LATIN LEADERS REBUFF CALL BY CLINTON ON COLOMBIA

BRASILIA, Sept. 1 -- The presidents of South America's 12 countries
today rebuffed President Clinton's appeal, made earlier this week,
that they endorse a new American-backed military and police offensive
aimed at drug trafficking and guerrilla groups in Colombia. In a joint
declaration at the end of a two-day summit meeting here, the leaders
expressed support for efforts by Colombia's president, Andres
Pastrana, to negotiate an end to four decades of civil conflict there.

But they pointedly omitted any mention of Mr. Pastrana's plan to use
military means to weaken the cocaine cartels and the left-wing
guerrilla and right-wing death squads that are allied with them.

Asked at a news conference about the deepening political and military
crisis in Colombia, President Ricardo Lagos of Chile made the
distinction explicit. The presidents fully support "the peace process,
which implies negotiations," he said, and which is therefore "distinct
from the problem of narcotics trafficking."

During his visit to Colombia on Wednesday, Mr. Clinton urged that
country's neighbors to "be strongly supportive of President Pastrana
and Plan Colombia," a comprehensive $7.5 billion package whose
military component is largely supplied by the United States.

Mr. Clinton acknowledged that increased American aid to
counter-narcotics operations in Colombia, if successful, was likely to
"cause the problem to spill over the borders" into neighboring
countries like Brazil, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. But he also said
the United States was willing to provide "a substantial amount of
money to help other countries deal with those problems at the border
when they start," an offer that has received no reply.

Looming over the meeting here was concern at what Venezuela's
president, Hugo Chavez, described as the threat of "the Vietnamization
of the entire Amazon region" as a result of increased American support
for Colombia. From the moment he arrived here, Mr. Pastrana sought
both to refute such notions and to enlist his colleagues in a regional
counter-narcotics campaign.

"There is no cause for fear, because after all we are fighting a
common enemy," he told reporters this morning after a meeting with Mr.
Chavez. "Drug trafficking is an enemy of Brazil, of Colombia, of Peru,
of the United States, and so we have to work hand in hand."

Mr. Pastrana's assurances, however, have been greeted with skepticism,
if not by his fellow regional leaders, then certainly in the press and
by public opinion across the continent. This afternoon, Colombia's
foreign minister, Guillermo Fernandez de Soto, vented his government's
frustration in remarks to reporters.

"It is unjust and counterintuitive that Colombia's efforts to
strengthen itself to fight the threat it faces are the subject of
complaints when no one criticizes the arms buildup of the insurgents,"
he said.

"We want cooperation, not unfair criticism."

But Mr. Chavez, a former Venezuelan Army colonel who has often
expressed sympathy for the guerrillas, made it clear, in terms that
several other governments echoed privately, that regional cooperation
was going to have important qualifications. "We support Plan Colombia
so long as it does not generate combat activities that could
complicate our situation," he said.

In other public comments, Mr. Chavez floated the idea of organizing
what he describes as a South American version of the NATO military
alliance. But in an interview in August, Brazil's foreign minister,
Luiz Felipe Lampreia, in effect quashed the idea, which would be
stillborn without Brazil's participation.

"We haven't exactly had that thought or even discussed it within
Mercosur," Mr. Lampreia said, referring to the trade bloc that Brazil
helped to found. "Mercosur is a group whose purpose is clearly
established, and it does not aspire to be a military bloc or alliance."

The summit meeting here was a Brazilian initiative drawn up this year
and initially intended to focus on issues of economics, trade and
infrastructure.

But the United States' recent decision to provide $1.3 billion in
emergency aid to Mr. Pastrana, combined with Mr. Clinton's visit to
Cartagena, Colombia, on Wednesday, forced an unexpected reordering of
priorities.

Nevertheless, the South American presidents agreed to begin
negotiations aimed at fusing the continent's two main trading groups.
The Mercosur group is led by Brazil and also includes Argentina,
Paraguay and Uruguay, while the Andean Community is made up of
Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela,

The objective established here is to create a single free trade group,
ideally by the beginning of 2002. That achieved, South America would
be able to present a common front in negotiations with the North
American Free Trade Agreement group, whose members are the United
States, Mexico and Canada, over a hemispheric trade accord the United
States wants in place by 2005.

The presidents also approved a so-called democracy clause that would
expel from their ranks any government that takes power through a coup
or other nondemocratic means. It was signed by all 12 presidents.