U.S. READY TO STEP UP COLOMBIA'S DRUG WAR

WASHINGTON - The Clinton administration is preparing to greatly step up
military and economic aid to Colombia in response to fears of the growing
strength of drug-financed Marxist guerrillas.

In separate visits to Colombia, senior U.S. officials warned President
Andres Pastrana last week that he risks losing U.S. support if he makes
further concessions to the insurgents in an effort to restart stalled peace
negotiations, according to sources familiar with the talks.

But the officials, White House drug czar Barry McCaffrey and Undersecretary
of State Thomas Pickering, also told Pastrana the United States will
sharply increase aid if he develops a comprehensive plan to strengthen the
military, halt the nation's economic free fall and fight drug trafficking.

Part of the economic aid will be $3 billion in International Monetary Fund
loans, with some additional direct U.S. military aid. Pickering, briefing
reporters here, said he asked Pastrana to present his plan by the middle of
September.

Colombian defense officials last month requested $500 million in additional
military aid over the next two years, a number U.S. officials said is being
discussed. U.S. security assistance already stands at $289 million this
year, making Colombia the third-largest recipient of such U.S. aid after
Israel and Egypt.

"We are working toward a much-larger engagement with the United States,
involving combating narcotics, strengthening our battlefield capabilities
and economic issues," said a senior Colombian Foreign Ministry official.
"It is a much-broader engagement than just the narcotics issue, because all
our problems are linked."

The decision to escalate aid comes a year after the United States resumed
helping the army and expanded intelligence sharing, ending a period
covering most of this decade during which collaboration was cut off because
of the army's abysmal human-rights record.

Currently the United States is training a 950-man Colombian army
counternarcotics battalion, the first such specialized unit in the
military, whose primary objective will be to regain control of
guerrilla-controlled territory. Pentagon and State Department officials
said they recently agreed to provide the group with 18 Huey UH-1N
helicopters. And, according to the same sources, the United States is
planning on funding at least two more such battalions, a move that would
boost U.S. aid by tens of millions of dollars.

Pickering said he was "sobered but certainly not panicked" by his trip and
stressed that the guerrillas are not on the verge of military victory. But
other officials were less optimistic.

"Colombia is a disaster, and I don't see any way around that," said
McCaffrey, a retired general who recently proposed spending an additional
$1 billion in the Andean drug-producing region, with about half of the
money going to Colombia. "We are in a period of intense debate in the
administration and on the Hill . . . but we don't have the latitude to let
a fellow democracy go under."

McCaffrey said his proposal, including money for alternative development
and judicial reform along with military aid, was an attempt to tackle
Colombia's multiple problems.

"So far the debate has been at a micro level, about 10 helicopters here or
training a battalion there," McCaffrey said. "We are not talking about the
right order of magnitude for this problem."

Colombia produces 80 percent of the world's cocaine and about 70 percent of
the heroin found in the United States. Two Marxist guerrilla groups - the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, with about 15,000 combatants, and
the National Liberation Army, with about 5,000 combatants - control about
40 percent of the national territory and receive hundreds of millions of
dollars a year from protecting drug-trafficking routes, airstrips and
laboratories.

In addition, some 7,000 right-wing paramilitary troops, who also derive
millions of dollars from cocaine trafficking, control about 15 percent of
the national territory.