US SENATORS SKEPTICAL ON COLOMBIA DRUG AID PACKAGE

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Clinton administration's plan to boost anti-drug
aid to Colombia met with a wall of skepticism on Thursday among U.S.
senators worried about getting caught in a South American Vietnam.

Members of the Senate Appropriations Committee also demanded tougher
conditions on the mostly military aid to make sure the Colombian army
stopped abusing human rights.

The administration has asked Congress to approve $1.6 billion in aid to
Colombia over two years to fight drug traffickers and Marxist guerrillas who
protect them.

Most of the world's cocaine, and much of the heroine consumed in the United
States, are produced in southern Colombia where rebels control much of the
countryside in Latin America's longest left-wing armed uprising.

``Who goes in if this thing blows up?'' asked Appropriations Committee
chairman Ted Stevens, a Republican from Alaska. ``Tell me this is not
Vietnam again.''

U.S. Southern Command chief Gen. Charles Wilhelm, a Vietnam veteran,
dismissed the concern. ``When I go to Colombia, I do not feel a quagmire
sucking at my boots,'' he answered at a hearing on the Colombia aid package.

But skepticism prevailed among legislators. ``I'm prepared to listen, but
candidly, it's a high hurdle,'' said Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen
Specter.

Democrats in the Senate also questioned the involvement of the Colombian
army with right-wing paramilitary death squads responsible for massacres of
peasants.

New Jersey Democrat Sen. Frank Lautenberg said he was inclined to support
rapid aid for President Andres Pastrana, but expressed serious concerns
about Colombia's failure to probe and prosecute crimes committed by
paramilitary groups.

Lautenberg said these gunmen have taken on the military's ''dirty work'' in
Colombia's civil war, in which more than 35,000 people have died in the last
decade.

The bulk of the aid will buy 30 Black Hawk helicopters to equip three
U.S.-trained army battalions that will spearhead a military and police drive
into the southern Colombian provinces of Caqueta and Putumayo.

Wilhelm also hailed Pastrana's drive to pacify his country by cutting off
drug money financing the rebels. ``I believe it will work,'' he said.

Specter said the Clinton administration was spending $18 billion a year to
fight drug trafficking and stop consumption in the United States with little
to show for it.

``Where have you been for seven years?'' said Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch
McConnell, pointing at a chart showing an upswing in drug use by adolescent
Americans since 1992.

McConnell criticized Pastrana for allowing a demilitarized zone the size of
Switzerland, a concession to the main guerrilla movement, the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia, to get peace talks going last year.

A report issued on Wednesday by New York-based Human Rights Watch said the
Colombian army has not severed its ties to the paramilitaries as promised by
the Pastrana government.

The report said one army brigade had created a paramilitary squad in the
southern Cauca Valley as recently as 1999, providing arms, uniforms and
intelligence. It also accused another brigade of following and harassing
rights workers.

U.S. military aid to Colombia is subject to the 1997 Leahy Amendment,
introduced by Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, which bans
assistance to units with a record of human rights violations.

Leahy told the hearing he could not back the aid boost without strict
conditions to ensure soldiers who violate human rights or abet
paramilitaries are prosecuted in civilian and not military courts. ``I'm a
skeptic at this point,'' he said.