Colombia to use U.S. aid against rebels

BOGOTA (Reuters) The head of Colombia's armed forces said Wednesday he
had been given the goahead to use U.S. antidrug aid to fight the
country's Marxist rebels.

Speaking a day after U.S. drug czar Barry McCaffrey concluded a threeday
visit, Gen. Manuel Jose Bonett said he expected the U.S. Congress might
even approve a specific counterinsurgency package for Colombia, which has
been torn by more than three decades of guerrilla war.

``The United States can give all the aid it likes for counternarcotics
operations and now there's a strategic alliance between drug traffickers
and guerrillas,'' Bonett told reporters.

``Basically all the money that the United States gives now is for fighting
drug trafficking and the narcoguerrillas,'' he added.

Washington has signaled its alarm at the growing strength of Colombia's
leftist rebels, now said to have effective control over 40 percent of the
country.

The United States has shied away from giving specific anti guerrilla aid
to the Colombian military, which has one of the worst human rights records
in the hemisphere, for fear of being accused of meddling in internal
political affairs.

But McCaffrey sent a clear message to the armed forces that they could use
existing U.S. counternarcotics aid to fight what he dubbed the ``unholy
alliance'' between the cocaine industry and the country's 15,000
``narcoguerrillas''.

The terms of the socalled End Use Monitoring Agreement, which governs the
implementation of U.S. aid, allows antidrug funds to be used against
guerrilla forces that are suspected of links to the drug trade, McCaffrey
said.

Until a few months ago, U.S. officials drew a line between drug cartels and
the guerrillas, saying that only some rebel fronts were running cocaine and
heroin.

McCaffrey's trip to Colombia the world's No.1 cocaine producer and a
major player in the heroin trade was preceded by the visit of a group of
U.S. congressional staffers.

``I don't think the day is far away when (the U.S.) Congress decides to
back our struggle against the guerrillas,'' Bonett said.

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