DRUG CZAR URGES COLOMBIAN OPENNESS

BOGOTA, Colombia -- The White House drug policy director on Wednesday
played down a blistering report that links a handful of U.S.-trained
army officers in Colombia to death squads, saying that the real menace
to human rights in that country is its narcotics trade.

Drug czar Barry McCaffrey vigorously praised Colombia's civilian and
military leaders, asserting that they are committed to the rule of
law.

McCaffrey, promoting a $1.6 billion aid package before the U.S.
Congress, said the human rights problem of "gigantic proportions" in
Colombia is a flourishing trade in heroin and cocaine.

"The production of these drugs is ruining the environment, causing
distorted economic growth in Colombia, causing huge levels of violence
and corruption . . . and fueling some of the most dangerous
international criminals the world has ever seen," he said.

McCaffrey said the military had cleaned up its rights record.
"Complaints against the armed forces have dwindled to near zero," he
said.

Nonetheless, McCaffrey exhorted Colombia's civilian and military
leaders to throw doors open wide for international scrutiny of alleged
abuses.

"Human rights organizations should be allowed to go look at the
situation and report their findings," he said. "International news
media should have full access. And if there is wrongdoing alleged, it
should be investigated."

Report Cites Abuse

McCaffrey's warm support for the armed forces contrasted with a
24-page report by Human Rights Watch/Americas, a Washington-based
monitoring group, that presented what it called "detailed, abundant
and compelling evidence" of ongoing links between senior military
officers and right-wing paramilitary forces blamed for atrocities.

The report asserted that "half of Colombia's 18 brigade-level army
units" maintain links to outlaw armed forces.

In its most startling allegation, the report said officers at the
army's Third Brigade, headquartered in Cali, helped set up a death
squad known as the Calima Front eight months ago.

The death squad was formed to retaliate against National Liberation
Army guerrillas who shocked the nation by sweeping into a Roman
Catholic church in Cali during Mass on May 30 and abducting about 140
worshipers, the report said.

"Active duty officers provided intelligence and logistical support.
Former military officers were among those called in to assume
positions of command," the report said.

The death squad went on a rampage around Cali that left at least 40
people dead by September, but "their movements went virtually
unimpeded for weeks," the report said.

A former army intelligence agent, known by the pseudonym Elias, later
turned state's evidence but he and several investigators from the
attorney general's office received threats and have fled Colombia, it
said.

The report said seven officers it has linked to paramilitary groups
are graduates of the U.S. School of the Americas, which trains Latin
officers on military doctrine.

"Training alone, even when it includes human rights instruction, does
not prevent human rights abuses," the report said.

EXECUTIONS

The report also cited evidence that outlaw rightist combatants
wandered freely onto bases under control of the army's Fourth Brigade
in Medellin. It said death squad members routinely brought suspected
leftists to army bases, where they were executed, then dressed in
combat fatigues to make them look like rebels killed in combat.

One federal probe "listed hundreds of cellular telephone and beeper
communications between known paramilitaries and Fourth Brigade
officers," it said.

The rights group alleged that members of a disbanded army intelligence
unit, the 20th Brigade, "were simply redistributed" to other units and
continue harassing human rights monitors.

On arriving in Colombia on Tuesday night, McCaffrey singled out the
armed forces commander, Gen. Fernando Tapias, and the national police
chief, Gen. Rosso Jose Serrano, saying they were solidly committed to
following the law.

"President Pastrana has said he will hold the military and police
leadership accountable for their actions," McCaffrey said.

He said the senior leadership appeared respectful of
rights.

"Now, you get down to the brigade level, and I think we're going to
have to watch it very carefully," he said.