ALBRIGHT PRAISES COLOMBIAN SUCCESS IN WAR ON DRUGS

CARTAGENA, Colombia (Reuters) - Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
praised Colombia's success in its war on the drugs trade on Saturday on a
visit to this infamous port city where police once seized a 7.5 ton cocaine
consignment.

Albright, on the first leg of a tour which will also take in Panama and
Mexico, pledged to strive for a century of peace in a country where vast
swathes of territory are under the virtual control of drug producers,
Communist guerrillas or extreme paramilitaries.

Playing on the title of the novel ``100 Years of Solitude'' by Colombian
author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who joined Albright and President Andres
Pastrana for a working dinner on Friday, she declared that Colombia was not
alone in its fight.

``I vow on behalf of President Clinton and in very close partnership with
President Pastrana to seek 100 years of peace and democracy...for both our
nations,'' Albright told a news conference in the grounds of a government
guesthouse on the sun-soaked Caribbean coast.

Colombia has been plagued by a generation of violence, and some 35,000
people have been killed in the last decade.

Soon after Albright landed at this resort, a peaceful one by Colombian
standards, the second largest rebel group kidnapped a group of 15 people,
although seven were freed.

On Saturday heavy fighting broke out on a highway east of the capital
Bogota. At least 11 Marxist guerrillas and two policemen were killed when a
100-strong column of the main Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia,
attacked a small police barracks in the town of Guayabetal.

It was evidence of the turmoil which Pastrana has been fighting to end in
the year since he was elected. He says the violence feeds the drug
production from which rebels and their paramilitary opponents gain succor
and cash support.

``We can and will do more...from destroying laboratories, shooting down
money laundering and contraband activities and trading problems of
addiction,'' Pastrana declared.

He and Albright said they would seek world support to end the scourge of
drugs and Pastrana said he hoped a donors' conference would take place in
Europe in June or July.

Colombia has already taken initiatives of its own to stop cocaine exports,
including a private-sector funded program at half a dozen ports to find
drugs and catch the smugglers. U.S. experts are advising the planners, who
use the Internet to track suspicious cargoes around the world.

In the 18 months since the program was set up, 66 Colombian nationals and
four foreigners have been arrested. Tons of drugs, including 30 tons of
cocaine, 60.7 tons of marijuana and 53.6 kilos (118 pounds) of heroin, have
been seized.

Albright, on the highest level visit by a U.S. official to Colombia for a
decade, toured Cartagena's customs facilities, shook the paw of a sniffer
dog and heard how traffickers use parachutes to land drugs and speedboats to
retrieve the packages. ``They certainly are ingenious,'' she said.

The drugs seized in July 1998 were concealed in 70 four-foot long industrial
spools, each of them with cocaine hidden behind coils of wire or thread.

Washington is so impressed with Pastrana's ``Plan Colombia'' that President
Clinton wants Congress to approve a $1.6 billion aid package which would
treble to three the number of anti-drug battalions trained by U.S. forces in
Colombia.

Clinton's Republican opponents back the plan, but some Democrats feel it
concentrates too much on military matters.

Analysts fear it could exacerbate the conflict fought by Communist
guerrillas who are raking in profits by charging ``taxes'' to drug
traffickers.