U.S. RHETORIC UNSETTLING IN LATIN AMERICA

WASHINGTON - Is the war in Colombia a matter of drugs and politics? Or is
the Colombian government facing a concerted attack from terrorists? These
are questions being asked in Washington. And the fact that they are even
being discussed here is making many Latin Americans once again nervous
about U.S. intentions.

Whatever the United States does in Colombia, the hemisphere's most troubled
country, will unquestionably affect its neighbors, who worry that, as in
the past, the United States will act unilaterally in pursuit of its own
interest without regard to the region's concerns.

Colombia was already the largest recipient of U.S. security aid outside the
Middle East. Now the U.S. State Department has included three Colombian
groups on its list of 28 terrorist organizations, opening the door to
Washington stepping up its involvement in Colombia as part of its global
campaign against terrorism.

Colombia's problems are complex and nuanced, not reducible to a simple
military initiative to defeat the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC), the country's largest insurgency. Not surprisingly, other
governments in the region, already uneasy about the risks of greater
"spillover unrest" from Colombia and worried about their own fragile
security situations, are tracking Washington's policy review with keen
interest.

The signals have been mixed. Some in the administration have explicitly
pushed to expand operations in Colombia as part of the war on terrorism.
Last Wednesday, President Bush, sensing some congressional misgivings,
seemed to pull back from a significant policy shift. For the time being at
least, he put aside proposals to eliminate the official distinction between
aid to fight drugs and aid to fight guerrillas.

Still, there are unmistakable indications that the administration is
determined to test the limits of the current policy, which has been
narrowly focused on counter-narcotics operations. The president's 2003
budget proposal, for example, contains a request for $98 million to provide
the Colombians with training and helicopters to protect a strategically
important oil pipeline that has often been the target of rebel attacks. The
administration has also plainly sought to pave the way for greater sharing
of U.S. intelligence with the Colombian military. And on Tuesday, before
Bush's comments, drug czar John Walters suggested that legal restrictions
on the use of anti-drug assistance be reconsidered.

Such signals, coupled with reports of the United States moving ahead with
military operations in the Philippines, the former Soviet republic of
Georgia and now Yemen have fueled nervous speculation about what Washington
might have in mind for Colombia.

The trepidation in Latin America is reminiscent of the region's strong
reaction to the $1.3 billion U.S. contribution to Plan Colombia, the
largely military anti-drug package passed in July 2000. Although most Latin
Americans would welcome greater U.S. engagement with the region, they would
prefer an approach aimed at enhancing political and economic ties. The
focus on a military role - whether to fight terrorists in Colombia or drugs
in the wider region - carries echoes of the Cold War, when a country's
underlying problems and development aims were considered subordinate to
immediate U.S. strategic interests. In a region where memories of excessive
U.S. military intervention are still fresh, the resurfacing of the term
"counterinsurgency" in the United States' Colombia policy debate is cause
for concern.

Apart from the U.S. role, the region's security situation is complicated
not only by the remarkable cruelty of Colombia's conflict - dramatized most
recently by the kidnapping of presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt -
but by a growing and generalized sense of insecurity, uncertainty and
tension in adjacent countries. To varying degrees, Colombia's neighbors
must cope not only with their own economic and political issues, but with
spreading criminality and violence, an expanding drug trade and a growing
number of refugees fleeing across borders.

Existing strains between countries have intensified. In Venezuela,
wild-card President Hugo Chavez, while expressing support for Pastrana's
decision to end peace talks, also made clear his sympathy for the rebels,
which has caused further tensions between the two countries at a time when
Venezuela already has plenty of domestic problems on its plate. In the past
two weeks, four military officials there have called for the resignation of
Chavez, a former paratrooper who, a decade ago, led an unsuccessful coup
against an elected government.

No country is more vulnerable to the "spillover" effects of the widening
Colombian conflict than Ecuador. Although the pervasive violence and vast
numbers of refugees predicted by some observers as inevitable consequences
of Plan Colombia have not materialized, Colombians fleeing the conflict are
moving across the porous border between the two countries.

Disturbingly, Ecuador for the first time is starting to produce coca, no
doubt the result of the displacement of coca production in Colombia. The
development of the drug trade could well aggravate an already serious
security problem and provide an incentive for Ecuador to expand its
military, which has long enjoyed disproportionate political and economic
power. Ecuador's foreign minister, Heinz Moeller, has expressed
apprehension about possible Washington policy shifts, making it clear that
a U.S. military base in the coastal area of Manta could only be used for
the purpose of fighting drugs - not fighting rebels.

Peru, too, is worried about growing security imbalances. Its foreign
minister, Diego Garcia Sayan, has acknowledged that there have been
incursions of the FARC into Peruvian territory. Peru's home-grown
insurgency, the Shining Path, responsible for some 30,000 deaths, is
showing signs of resurgence.

In addition, some of the country's noteworthy advances during the 1990s are
in danger of being reversed. A combination of market forces, the
displacement of coca farming in Colombia and a year-long suspension of drug
interdiction flights has resulted in a sharp increase in coca production -
which had dropped dramatically.

Peruvians worry about the rhetoric coming from Washington. The country's
newspapers are full of speculation that the main purpose of President
Bush's scheduled visit to Lima on March 23 is to announce the installation
of a new military base near the border with Colombia.

With the rupture in Colombian peace talks and the consequent prospect of
escalating violence in Colombia in the coming months - along with
uncertainty about how far and in what capacity the United States is
prepared to get involved in response - both the Ecuadorean and Peruvian
militaries have been put on alert and have fortified their borders.

Panama, too, which has been without a military since 1989, is profoundly
concerned about refugee flows and paramilitary and rebel incursions.

Brazil, the South American powerhouse whose strategically sensitive Amazon
region borders Colombia, is also monitoring the signs from Washington.

When President Bush meets with the leaders of four key Andean countries
later this month in Lima, he will likely be greeted warmly. But there will
also be many questions simmering beneath the surface about U.S. motives and
plans. He should view the visit as a welcome opportunity to focus
high-level, positive attention on a region that has been relegated to
relatively low priority - especially since the global anti-terrorist
campaign began.

Given what is at stake in the region, Bush should consider advancing two
fundamental and positive ideas.

First, he should commit diplomatic and political resources aimed at
bringing the Colombian conflict to an end. This is entirely in keeping with
increased security aid to enable the Colombian government to assert
authority and gain control over its territory within a context of respect
for human rights.

And, second, he should try to energize a genuinely multilateral approach to
the drug problem. Above all, he should seek the counsel and cooperation of
our partners in the region in forging a common agenda.