Clinton expresses concern on Colombia's drug battle

By TIM JOHNSON Herald Staff Writer

CARACAS An increasingly deteriorating internal situation in Colombia is
not only worrying its neighbors, but also U.S. officials accompanying
President Clinton on a South American tour.

At a state dinner hosted by President Rafael Caldera on Sunday night,
Clinton and the Venezuelan leader discussed Colombia at length, said Deputy
National Security Adviser Jim Steinberg, who added that Washington believes
that Colombia's "situation is obviously very worrisome."

White House drug czar Barry McCaffrey praised Venezuelan counter narcotics
efforts even as he warned energetically of the deterioration within Colombia
caused by two leftist insurgencies with links to drug traffickers.

"They're armed with very sophisticated weapons. They have taken control of
perhaps 40 percent of the countryside, particularly the parts of the
frontier that border on aspects of Venezuela," he said in remarks released
Monday.

Hitting an increasingly common theme from senior Clinton administration
officials, McCaffrey later told a drug prevention forum that he doesn't like
the annual U.S. exercise of certifying whether countries do enough in
counter narcotics.

"It has produced dissension. It has produced pain. It has increased
fingerpointing. It has become unhelpful," McCaffrey said. Unlike Colombia,
which has been "decertified" by Washington for two consecutive years,
Venezuela has received passing grades. But McCaffrey said drug cartels are
placing new pressures on Venezuela.

"There's about 10 metric tons of heroin coming out through Venezuela," he
said, adding that "a little over 100 metric tons [of cocaine] transits
Venezuela." Given camouflage by increased trade between Colombia and
Venezuela, which now amounts to nearly $3 billion a year, traffickers
increasingly smuggle narcotics in regular trucks, he said.

"There's 30,000 trucks and vehicles a day crossing that border between
Colombia and Venezuela. . . . It represents a way to smuggle cocaine and
heroin out to ships or light aircraft out into the eastern Caribbean, or
north into the United States," McCaffrey said.

Steinberg said Clinton broached the subject of Colombia with Caldera because
of indications of "growing linkages between some elements of the guerrillas
and the narcotraffickers." He noted that Colombian guerrillas have
attempted to block municipal elections Oct. 26.

"There have been a number of political candidates who have been assassinated
by the guerrillas," Steinberg said. "It's not a question of, I think at this
point, of the government itself collapsing, but it's certainly a very
serious challenge in many parts of the country."