CONGRESS STEPS UP AID FOR COLOMBIANS TO COMBAT DRUGS

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 U.S. foreign aid.

Along with an administration-sponsored increase, the congressional infusion
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 with leftist
guerrillas, which has slowly bled Colombia of tens of thousands of lives and
untold resources for more than 30 years.

While the money has been designated for use against drug crop growers and
drug traffickers, much of the equipment could easily be used against the
guerrillas. The equipment will require substantial American training of
pilots, maintenance workers and support staff.

In the appeal for aid by the Colombian police, and in the congressional
response, the distinction between drug traffickers and guerrillas usually
insisted on by officials of the State Department and other American agencies
has become blurred.

Some guerrilla groups are involved in protecting coca crops and landing
strips in southern Colombia and skim a commission from the drug trade. A
report last year by the Colombian drug police estimated that 3,155 of the
country's 15,000 guerrillas were active in the drug trade.

Some lawmakers like Rep. Benjamin Gilman, R-N.Y., have adopted the label
applied to the rebels by the Colombian police and
military --narcoterrorists-- lumping the insurgency and drug traffickers
into a single threat to United States interests.

The Colombian drug police have at times dropped the distinction altogether.
For instance, they recently highlighted an army defeat at the hands of
rebels to press the case for acquiring American-made Blackhawk helicopters,
even though the combat had nothing to do with drugs.

"It's another step in the wrong direction," said Adam Isaacson, an associate
at the Center for International Policy, a Washington-based research
institute. He said the increased American commitment could bring closer the
prospect of American involvement in Colombia's war with the rebels. "I would
call it a danger," he said. "There is all that overlap to worry about."

He said he was more concerned, however, with growing cooperation with the
Colombian military, which Washington has kept at something of a distance in
the past because of human rights concerns.

Most of the increase in aid will come as part of a $690 million package of
supplemental appropriations for drug interdiction throughout the hemisphere.

The congressional aid for the national police includes the following:

- -$96 million for six Blackhawk helicopters.

- -$40 million for upgrading and arming 34 Huey helicopter gunships, which

can fire high-powered machine guns over long distances.

- -$6 million for beefing up a crop fumigation air wing, in part with

machine guns.

Administration-sponsored aid for Colombia also approved by Congress includes
the following:

- -$70 million for aerial fumigation of drug crops.

- -$20 million in helicopters, transport and surveillance planes, weapons

and other equipment for the Colombian National Police.

- -$20 million in patrol boats, weapons, ammunition and other supplies for

the Colombian military.

A Tenfold Increase in Anti-Drug Aid

The $165 million in supplemental aid from Congress is in addition to $124
million already appropriated for Colombia, and represents a tenfold increase
in counter-narcotics funding over five year period. Roughly 80 percent of
the cocaine in the United States originates in Colombia.

"It was a decision that surprised everybody," Colombia's defense minister,
Rodrigo Lloreda, said in an interview. He added that the Clinton
administration had previously supported drug-fighting efforts in Colombia,
"but they kept a certain balance between Colombia, Peru and other
countries."

Both administration and congressional officials described the appropriation
as a kind of "wish list," that they were surprised to see pass virtually in
its entirety. Administration officials like Barry McCaffrey, the retired
general who is in charge of anti-drug efforts, initially complained that the
congressional authorization -- which at first specified that $1.2 million
should go for concertina wire around a Bogota prison -- "micromanaged" drug
policy.

Other administration officials said the initial spending plan overextended
the American commitment to Colombia, and was too costly. But in the end, the
plan won White House backing because it was more attuned to overall
strategy, and won their support.

Though Congress took the lead, the increased spending matches a growing
closeness between Washington and Bogota since Andres Pasrtrana was elected
president last summer. Pastrana, who has visited Washington three times in
the last four months.

The momentum for the increase came from a group of conservative Republicans
who have embraced the Colombian national police and who are determined to
increase anti-drug efforts and lend a show of force as Pastrana sets the
stage for peace talks with leftist rebels.

