COLOMBIA "STUDYING" ICC IMMUNITY FOR US, SEEKS EUROPEAN ANTI-DRUG AID: URIBE

CARTAGENA, Colombia - Colombia is studying a US request to back immunity
for its troops before the International Criminal Court, said President
Alvaro Uribe, who also told AFP Sunday he would like more European
anti-drug aid.

"Colombia must examine all the issues," surrounding the International
Criminal Court, Uribe said in an exclusive interview.

"The foreign ministry is studying the issue and we will make a decision,"
but not in concert with other Latin American countries.

Uribe, who took office August 7, was in the Caribbean coastal city of
Cartagena meeting with the Colombia's association of manufacturers.

US officials have asked allies to sign on to a waiver so that US troops
could not be tried for genocide before the court.

Under the American Service Members Protection Act signed into law by US
President George W. Bush this month, Washington could withhold military aid
from ICC member countries that do not agree to protect US troops from the
court.

Colombia is the third-largest recipient of US foreign aid, after Israel and
Egypt. The aid is aimed at helping Bogota suppress a four- decade-old civil
war that has killed 200,000 people.

The war pits government forces against rightist paramilitary squads and
leftist guerrillas. Both guerrillas and paramilitary forces receive money
from selling drugs, such as cocaine and heroin extracted from crops grown
in Colombia.

"I hope for a lot of help from Europe because the conflict is financed by
an international business that is drug trafficking, fought with arms
manufactured outside (Colombia) and (because) the violence is affecting
this democracy and the population," Uribe said.

"All democratic countries can help. I hope for a lot of help, of a special
sort that I am going to talk about today: help to finance payment to
growers of the drug (crops) so that they may substitute drugs for trees.
The cost? The country must find 400 million dollars year after year (and)
to find out how much Europe can help us.

"Jacques Chirac was made aware of this project during my visit to Paris
after my election. If he comes to Colombia, we will receive him with open
arms. Here, there is a great appreciation for France and if President
Chirac visits, he will visit a land that will receive him with every warmth
... and we will ask him for aid."

The United States has funded Colombia's war on illegal drugs with almost
two billion dollars in assistance since 2000, including military
helicopters used to spray herbicide on coca crops. Coca is the raw material
from which cocaine is processed.

Colombia remains the world's top producer of illegal narcotics, producing
580 tonnes of cocaine and six tonnes of heroin annually, most of it sold in
the United States and Europe.