COLOMBIAN LEADER AVOIDS HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP

BOGOTA, Colombia -- President Andres Pastrana Thursday declined to meet with
a high-level human rights delegation that had openly criticized his quest
for more U.S. military aid to fight the drug war.

A presidential spokesman said Pastrana, who returned from Washington on
Wednesday, was unable to meet with the delegation led by a daughter of
Robert F. Kennedy and Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon.

He said Pastrana's agenda was tight, and the group arrived 30 minutes late
to its morning appointment at the presidential palace.

Kerry Kennedy Cuomo heads a human rights foundation named after her late
father. Garzon is the magistrate seeking Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's
extradition from Great Britain on charges of genocide and other crimes.

At a news conference Thursday concluding a four-day visit, the human rights
delegation -- which also included former U.S. federal Judge Marvin Frankel
and Guatemalan attorney Frank Larue -- repeated criticism that provoked
rebukes this week from Colombian officials.

They said Pastrana's government was not doing enough to protect threatened
human rights workers, and was taking a dangerous step in inviting massive
U.S. aid to help Colombia's military fight against illegal narcotics.

Kennedy Cuomo said any increased U.S. aid would be more usefully directed
toward fighting poverty and helping Colombia pay its foreign debts.

"More arms and bullets will not feed the children I see on the streets," she
said in an interview.

During his visit to the United States this week, Pastrana lobbied President
Clinton and lawmakers for hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid as
part of a $3.5 billion appeal for help in fighting narcotics and forging peace.

Most of the nearly $300 million in U.S. anti-narcotics aid this year is
going to Colombia's anti-narcotics police, widely seen as more professional
than the military.