With government forces having temporarily evacuated an area of Colombia as
big as Switzerland, congressional Republicans describe the infusion as a
signal of American interest in the outcome of peace talks. It will also
shore up Colombian security forces, which have been humiliated by the rebels
in a series of clashes over the last two years, they say. Until now, a de
facto division of labor has had the Colombian military leading the fight
against rebels, while the police tackled drug trafficking.

Aim Is Eradication and Interception

"I look at this as giving Colombia the support it needs to do what it wants
to do," Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, said. "It will put the government in a
better bargaining position."

The major share of Washington's anti-drug aid is trained on stepping up
aerial eradication in zones under rebel control and intercepting boats and
planes transporting drugs. Officials say the Blackhawk and upgraded Huey
helicopters are better for reaching high altitudes, where opium poppies are
grown. The Blackhawks, armored and able to transport up to 15 troops, would
also represent greater firepower and maneuverability in Colombia's
continuing war against leftist rebels.

In a bid to perhaps appease Washington and the Colombian government, the
rebels have said they would eliminate the drug trade in areas they control
as part of an eventual peace agreement. Respected political analysts in
Colombia, including Alejandro Reyes, a professor at the National University
in Bogota, contend that the guerrillas are the only authority with enough
credibility among peasants to eliminate the trade.

In recent years the insurgents' fighting strategy has grown from hit-and-run
ambushes of soldiers to more conventional assaults on military and police
bases, in which the rebels have repeatedly outnumbered and overrun
government security forces.

The most recent of these occurred last month in an attack against the police
base at Mitu, where Lloreda said 45 policemen and civilians were known to
have been killed and 48 people were abducted. He said 82 others had
disappeared.

While the Mitu attack bolstered Colombia's case for the Blackhawks, the
police had earlier cited military defeats -- unconnected to the drug
trade -- in appealing for the more sophisticated helicopters.

In a letter last March to Rep. Dan Burton, R.-Ind., Col. Jose Leonardo
Gallego reiterated an appeal for Blackhawk helicopters he made in testimony
before Congress only a month earlier. In requesting the helicopters for
drug-fighting missions he cited the deaths of hundreds of government troops
in rebel attacks.

Most of those deaths, however, occurred early this year after rebels
ambushed the Colombian army's third brigade at a canyon in El Billar. The
operation was unrelated to any fumigation or anti-drug operation.

Though the State Department had initially opposed sending Blackhawks to
Colombia, largely because of the higher expense and maintenance costs
involved, Colombia's national police chief, Gen. Rosso Jose Serrano, has set
up direct lines of contact with the congressional committees controlling the
pursestrings. He has acted as host to most of the key figures in the
congressional debate on their visits to Colombia, making his case for
increased firepower.

Serrano has also been adopted by conservative policy advocates influential
with congressional Republicans. One of these is F. Andy Messing Jr.,
executive director of the National Defense Council Foundation, a
conservative think tank whose chairman is congressman Burton.

New Broom in Bogota a Gain for U.S. Ties

Messing, a retired Special Forces major, has been a frequent visitor to
Colombia and was honored with an anti-narcotics award from the Colombian
police last year. He predicts that as the situation stands now, the rebels
will take control of the Bogota government in one year, regardless of the
outcome of peace talks.

During the years of alienation between Washington and Colombia during the
presidency of Ernesto Samper, who was accused of accepting $6 million from
drug traffickers, Serrano became the face of the Colombian government on
Capitol Hill, as relations between the United States and Colombia narrowed
down to the drug issue. In congressional hearings, Serrano has been hailed
as "a cop's cop."

"He was someone during that administration who Congress felt comfortable
with," said Senator DeWine.

In the atmosphere of violence that dominates Colombia, the rebels and the
government forces have continued to wage war while talking peace. "You can't
negotiate unless you have strength," LLoreda, the defense minister, said.
"We would all like peace to come spontaneously out of good will, but it
doesn't always work that way."

Checked-by: Don Beck