U.S. GIVES $1.3 BILLION TO COLOMBIA DRUG WAR

WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration announced a $1.3 billion, two-year
emergency aid package to fight narcotics in Colombia that deepens U.S.
involvement in that country's long and violent war against narcotics
traders and rebels.

President Clinton said the emergency aid was "urgently needed" not only to
help Colombia and its struggling democracy but to keep "illegal drugs off
our shores."

The plan unveiled Tuesday received immediate praise from congressional
Republicans, who said it mirrored their own legislation introduced last
autumn, with the exception that Clinton wants to spend even more money than
the Republicans had proposed.

Most of the money would be spent on military training and equipment for the
Colombian armed forces and police in their anti-drug war, but significant
funds also would be spent on improving the judicial system and institutions
protecting human rights as well as bolstering the economy.

The Colombian government, which already is the third-largest recipient of
U.S. aid behind Israel and Egypt, could begin receiving the funds as early
as March.

Colombian President Andres Pastrana welcomed the program, saying that
fighting the narcotics trade is a "shared responsibility" between countries
that produce drugs, such as Colombia, and those that consume drugs,
including the United States.

Under the proposal, the Colombian military would receive 30 Blackhawk
helicopters and 33 Huey helicopters to ferry soldiers into two southern
provinces that have become the center of coca production (cocaine is
derived from coca plants). There, the army will protect the national police
and help in their counterdrug mission.

In addition, the $600 million set aside for military assistance will
include funds to train and equip two more counternarcotics battalions.

Colombian farmers who grew coca or poppy and villagers displaced by the war
will receive $145 million in economic aid to help them find new livelihoods
and new homes. Another $93 million will be spent to strengthen Colombia's
judicial system in its ability to protect human rights, enforce anti-drug
laws, and crack down on money laundering.

"This is a comprehensive approach that could be the basis for the peace
process," Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Tuesday at a press
conference. "It is based on the program President Pastrana has developed."

To underline the administration's emphasis on the crisis in Colombia, the
secretary of state will visit Bogota this weekend to go over the details of
the program with Pastrana and to figure out how to convince other countries
to contribute money to the drug war, according to James Rubin, State
Department spokesman.

Republicans said Tuesday's proposal showed that the president had come to
accept, or appropriate, many of their ideas for combating drugs before they
reach the United States. Rep. Bill McCollum, a Florida Republican,
applauded Clinton for creating a proposal that he said took many ideas from
his legislation that became the 1998 Western Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act.

Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, said he "finally" welcomes a White House plan
that will give badly needed assistance to fight narcotics in Colombia. His
legislation, which is co-sponsored by Sen. Paul Coverdell, R-Ga., was by
comparison more modest and would have cost $1.6 billion over three years
and involved, for instance, the purchase of only 15 Blackhawk helicopters.

In answer to the Republicans, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, director of the Office
of National Drug Control Policy, said the administration has "benefited
from the debate over the past months." He said he expected that Congress
and the White House would come to an agreement for immediate aid to Colombia.

Some Democrats cautioned that the strategy would require many more years
and billions of dollars more than this plan envisages -- with no assurances
that the United States could avoid being tainted by -- or even drawn into
- -- a civil war that has killed tens of thousands of people over the past 40
years.

"Everyone wants to stop the flow of illegal drugs into the United States,
but we have spent billions trying to do that and the flow has gotten worse,
not better," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. "What we are seeing is a
dramatic ratcheting up of a counterinsurgency policy in the name of
counterdrug policy."

The drug trade underwrites the insurgency. The rebels earn as much as $100
million a year from taxing the narcotics trade, making them self-sufficient
and, perhaps, the wealthiest insurgency in history.

The administration insists that U.S. military equipment will be used only
against drugs and not in the civil war, but officials admit that it is
often difficult to distinguish one from the other.

With as many as 150 U.S. military personnel in Colombia at any moment, many
of them training and advising, there is a concern that they will get caught
in the fighting.

"I understand the slippery slope argument that American soldiers will
eventually get involved in the war, but we have established a red line that
we will not cross -- no U.S. personnel will ever take part in the conduct
of a counterdrug operation," a senior Defense Department official said.