COLOMBIAN LEADER SEEKS TO MEND TIES

Andres Pastrana, who takes office Friday as president of Colombia, is
wasting no time in trying to repair his country's tattered relations
with the United States.

Pastrana was at the White House yesterday, promising President Clinton
and Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright that Colombia will
cooperate fully with U.S. efforts to combat drug trafficking.

He then went to the State Department for a meeting with several U.S.
government agencies on law enforcement, money-laundering and other
bilateral issues, and to the Inter-American Development Bank to seek
$100 million for "alternative development," which U.S. officials said
is a euphemism for crop substitution payments to wean Colombian
farmers off coca leaf production.

"Today marks a new beginning in U.S.-Colombian relations," Pastrana
said after his meeting with Clinton. "The years of mistrust are now
behind us."

That may be somewhat premature, but the Clinton administration clearly
regards Pastrana as a welcome change from the outgoing president,
Ernesto Samper, whom Washington shunned as tainted by millions of
dollars of drug money that financed his electoral campaign.

Samper was not even allowed into this country, except on United
Nations business. Pastrana, by contrast, accepted an invitation from
Clinton to return here on a state visit before the end of the year.

Clinton "congratulated President Pastrana on his electoral victory,
and conveyed his admiration for the Colombian people's commitment to
democracy, which has been demonstrated anew under the most trying of
circumstances."

Colombia is in the grip of an armed insurgency in which guerrillas,
cooperating with drug traffickers who finance their weapons purchases,
control large sections of the country. Shortly after his electoral
victory, Pastrana stunned Colombians by traveling unannounced deep
into rebel-controlled territory to meet with leaders of the largest
insurgent group and proclaim his intention to negotiate a peace agreement.

Colombian newspapers and magazines gave extensive display to
photographs of Pastrana, in a yellow sports shirt, posing with the
fatigue-clad guerrilla leaders in their jungle retreat.

Clinton "expressed admiration for the courage Pastrana had shown in
his election and in his steps immediately after the election," said
James Dobbins, the senior Latin America official on the National
Security Council staff. Dobbins said Clinton favors an "integrated
approach" to solving the intertwined problems of the insurgency and
the drug traffic, which generates most of the cocaine consumed in the
United States.

The president "promised to work with Congress to secure increased U.S.
assistance for counternarcotics, sustainable economic development, the
protection of human rights and humanitarian aid," and to encourage
private investment in Colombia, a White House statement said.

Dobbins said Pastrana told Clinton and the others that he knows first
hand the danger posed by Colombia's notorious drug cartels: They
kidnapped him when he was running for mayor of Bogota in the early
1980s.

Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company

Checked-by: "Rich O'Grady"