U.S. INDICTS THREE IN COLOMBIA PARAMILITARY

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft yesterday unsealed drug-trafficking
indictments against three members of Colombia's violent right-wing
paramilitary forces, including paramilitary chief Carlos Castano, in an
announcement U.S. officials said was timed to coincide with new Colombian
President Alvaro Uribe's first official visit to Washington.

Ashcroft said at a news conference that the paramilitary United Self-
Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, were not the "freedom fighters they
claim to be" but "criminals . . . who poison our citizens and threaten our
national security." He noted that the AUC was on the State Department's
Foreign Terrorist Organization list, and praised Uribe's "leadership and
commitment . . . to proceed vigorously against drug traffickers and
terrorists wherever they are found."

All three of the indictees remain at large in Colombia, although Castano
yesterday sent a letter to the U.S. Embassy in Bogota repeating an earlier
offer to surrender to U.S. authorities to prove his innocence.

The indictment, issued in U.S. District Court in Washington, charges
Castano, AUC military commander Salvatore Mancuso and group member Juan
Carlos Sierra-Ramirez with bringing more than 17 tons of cocaine into the
United States and Europe since 1997, and alleges that Castano himself
participated in kidnapping and threats and used violence to maintain direct
control over both production and distribution.

News of the indictments provided Uribe with ammunition for use during a
visit yesterday to Capitol Hill, where lawmakers have raised questions in
the past about ties between the paramilitary forces and the Colombian Army
in a joint fight against leftist guerrillas. Leading human rights
organizations have long criticized those ties and called for U.S. military
assistance to Colombia to be withheld.

But as the United States enters its third year of major funding and
participation in Colombia's guerrilla and drug wars, such criticism has far
less impact than it did as recently as last summer, when both Republicans
and Democrats raised the specter of U.S. involvement in "another Vietnam"
in Colombia's mountains and jungles.

Even as the aid and the fighting continue, Colombia is last year's war,
replaced in both urgency and attention with events in Iraq, Afghanistan and
the Middle East.

Uribe, who will have lunch today with President Bush and meet with a number
of Cabinet officials, is hoping to gin up more U.S. interest in helping his
country's flailing economy, and to speed up implementation of promised new
intelligence sharing and military training programs, according to Colombian
and U.S. officials.

In a televised speech to Colombians on Sunday night, Uribe warned that the
government could move into significant deficit territory this year. Noting
that the first payments of a new, 1.2 percent "war surtax" on
upper-middle-class and wealthy Colombians are due this week, Uribe said the
government had cut back on official trips, vehicles and even cell phones,
and that he had ordered the closure of 14 embassies and 10 consulates abroad.

Included on his wish list for Washington are some form of subsidy for
Colombian coffee farmers, whose business has been devastated by the
freefall in international coffee prices, and a possible bilateral trade
agreement with the United States along the lines of one being negotiated
with Chile. Administration officials said there was little to no interest
in such initiatives here, although there may be willingness to help
Colombia restructure its mounting debt and receive new funding from
international banks.

Colombia also seeks movement on the Andean Trade Preference Act, passed as
part of last summer's trade promotion authority bill but still not
implemented pending administration "certification" that outstanding U.S.
public and private company trade disputes with Colombia have been settled.

The United States has spent more than $2 billion on Colombia since Congress
first approved funding for Plan Colombia in 2000. At the time, the military
component was outlined as only one part of an overall plan to solve
Colombian problems, all of which were tied by U.S. officials to
Washington's concern over Colombia's drug exports. Officials estimate that
Colombia supplies more than 90 percent of the cocaine and more than half
the heroin used in this country.

Military training equipment, along with shared intelligence and extensive
aerial fumigation to destroy coca and opium poppy crops, was to be
restricted to Colombia's southernmost coca-growing region, where leftist
guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, were
said to tax drug cultivators and traffickers in exchange for protection.
Separate plan components called for major U.S. investment in alternative
agriculture development for small-scale coca farmers, and for "institution
building" to help Colombia develop a legal and social services system that
was more responsive.

But "beginning in the summer of 2001, this administration began taking a
hard look at Colombia policy," said a senior administration official, and
it launched a review leading to a new emphasis on counterterrorism that
developed more urgency after Sept. 11. The administration sought, and
received, new congressional authority to provide more equipment and
training and to target insurgents beyond the southern drug region.

Increased intelligence sharing was authorized -- although officials from
both countries say none of the new provisions has yet been activated.

The administration has asked for about $450 million in new assistance for
Colombia during fiscal 2003, more than 60 percent of it for the security
forces.

U.S. officials have largely scrapped the initial alternative development
plan after deciding it was unworkable. Despite a massive increase in
U.S.-funded aerial fumigation, the estimated amount of coca under
cultivation throughout Colombia has increased.

Assessments of the "institution building" leg differ vary widely, with the
U.S. and Colombian governments saying significant progress has been made,
and human rights organizations and others charging that the judicial system
and legal protections for Colombian citizens have, if anything, gotten
worse over the past year.

Overall, the senior administration official said, "I'd give us a 'C.' "

Hopes have been raised by Uribe, who promised to spend more of Colombia's
money on the war, to significantly increase the size of the army's fighting
capability, and to present a much tougher front to the FARC than his
predecessor, Andres Pastrana, did. But restrictions on civil liberties
Uribe has imposed in the name of counterterrorism, along with proposed
cutbacks in the operations of government human rights officials, have
raised concerns.

Although he consistently has pledged otherwise, questions have long been
raised here and in Colombia over alleged Uribe ties with the AUC
paramilitaries.

Yesterday's indictments appeared to provide a valuable counterbalance for
both the Bush administration and Uribe. Human Rights Watch, among the
fiercest administration critics on Colombia, called them an "extremely
positive development."