POWELL VISITS COLOMBIA TO TOUT DRUG WAR

WASHINGTON -- With significant support from the United States, Colombia may
have turned a corner in its efforts to eradicate coca in the country's
principal growing region, U.S. officials said.

Secretary of State Colin Powell was arriving Tuesday in Colombia, where he
planned to talk about the counterdrug campaign and other issues with
President Alvaro Uribe.

In a pre-departure interview with a Colombian newspaper, Powell said he
sees the visit as a show of support for Uribe in his efforts to fight
"those terrorist elements within Colombian society who are trying to
destroy the dream of the Colombian people to have a democracy that gives
them a society that is safe."

Besides drug trafficking, Uribe faces a host of problems, including a
long-running civil war, but, as American officials see it, the country
appears to be headed in the right direction. In contrast, the situation is
worsening in Latin America's other troubled countries.

The officials say Uribe, who has been in office a little over 100 days, has
fewer inhibitions about eradicating fields of coca, the basis of cocaine,
than did his predecessor, Andres Pastrana. Colombia is the source of 90
percent of the cocaine and much of the heroin consumed in the United States.

The current spraying campaign is far more extensive than previous efforts,
leaving officials hopeful that coca farmers, particularly in southwestern
Putumayo Province, will become discouraged and try their hand at legal
crops. One problem with the program is that spraying does not discriminate;
it wipes out legal as well as illicit crops.

If farmers can be turned away from cocaine, it would reduce revenues of the
country's major guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia, and make it more amenable to a negotiated settlement. That, at
least, is the Bush administration's -- and Colombia's -- hope.

A peace process begun by Pastrana was broken off last February after
several fruitless years.

The United States has provided well over $1 billion in aid to Colombia
since 2000, mostly in military goods. The aid had been restricted to
counternarcotics work, but the administration has freed the Colombians now
to use it against insurgents.

Last September, the State Department drew protests from U.S. rights groups
after certifying that Colombia's armed forces had met human rights
standards imposed by Congress in three areas. The action cleared the way
for the release of $41 million in military assistance.

After the September decision, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and
the Washington office on Latin America said the Colombian military had
failed the tests law in all three areas.

After meetings Wednesday morning with Uribe and other officials, Powell
will tour counternarcotics facilities and then confer with local human
rights groups.

Perhaps the worst abuser of human rights in Colombia, the rightist AUC
paramilitary, announced a unilateral cease-fire last week. Like the leftist
rebels, the AUC also traffics in cocaine.

Powell said it remains to be seen whether the AUC, listed by the State
Department as a foreign terrorist organization, will renounce its
"extralegal, unconstitutional actions."

Even though the AUC is trying to project a new image, Powell said the
administration will continue to seek the extradition of the group's leader,
Carlos Castano.

Castano was indicted in September for allegedly exporting 17 tons of
cocaine into the United States and Europe since 1997.

Castano "remains indicted under U.S. law, and we would like to bring him to
justice," Powell said.

Last month, the State Department, without announcement, suspended aid to a
Colombian air force unit believed to have been responsible for an incident
four years ago in which a helicopter dropped a cluster bomb in the middle
of a town, killing 17 people.

The officials said there was no formal finding of an aid cutoff, but the
unit was told that no further aid would be forthcoming until those
responsible were held accountable.

Powell had planned a visit to Colombia 14 months ago but canceled it after
the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.