DOUBTS ASIDE, U.S. SET TO BOOST COLOMBIA AID

Alleged Corruption in the Army Sparks Concern on Capitol Hill. But It
Seems Unlikely to Affect Drug War Funding to the Top Ally in the Region.

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Despite growing bipartisan concern over alleged
corruption in the Colombian army, the U.S. Congress appears likely to
approve increased funds for this country's war on drugs.

A final vote on Plan Colombia funding -- the largest U.S. foreign aid
program outside the Middle East and Afghanistan -- probably won't
take place until after the November congressional elections. But
staffers and analysts in Washington say Colombia will receive more
than $750 million, exceeding the $728 million for the current fiscal year.

ADVERTISEMENT Click here to find out more! Separate House and Senate
versions to fund Plan Colombia each call for at least that much to be
granted to the government of President Alvaro Uribe, the United
States' staunchest ally in South America.

But even Republican stalwarts such as Rep. Henry J. Hyde of Illinois,
chairman of the International Relations Committee, are voicing
concern over allegations of corruption in the Colombian army, an
institution the U.S. has spent billions of dollars to train and expand.

This month, the Colombian Defense Ministry said it was investigating
media reports that army officers planted explosives in Bogota, the
capital, in the days leading up to Uribe's second inauguration in
August, in an apparent scheme to collect rewards for discovering the bombs.

The alleged plot, which reportedly involved explosives supplied by a
former member of Colombia's largest rebel group, is still under
investigation. Uribe went on national television recently to deny the
story, saying there was no evidence linking the officers to the bombs.

In August, army units in the Caribbean port of Barranquilla killed
six people, an incident at first portrayed as accidental deaths
during a kidnapping rescue attempt, then as drug-gang killings. Eight
army officers and soldiers have been arrested on suspicion of murder
in the case.

But the most disturbing incident for some U.S. legislators happened
in May, when Colombian army troops killed 10 U.S.- trained
anti-narcotics police officers and an informant in the village of
Jamundi, near Cali in the west of the country.

The shootout was first described as a case of mistaken identity. But
one high-ranking Uribe official has since then called it "a criminal
act" in which the army units allegedly did the bidding of
narco-traffickers. Fifteen army officers and soldiers are being held
while a civil judge investigates the case.

Concerned about a possible whitewash of the episode, Hyde wrote a
letter to Uribe this summer requesting "assurances that the Jamundi
case will conclude with the exposure of the full truth and all of the
facts wherever they may lead."

A senior staffer on Hyde's committee said Thursday: "Everyone wants
to see justice done and not have this swept under the rug. This was
one of Colombia's best-trained units that worked side by side with the U.S."

Tim Rieser, an aide to Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), said the
incidents raised unsettling questions about U.S. aid and oversight.
"The Jamundi case and other cases in which civilians have been
targeted and killed by the Colombian army illustrates that six years
into Plan Colombia and after more than $1 billion in U.S. aid to the
armed forces, it remains a flawed institution whose officers are
rarely accountable under the law."

Plan Colombia also faced scrutiny this year after a United Nations
survey showed that five years of effort and $4.7 billion had not put
much of a dent in overall coca-leaf cultivation.

Nonetheless, it appears unlikely that Plan Colombia aid will be
suspended or cut, said Adam Isaacson of the Center for International
Policy, a Washington-based think tank that has been critical of the
aid program.

"It shows the Colombian government has managed to do an excellent job
of lobbying," Isaacson said. "Uribe knows he is one of the only
friends the U.S. has in Latin America, and he is taking advantage of it."

Several Colombian analysts say that, scandals aside, the security
forces need an overhaul. They say the 35% growth in army and national
police units since Plan Colombia began in 2000 has put too much
strain on the institutions' command structures and oversight mechanisms.

"The repeated incidents leave little credibility to the notion that
these are isolated events," said Alejo Vargas, a political scientist
at the National University of Colombia. "The problems are profound
and indicate management is inadequate."