COLUMBIAN PRESIDENT TO UNVEIL PLAN TO HEAL NATION'S TROUBLES

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Responding to fears in Washington about surging leftist
guerrillas and drug trafficking in Colombia, President Andres Pastrana has
developed a $7.5 billion strategy to tackle the country's multiple ills, a
top aide said Friday.

The new blueprint will go forward whether peace negotiations are successful
or not, said presidential adviser Jaime Ruiz. Pastrana has made the peace
effort his top priority since he took office last year.

"Colombia can't bet everything on the peace process," Ruiz told
international reporters, hours before the president was to reveal the plan
in a nationally televised address.

Although Ruiz said he was still optimistic about the peace process, his
comments seemed to reflect the widely shared sense here that talks between
the government and the rebels may fail.

Ruiz said the three-year plan Pastrana will present to U.S. officials next
week will require $3.5 billion in aid and loans to Colombia's cash-strapped
government.

The bulk of the foreign funds would come from the International Monetary
Fund, with the rest raised in Colombia.

"We have been financing the war against drug-trafficking all by ourselves,"
Ruiz said.

Pastrana is scheduled to address the U.N. General Assembly on Monday.

Ruiz called peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or
FARC, just one prong in a drug-fighting strategy that will also focus on
economic recovery, strengthening the military, investing in
poverty-stricken regions and reforming the justice system.

The announcement comes a month after a high-level U.S. diplomatic
delegation visited Colombia to express Washington's concern that Pastrana
did not have a coherent strategy for stemming the drug trade and containing
the rebel threat.

The issues are closely linked, since Colombia's guerrilla groups and their
paramilitary rivals have grown strong by taking multimillion-dollar payoffs
for protecting drug production and shipments in the world's No. 1
cocaine-exporting nation.

The White House and Congress are discussing a request for $500 million in
emergency aid to the Colombian military. This year, the United States will
provide Colombia with $289 million in anti-narcotics assistance, most of it
going to the police.

Although rebels dominate roughly 40 percent of the countryside, the economy
is in its worst recession in 60 years, and drug crops have doubled in the
past three years, Ruiz said the world should not have an "apocalyptic" view
of Colombia.