U.S. TO GIVE COLOMBIA $1 BILLION TO FIGHT DRUGS

President Clinton plans to announce a massive new aid program for
Colombia next week totaling more than $1 billion in military and
development assistance over the next two years. It will be used to
combat narcotics cultivation and trafficking and bolster that
country's beleaguered democracy.

More than half the money will be in a White House request for a
supplemental appropriation for this fiscal year, with the remainder to
be part of the fiscal year 2001 budget that the administration is due
to send to Congress on Feb. 7, administration officials said.

Colombia is the third-largest recipient of U.S. military aid, after
Egypt and Israel. It received nearly $300 million last year and is in
line for more than $200 million in the current budget. But
skyrocketing Colombian cocaine and heroin production and exports to
the United States, and the Bogota government's losing battle against
Marxist guerrillas involved in drug trafficking, led to bipartisan
consensus last year that the U.S. effort should be sharply increased.

The basic framework of the administration's proposal has been
determined, although sources who declined to be identified cautioned
that discussions are still underway among the Office of Management and
Budget and the State Department, the Pentagon and the Office of
National Drug Control Policy on how the money will be distributed. The
White House plans to brief congressional leaders on the proposal
before it is announced.

Congressional Republicans calling for stepped-up anti-drug action
criticized the administration last fall for promising, and then
failing to produce, a significant new aid plan for Colombia before the
current budget was adopted. In response, Clinton in December pledged a
package for early this year "that will be substantial, effective, and
have broad bipartisan support." An interagency task force has spent
months developing the administration's plan.

Republicans introduced their own $1.6 billion, three-year aid proposal
in November, saying the Colombian situation has reached "crisis
proportions." Differences in the two plans are expected to reflect
competing views on whether the bulk of the money should go directly
into police and military counter-drug efforts, as the GOP would like,
or be more evenly divided between those efforts and government
infrastructure and economic assistance, as Colombian President Andres
Pastrana has requested.

Debate over the proposals is likely to begin as early as the first
week in February, when a round of hearings on Colombia is planned.

Acting at the administration's behest and with its help, Pastrana's
government put together a comprehensive plan last summer to train and
supply new equipment to Colombia's armed forces and anti-drug police,
provide education and develop alternative crops for Colombian peasants
who grow most of the drug-producing coca and poppies, reform the
judiciary and help bolster the economy ­ now in its deepest recession
in history.

Pastrana asked the United States to help finance up to $3.5 billion of
the plan's three-year, $7.5 billion price tag. The administration's
failure to respond quickly helped send Pastrana's popularity
plummeting. At the same time, the government has confronted a
deteriorating military situation; lack of results in negotiations with
the largest of several armed rebel groups, the 20,000-strong
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia; and a failing economy.

Although Pastrana won the presidency 18 months ago with a large
majority on a promise to negotiate peace, a new poll shows that 68
percent of Colombians surveyed view him unfavorably. The nationwide
poll was published yesterday in Bogota's El Espectador newspaper.

Military aid to Colombia is complicated by the fact that rebel forces
simultaneously occupy most of the country's drug-producing areas ­
where they control the peasants who grow the drug crops, facilitate
exports and tax traffickers ­ and are fighting to overthrow the
government. Although the Colombian military is charged with fighting
the rebels, the national police have primary anti-narcotics
responsibility, and the tasks frequently overlap.

Republicans have argued that a major portion of U.S. aid should go to
the police as part of a stiffened anti-drug program, while the
administration ­ with strong Pentagon input ­ has said that only the
Colombian military can roust the insurgents permanently from
drug-producing areas, primarily in the southern part of the country.

The administration proposal includes some additional aircraft, weapons
and communications equipment for the police. But it provides major
improvements in training, logistical and intelligence support for the
Colombian military, as well as upgraded equipment. The U.S. military
has already trained a 950-soldier quick-reaction counter-narcotics
battalion in the Colombian army and plans to produce at least two
more. The government plan and the GOP proposal also call for
improvement in regional drug interdiction efforts affecting Peru,
Bolivia and Venezuela.

As it develops strategy to promote its plan, the administration also
must contend with potential criticism from congressional Democrats,
who want to limit aid to the Colombian military because of its
unsavory human rights record while avoiding U.S. involvement in
counterinsurgency efforts.

Administration sources, who said the aid proposal includes programs to
improve human rights performance, maintain that the Colombian military
has already made major strides in stopping abuses. The Pentagon has
said it can ensure that U.S. assistance is used only in those areas of
the country where the anti-drug war is being
fought.