CLINTON URGES CONGRESS TO PASS AID FOR COLOMBIA

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Clinton made an impassioned plea on
Tuesday for the U.S. Congress to give Colombia $1.6 billion to fight
drug-traffickers, saying illegal drugs threaten the entire hemisphere's
security.

"Make no mistake about it. If the oldest democracy in South America can be
torn down, so can others," the president said in a speech to the Council of
Americas, a group that promotes free trade, open markets and the rule of
law throughout the region.

"I urge Congress to pass this package now," he added. "The Colombians
waging this campaign are fighting not just for themselves, they're fighting
for all of us, all of us in this room and the hundreds of millions of
people we represent."

The $1.6 billion would help fund a $7.5 billion plan drawn up by Colombian
President Andres Pastrana last year to fight drug traffickers and leftist
guerrillas in his country, which produces an estimated 80 percent of the
world's cocaine supply.

It would also seek to restore the rule of law and promote economic
development in Colombia, which for years has been afflicted by drug-related
kidnappings and murders and whose coca-growing southern regions are
dominated by guerrillas.

The Democratic White House asked the Republican-led Congress for the money
in January. The House of Representatives approved it in March and the
Senate is expected to start work on the matter in the next few weeks.

A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said the Mississippi
Republican had some problems with the way in which the House approved the
money -- as an emergency supplemental spending bill -- but backed the
overall plan.

"It is just a procedural question. On the substance of it, Senator Lott is
very supportive of President Pastrana and his efforts to combat terrorism
and to stem the flow of narcotics," said Lott spokesman John Czwartacki,
who added that Congress aimed to approve the money by the end of May.

The money, much of which is military aid, would help fund a campaign to
destroy drug laboratories and plantations and could also eliminate what
authorities say is a key financing source for the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC), Latin America's largest surviving 1960s rebel army.

It could also dent the rebels' military power and force them to moderate
radical socialist demands at year-old peace talks and to negotiate a swift
end to their uprising that has claimed more than 35,000 lives in just 10 years.

Clinton also told the group that he remained committed to a Free Trade Area
of the Americas that would stretch from Alaska and Patagonia by 2005, the
target date set by the United States and 33 other countries at a 1994
summit in Miami.

"We need all your help. We have to win in Colombia. We have to win the
fight for the free trade area in the Americas," he said. "We have to prove
that freedom and free markets go hand in hand."

Clinton told the group that he expected the Republican-led Congress by the
end of the month to approve the Caribbean Basin Initiative and related
African trade legislation to extend new trade privileges to Africa, the
Caribbean and Central America.

"The nations of the Caribbean have suffered quite a lot economically and
have come under enormous pressure to become way stations for
narco-traffickers, and we need to do more for them," he added.