US BACKS COLOMBIA'S 'DRUG WAR'

A senior US State Department official has underscored Washington's support
for the new government in Colombia, and its fight against what they have
called "narco-terrorism".

The undersecretary of state for political affairs, Marc Grossman, said he
held extremely productive talks with the president, Alvaro Uribe, and his
senior cabinet ministers who were inaugurated last week.

The visit is likely to speed up US support for Colombia's deepening war
against the rebel guerrillas and right wing paramilitaries.

The discussions with Mr Uribe and his senior cabinet ministers went more
than an hour longer than scheduled, a clear sign, said Mr Grossman, that it
was extremely productive.

At the top of the agenda: Washington's growing support for the new
Colombian president's plan to beef up military campaign against the array
of leftist insurgents and right-wing paramilitaries.

Emergency Tax

Particularly pleasing to Mr Grossman was President Uribe's decision on
Sunday to impose an emergency war tax raising an extra eight hundred
million dollars.

"It will make the assistance we're giving today more effective," he said.
"And I think it will capture the attention of those in congress who support
Colombia and recognise now that more is being done here."

The Americans clearly want to help anything that targets Colombia's huge
coca crop, which winds up on US streets as cocaine.

But in the past, they have been terrified of crossing a fuzzy line that
separates the drug traffickers from the rebels with political agendas.

Now though, Mr Grossman said, that line has gone.

Drug traders "The FARC, the ELA and the AUC are involved in every aspect of
the elicit drug trade and their efforts to undermine government authority
create a climate in which drug trafficking, kidnapping and other illegal
activities thrive," he said, referring to Colombia's two main rebel groups
and right-wing paramilitaries.

In effect then, no longer are there shackles limiting the use of hundreds
of millions of dollars in American military aid to narrowly defined
counter-narcotic operations.

And it means that still more money is coming. Washington's one concession:
an admission that the US shares responsibility for Colombia's war by
consuming the vast bulk of its drugs.

It is all music to the Colombian government's ears, but critics say all the
help so far has done nothing to stem the tide of narcotics on American
streets and it has only driven Colombia deeper into war.