CLINTON'S DRUG PLAN FOR COLOMBIA DRAWS FIRE

WASHINGTON -- With reports that cocaine production is on the rise in
Colombia, House members Tuesday challenged the Clinton administration's
two-year, $1.6 billion plan to help the South American country's fight
against drugs.

Citing intelligence estimates, administration officials said Colombia's
cocaine production jumped to 572 tons last year, up almost 20 percent from a
year earlier. Colombia now produces about 80 percent of the world supply of
cocaine.

Asserting that the White House has ignored the growing problems in Colombia,
Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., questioned whether the plan laid out last month by
President Clinton goes far enough.

"Someone must be accountable for the disaster at our doorstep," Mica said
during a House subcommittee hearing.

Republican and Democratic members of the panel voiced doubts about the
adequacy of U.S. aid and whether it was being delivered quickly enough.
Lawmakers also were concerned about the Colombian government's past support
for paramilitary groups accused of narco-trafficking and human rights
violation.

Members sought assurances that the United States was not getting involved in
a "Vietnam-like quagmire" in Colombia.

"The U.S. has not and will not get involved with the counterinsurgency in
Colombia," said Ana Maria Salazar, who oversees anti-drug-trafficking
efforts at the Pentagon. "The Department of Defense will not step over the
line."

Complicating Colombia's counterdrug efforts, the country has been battling
guerrilla groups since the 1960s. The anti-government forces are allied with
cocaine producers, who help fund guerrilla resistance.

"Despite years of congressional pleas for counterdrug assistance to
Colombia, countless hearings and intense congressional efforts, resources
approved by Congress have failed to be provided to Colombia," said Mica, who
chairs the oversight subcommittee.

Mica and Rep. Benjamin Gilman, D-N.Y., criticized the administration's
slowness in delivering previously promised military equipment, particularly
helicopters such as high-flying Blackhawks, needed to find drug operations
hidden in the Colombian mountains.

Gen. Barry McCaffrey, director of National Drug Control Policy, said the
administration will need at least two years to transfer equipment and to
properly train Colombian personnel.

About $1 billion of the aid requested by Clinton would be used to support
counterdrug operations in the southern, coca-growing region of Colombia. The
rest would go toward reforming Colombia's judicial and prison systems in
hopes of ending widespread corruption.

"Right now, drug traffickers are acting with absolute impunity," McCaffrey
said, acknowledging that the priority should be on military operations to
help the Colombian government win back rebel-controlled regions.

The administration also wants to help with economic, legal and social
reforms in Colombia, he said. "We are supporting all the things essential to
a democratic process at the grass roots," McCaffrey said

Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., voiced the concerns of human rights
organizations, saying that the aid package ignores the Colombia's failure to
crack down on right-wing paramilitary groups.

Civilian paramilitary groups, which initially worked in conjunction with the
government, have been accused of involvement in drug-trafficking as well as
in atrocities against civilians.

McCaffrey dismissed the concerns. "We cannot substitute U.S. thinking for
having (Colombian) President Pastrana and the Colombian government devise
their own plan," he said.

Pastrana has proposed a $7.5 billion campaign to eradicate drug production
and force guerrilla groups to negotiate a peace settlement.

The plan calls for eliminating drug crops with aerial fumigation and
infiltrating drug-processing laboratories. He also wants to establish
alternative crop programs for peasant farmers who grow coca.

The anti-drug campaign would be funded with the aid proposed by Clinton, $4
billion from the Colombian government and assistance from the European Union
and from international banks.

Administration officials also emphasized that the counterdrug effort should
not focus only on Colombia. To avoid simply driving drug producers into
other countries in the region, officials said, aid to Peru and Bolivia
should be continued and expanded in Venezuela, Ecuador, Brazil and Panama.