from drugs and also have death squads
in many areas.

McCaffrey denied there is any "overt linkage between the state and
paramilitary groups" and said he has witnessed a "watershed change" in the
way Colombia's military operates.

"The Colombian police and armed forces have changed their training systems.

They are now committed to the general notion of human rights. They are
transparent to the news media," he said.

Given the stakes, Washington must help Colombia, McCaffrey insists.

Not only does Colombia produce the vast majority of cocaine consumed around
the world, but its drug gangs are shipping an increasing share of heroin.
Drug-related violence and corruption are a threat to one of Latin America's
oldest democracies.

"We cannot let this crucial country implode under the weight of drugs and
violence," McCaffrey said.