CLINTON PLANS TO SEEK $1.3 BILLION TO STEM COLOMBIAN DRUG FLOW

2-Year Program to Stop Heroin, Cocaine Vastly Increases U.S. Military
Equipment

The Clinton administration yesterday proposed a two-year, $1.3 billion aid
program aimed at stemming the flow of Colombian cocaine and heroin into
this country.

Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, who announced the package at the
White House, will travel to Colombia this weekend to explain the proposal
to President Andres Pastrana and consult with him on efforts to gain
additional aid from multilateral banks and European allies, said her
spokesman, James P. Rubin.

The aid package, if approved by Congress, would vastly increase the U.S.
military equipment in Colombia. It includes a request for 30 Black Hawk
helicopters and 15 UH-1N Huey helicopters, in addition to 18 Hueys that
have already been sent to the Colombian Air Force to carry troops into
drug-producing areas.

Senior administration officials said yesterday they do not expect the
number of U.S. military personnel in Colombia, which now fluctuates between
100 and 250, to rise significantly. But they said the U.S. Agency for
International Development would beef up its presence.

The administration will ask Congress to approve the bulk of the money,
nearly $1 billion, in an emergency supplemental appropriation this spring,
with the rest of the new funding in its fiscal 2001 budget request.
Existing aid to Colombia totals $300 million, bringing the total Bogota
would receive over the next two years to $1.6 billion.

The Drug Enforcement Administration estimates that cocaine and heroin
exports from Colombia have increased two to threefold in recent years and
supply 80 percent of the U.S. market.

Past criticism of U.S. policy toward Colombia has come from two directions.
Congressional Republicans have argued that increased assistance should go
to drug-fighting police rather than to the Colombian military, whose
primary mission is to stop Marxist guerrillas trying to overthrow the
government. Human rights groups and congressional Democrats also have
warned against U.S. involvement in the guerrilla war and have raised
questions about human rights abuses by the Colombian military.

The Clinton administration argues that since the guerrillas control many
drug-producing areas and derive most of their income from taxing drug
traffickers, the tasks of combating drugs and fighting guerrillas
inevitably are intertwined, though the U.S. military aid is to be used only
in drug-producing areas.

Reaction was mixed yesterday. Although a Colombian aid bill introduced by
Senate Republicans last fall differs from the administration plan in
several respects, its sponsor, Sen. Paul Coverdell (R-Ga.), called
yesterday's announcement "good news for Colombia" and said he "look[ed]
forward to working with the administration to resolve any differences
between our two approaches."

Rep. Benjamin A. Gilman (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House International
Relations Committee, said he welcomed the proposal but warned that the
administration's "credibility on fighting drugs at the source remains in
doubt" because much of the aid previously given to anti-narcotics Colombian
police units was slow to arrive or defective.

On the Democratic side, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.) expressed wariness.

"What we are seeing is a dramatic ratcheting-up of a counterinsurgency
policy in the name of a counter-drug policy," he said. "The
administration's purpose is to inflict enough damage to the guerrillas that
they feel compelled to negotiate. That sounds appealing, but it is a costly
and dangerous policy, as we saw in Central America in the 1980s."

Meanwhile, the Washington Office on Latin America, a research and policy
advocacy group, said "the proposed aid package will worsen the grave crisis
in Colombia, not contribute to its solution," because the administration is
"directly supporting Colombian counterinsurgency efforts." Similarly,
London-based Amnesty International said the plan would do little to combat
right-wing paramilitary groups that commit most of the human rights abuses
in Colombia and would be "tantamount to underwriting" those abuses.

The two-year aid package includes $600 million to equip, transport and
provide intelligence for three U.S.-trained anti-narcotics battalions of
the Colombian army; $341 million for drug interdiction efforts; $96 million
for the Colombian national police; $145 million for economic development,
primarily alternative crops for peasants who now supply drug traffickers;
and $93 million to support judicial reforms and peace negotiations with the
guerrillas.