U.S. DOUBLES DRUG-FIGHT AID TO COLOMBIA

The Clinton administration initially opposed it, and the Colombian
government was taken by surprise. But a recent congressional initiative,
spurred by direct appeals to conservative Republicans by the Colombian
national police, has more than doubled drug-fighting money to Colombia and
made the country a top recipient of United States foreign aid.

The increase brings the assistance to $289 million for 1999, compared with
$80 million in 1997 and $88.6 million this year. It is mostly in the form of
weapons, helicopters and surveillance planes and will sharply increase the
American-supplied firepower to the Colombian police.

Congressional Republicans are calling it the first installment of a
three-year campaign to reduce substantially the flow of illicit drugs into
the United States.

But critics fear that the huge jump in aid and the heightened U.S. interest
in attacking the drug trade at its source will lure Washington into
supporting the seemingly endless war by Colombia's armed forces against
leftist guerrillas, which has slowly bled Colombia of tens of thousands of
lives and untold resources for more than 30 years.

Checked-by: Don Beck