MORE AID LIKELY FOR COLOMBIA

Leader must first step up drug war

WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration is preparing to greatly step up
military and economic aid to Colombia in response to fears that the growing
strength of drug-financed guerrillas there could undercut counternarcotics
efforts across the Andean region.

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

Part of the 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
to seek funding from Congress this year.

While specific aid figures will not be discussed until Pastrana presents his
plan, senior officials and congressional sources said it would be hundreds
of millions of dollars. Colombian defense officials last month requested
$500 million in additional military aid over the next two years. U.S.
security assistance stands at $289 million this year, making Colombia the
third-largest recipient of such U.S. aid after Israel and Egypt.

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 try to
provide the group with 18 Huey UH-1N helicopters. The same sources said 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.

"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.

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

Human rights groups say tilting aid toward the military is dangerous.

"In a world with a lot of bad policy options toward Colombia, the United
States is taking the worst one," said Winifred Tate of the Washington Office
on Latin America. "By strengthening the military, you are strengthening an
abusive, corrupt institution that has resisted civil control and human
rights reforms."