Pubdate: Thu, 31 Aug 2000
Source: San Luis Obispo County Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2000 The Tribune
Contact:  P.O. Box 112, San Luis Obispo, CA 93406-0112
Fax: 805.781.7905
Website: http://www.thetribunenews.com/
Author: Robert Burns, Associated Press

CLINTON VOWS NO WAR INVOLVEMENT

CARTAGENA, Colombia - In a country beset by decades of violence, President 
Clinton delivered a $1.3 billion U.S. package Wednesday which he said would 
help Colombia defeat its drug traffickers without getting the United States 
into a Vietnam-like quagmire.

"We will not get into a shooting war" with Colombian guerrillas, he said, 
standing alongside Colombian President Andres Pastrana, both in short 
sleeves in the sweltering heat of this Caribbean port city.

Pastrana stressed that Colombia has no intention of drawing the United 
States into its military conflict.

"As long as Andres Pastrana is president, we will not have a foreign 
military intervention in Colombia," he said.

There were reminders, during Clinton's half-day visit to Cartagena, of the 
fear and violence that bleeds this Andean nation. Police said they 
discovered and deactivated a 4.4-pound bomb found five blocks from a 
neighborhood Clinton planned to tour.

Officials said the bomb was intended to spread rebel pamphlets and would 
have been unlikely to cause harm. A U.S. Secret Service official, Terry 
Samway, insisted that only materials for explosives were found, not a bomb.

In an unusual display of bipartisan support, Clinton was accompanied by 
House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and 10 other members of Congress. 
Hastert was instrumental in pushing the aid package through Congress, 
despite misgivings by some who feared the United States would get drawn 
into the guerrilla conflict and help an army long criticized for human 
rights abuses.

Clinton was also accompanied by Attorney General Janet Reno, Secretary of 
State Madeleine Albright and Barry McCaffrey, Clinton's chief drug policy 
adviser — part of a delegation of 35. Daughter Chelsea also came along.

"Why are we here today?" Hastert said. "Not only do we share a great 
heritage of democracy, but we also share a great burden" — the threat drugs 
pose both to countries that produce drugs and those that consume them.

"In our nation, over 14,000 young people, children, lose their life every 
year to either drug use or drug violence, and it happens in our wealthiest 
communities and the street corners of our most devastated inner cities," 
Hastert said.

The U.S. assistance is part of Pastrana's $7.5 billion "Plan Colombia," 
designed to end decades of civil war, fight drug trafficking, strengthen 
the judicial system and revive an economy in the doldrums.

Pastrana called the U.S. assistance "a recognition that the menace of 
illegal drugs is truly international and therefore requires a concerted 
global response."

Security was heavy for Clinton's entourage wherever it traveled in this 
Caribbean port city. Snipers stood atop buildings at the airport, and armed 
security guards stood watch in patrol boats.

The largest part of the $1.3 billion U.S. contribution to Plan Colombia is 
for military assistance, including 60 helicopters to be used mostly by the 
Colombian army in eradicating the lucrative drug crop. The United States 
already has about 100 soldiers in Colombia to train counternarcotics 
battalions of the Colombian army.

Clinton dismissed predictions by some in the United States that he is 
starting down the path of an open-ended military commitment in a nation 
that has been mired in a guerrilla war for more than three decades.

"A condition of this aid is that we will not get into a shooting war," 
Clinton said. "This is not Vietnam, neither is it Yankee imperialism. Those 
are two of the false charges that have been hurled at Plan Colombia," he said.
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