NO EXTRADITION FOR GUERRILLA LEADER

BOGOTA, Colombia - President Andres Pastrana says he will not
extradite to the United States a guerrilla commander accused of
ordering the murders of three American activists last year.

In an apparent gesture to the country' s leftist rebels, Pastrana said
German Briceno, a regional commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia, or FARC, will remain in Colombia.

" This is a crime that will be tried in Colombia, " Pastrana stressed
Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press.

Prosecutors say Briceno ordered the deaths of three U.S. Indian-rights
activists in March.

The killings prompted U.S. diplomats to break off exploratory contacts
with the FARC aimed at bringing the rebels into the process of weaning
peasants off drug crops.

Colombian prosecutors have filed murder charges against Briceno, who
remains at large. On Thursday, they subpoenaed Briceno' s brother,
Jorge, the FARC' s No. 2 leader and also a fugitive, in the case.

Pastrana also said that although the bulk of a $1.6 billion U.S. aid
package would fund an escalating war against drug cartels, tens of
millions would go toward softening the blow for peasant farmers who
will be forced to abandon illegal crops.

In addition to underwriting a U.S.-trained counter-narcotics battalion
into a rebel-dominated southern region to destroy drug crops, the
president said he also wants Washington to fund alternative
development including cattle ranching and coffee, cotton and quinine
cultivation.

" We' ve got to give these people a hand, " Pastrana said during a
45-minute interview in his office in the presidential palace. " We
can' t look at the problem only as one of fumigation and
eradication."

Facing a civil conflict that claims 3, 000 lives a year and the
corrupting influence of drug trafficking, Colombia is in the throes of
its worst recession since the 1930s.

After taking office in August 1998, Pastrana bet his presidency on
making peace with the FARC, withdrawing troops from a huge swath of
southern Colombia even though the rebels have refused a cease-fire
offer and have continued to promote cocaine production.

Pastrana acknowledged Thursday that the rebels are deeply involved in
the drug business, but added " we have no clear evidence that the FARC
is a cartel"

" We know it lives off drugs. But we also know that behind it is a
political life of 40 years of insurgency that can' t simply be cast
aside, " he said.

On the U.S. aid package, Pastrana said 79 percent of the money would
help Colombia' s military and police battle drugs in the world' s No.
1 cocaine-producing nation, including the purchase of 63 helicopters
and the training of two additional 950-man counternarcotics battalions.

Critics of the aid plan, which the U.S. Congress is to begin debating
next week, say Pastrana' s alternative development plans are
ill-conceived and inadequate. They predict a bloody backlash against
it in the southern region of Putumayo, where troops will launch a push
in the coming weeks to wipe out a third of the country' s coca crop.

Hundreds of FARC rebels protect drug crops in Putumayo, where five
U.S. military personnel were killed in the July crash of an Army RC-7
spy plane that was apparently caused by pilot error.

More than 100 U.S. military personnel are in Colombia at any one time,
training troops and helping improve the Colombian military' s
intelligence-gathering.