COLOMBIA TO USE U.S. DRUG AID TO FIGHT RIGHTIST GUERRILLAS, TOO

Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and Colombian President
Andres Pastrana said yesterday that a proposed $1.6 billion U.S. drug
package would fight paramilitary death squads as well as communist
guerrillas in the Andean nation.

The U.S. aid, now pending in Congress, would include dozens of Black
Hawk helicopters and other military assistance to help Colombia's
government win back some of the more than 30 percent of the country
held by the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia known by the
Spanish acronym FARC.

The regions under FARC control, mostly in southern Colombia, supply
most of the cocaine and much of the heroin flowing into the United
States.

Mr. Pastrana and Mrs. Albright told reporters at the State Department
the aid will also be turned against the rightist paramilitary squads,
who also protect the cocaine and heroin trade.

Mr. Pastrana said the U.S. aid would be invested "in the north and the
south, the east and the west."

"We don't want to fracture the country." Mrs. Albright concurred. "The
paramilitaries are part of the problem, not part of the solution."

For years the Colombian military has allowed paramilitary groups to
operate with impunity. So long as they fight guerrillas, authorities
tend to look the other way as paramilitaries murder and terrorize
suspected rebel sympathizers.

The administration's new military aid package, which the House has
passed but is stalled in the Senate, will provide help to anti-drug
police and army units that protect police from the heavily armed FARC,
Mrs. Albright said.

Those army units must be vetted to be sure they do not include
officers who commit human rights abuses -- a U.S. legal precondition
for American aid.

Separately, the U.S. drug policy chief, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, said
yesterday that the paramilitaries have decided to kill Mr. Pastrana in
revenge for his efforts to rein in their operations, long believed
sanctioned by the Colombian army.

"The paramilitary forces responded with an assassination plot to kill
President Pastrana," Gen. McCaffrey told journalists after meeting
with the Colombian president.

"There is no question that the so-called paramilitary . . . may be the
most vicious and violent group in Colombia today," he said, adding
that the rightist fighters had recently stepped up their campaign
against leftist guerrillas operating in the country.

They are trying to "regain control of their illegal commerce and also
terrorizing innocent civilians," Gen. McCaffrey said.

Gen. McCaffrey said he was assured by Senate Majority Leader Trent
Lott, Mississippi Republican, of Mr. Lott's "absolute support for the
[Colombia aid] bill and the purpose of the bill."

Gen. McCaffrey said the proposed $1.6 billion aid package will protect
the United States, where drugs "kill 52,000 Americans a year."

"We are calling upon Congress to support this plan, which we now have
in front of Congress," he said.

The aid plan will also deal with some root causes of Colombia's
political and drug problems, he said.

A senior Colombian official recently told The Washington Times that no
health care is provided to much of the rural population.

It is those people who have fallen under the sway of the guerrillas or
the paramilitaries, often sensing they owe little allegiance to the
government in Bogota, the official said.

Mr. Pastrana said the U.S. aid, along with billions more he hopes to
raise in Europe and from the World Bank and International Monetary
Fund, would go "not just to fight drugs but for health, structural
reforms, strengthening institutions, human rights" and other social
purposes.