ANTI-DRUG EFFORT STALLS IN COLOMBIA

U.S.-backed anti-drug programs in Colombia are running out of money and
have effectively "ground to a halt" as Congress delays emergency funding
for military training and other activities, senior Clinton administration
officials say.

Anticipating that Congress would quickly pass a $1.3 billion supplemental
appropriation requested on an emergency basis in January, the
administration began expanding the anti-drug effort early this year and
stepped up spending. But the funding package has been held up in the Senate
for months and now appears unlikely to move forward until at least midsummer.

In the meantime, according to officials seeking to emphasize the urgency of
the problem, leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitary forces involved
in the drug trade have stepped up deployment and strengthened their
defenses in the main regions where coca, the basic ingredient of cocaine,
is grown. Instead of leveling off, as the administration had hoped,
production of cocaine is likely to increase this year.

Among the results of the funding shortfall cited by officials:

Fumigation flights against coca, a centerpiece of the anti-drug effort,
have been scaled back or stopped in many key areas. Officials estimate that
Colombia supplies more than 80 percent of the U.S. cocaine market. Aerial
fumigation of opium poppies, the raw material of heroin, has been stopped.

A special Colombian army anti-drug battalion, trained at U.S. expense last
year, has yet to undertake its first mission, because the helicopters it is
supposed to use are not available.

A second 1,000-man battalion - recruited, vetted for human rights
violations and moved two months ago to a training base in southern Colombia
- - is "doing jumping jacks" while waiting for U.S. Army Special Forces
trainers, for whom no funding has been approved, said one official.

"Things are worsening," said another official. "They are not static. Every
week we are losing ground."

These descriptions of a situation spinning out of control marks a new tack
for administration officials. While warning that conditions were grave,
they previously have reassured Congress that their proposed remedy would
begin to turn the tide in Colombia and, some years from now, stem the flood
of drugs into the United States. That was enough to sail the emergency $1.3
billion supplemental appropriation through the House of Representatives in
March and send it to the Senate.

But some senators remain opposed to the package, holding that the Colombian
military should be ineligible for aid because of human rights abuses, that
the plan itself is poorly conceived and risks U.S. involvement in a
guerrilla war, or that anti-drug money is better spent on prevention
efforts at home.

"Of course we are concerned, but that does not mean that if the aid had
been approved things would be better," said Tim Rieser, an aide to Sen.
Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), one of the leading opponents of the measure. "The
administration has yet to say what they expect to achieve, in what period
of time, at what cost, and at what risk to hundreds of American advisers
there."

But "if the Republican leadership wanted to get the aid passed," Rieser
said, "they could do it." Aid opponents agree that the votes are there to
pass it.

All sides blame the delay on Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.),
who took the lead last year in urging the administration to deal
expeditiously with Colombia and who repeated last week, "I'm for the
president's proposal with regard to the Colombian drug war." But Lott's
refusal to consider the aid an emergency measure and his insistence on
attaching it to the regular foreign operations bill - which has become
bogged down in an unrelated Senate fight - doomed it. Even if the bill
passes this summer, Colombia may not see a dime before the end of the year.

Administration officials now appear to see little potential advantage in
putting an optimistic face on the situation. Their predictions, made in a
series of interviews last week, seem both a calculated effort to ratchet up
the pressure on the Senate and a depressing assessment of reality.

Officials acknowledge that the administration may have inadvertently
contributed to the growing difficulties in Colombia.

When it first asked Congress to approve the emergency funding in January -
hoping for approval by spring - the administration described with great
public fanfare the planned "push" by the new, U.S.-trained and equipped
battalions into two southern Colombian provinces where coca cultivation is
booming. The troops would retake the provinces from guerrilla forces,
government infrastructure would be established and coca-growing peasants
would be provided the wherewithal to grow legal crops, officials promised.

Instead, while the government troops remain undeployed, guerrillas of the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia have taken advantage of the warning
and the delay by vastly increasing their armed presence in the area,
according to the officials.

"They are digging in, planting mines and doing all kinds of nasty things
making it more difficult for the government to occupy the country," said
one official. Guerrilla forces provide armed protection for drug
traffickers and tax their operations.

At the same time, right-wing paramilitary groups, whose alleged ties to the
Colombian army have contributed to congressional skepticism about the aid
plan, have increased their presence in the southern provinces of Putumayo
and Caqueta, contesting drug territory and profits with the guerrillas.

Early this year, the administration took what one official called "a
calculated risk" by stepping up the spending of money already appropriated
for this fiscal year - close to $300 million - on the assumption that the
"supplemental funds would be available by May or June." Now, to keep from
completely running out of money, aerial coca fumigation has been curtailed.

"With the cost of pilots, fuel, spare parts and other stuff, we've cut back
from $5 million to $2.5 million a month to make sure we can continue to the
end of the [fiscal] year," the official said.

Construction at two airfields for the counter-drug battalions is in
abeyance, as is the upgrading of an Ecuadoran air force installation near
the Colombian border that is to serve U.S. drug surveillance flights,
officials said.

The already trained, 1,000-troop battalion spends its time patrolling on
the ground just outside the perimeter of Tres Esquinas, its main base in
southern Colombia, officials said. Eighteen U.S.-supplied UH-1N helicopters
that were supposed to provide air mobility until a new fleet of
U.S.-provided Black Hawk helicopters was in place are largely unavailable,
due to delays in pilot training and lack of mechanical support that
officials say are a result of money problems.

As for the other battalion, the second of what is designed to be a
U.S.-trained, three-battalion force, "they're sitting on the ground, doing
nothing" at a base at La Randia, about 300 miles south of the Colombian
capital of Bogota, an official said. The funding for their training, he
said, "is in the supplemental."