Pubdate: Sun, 15 Oct 2000 Source: New York Times (NY) Copyright: 2000 The New York Times Company Contact: 229 West 43rd Street, New York, NY 10036 Fax: (212) 556-3622 Website: http://www.nytimes.com/ Forum: http://forums.nytimes.com/comment/ Section: International Author: Christopher Marquis AMBITIOUS ANTIDRUG PLAN FOR COLOMBIA IS FALTERING WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 - Three months since the United States approved a huge aid package for Colombia, the overarching $7.5 billion plan to stabilize that nation and thwart its guerrilla movements and drug traffickers is already showing signs of disarray, officials and experts say. European nations have balked at providing donations to help Colombia address its social problems, Latin American leaders are voicing concerns about creeping United States militarism and the government of President Andres Pastrana has been reluctant to promote the plan at home or to dedicate funds to it, American officials concede. In a report to Congress this week, the General Accounting Office said "the Colombian government has not demonstrated it has the detailed plans, management structure and funding necessary" to meet the plan's goals, and international financial support from beyond the United States "has yet to materialize." Mr. Pastrana announced the so-called Plan Colombia as an initiative of his government a year ago. But the skepticism it has met reflects a concern abroad that the plan was drafted by the United States as a way to ease its own drug crisis and not as a coherent strategy to lift Colombia from a quagmire involving two guerrilla insurgencies, right-wing death squads, a faltering economy and a crisis of confidence in government. "They see it as something that was cooked up in Washington," said Michael Shifter, a senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue, a forum for leaders from the hemisphere. "If other countries saw this was moving in the direction of being more responsive to Colombian concerns, they would support it." Mr. Pastrana set a goal of reducing the coca cultivation and distribution of Colombian narcotics by 50 percent over six years. Pledging $4 billion in Colombian funds to the effort, he asked for an additional $3.5 billion from the United States, Europe and multilateral lenders in order to advance Colombia's peace efforts, promote economic development and judicial reform and fight drug traffickers. The Clinton administration in July approved $1.3 billion in mostly military aid to Colombia - including more than a dozen Black Hawk helicopters - to help the Colombian Army strike into southern territories under the control of drug traffickers and guerrillas. American officials acknowledge the plan cannot succeed without international support for the "softer" programs to raise Colombians' living standards and provide alternatives to drug trafficking and war. But European nations so far have failed to pledge funds at hoped-for levels. At a donor's conference in Madrid in July, Spain promised to contribute $100 million, and Norway pledged $20 million. The United Nations promised $131 million, and Japan and international lending institutions offered $70 million and $300 million in loans, respectively. Europe, which is the second-largest consumer of Colombian narcotics, after the United States, is still considering its role and may announce additional funds at a followup to the Madrid conference on Oct. 24., diplomats said. But one European envoy said the European Union has no intention of supporting Plan Colombia. "The E.U. and member states are supporting the peace process in Colombia and not specifically the Plan Colombia, which is an American project," the envoy said. Although the Clinton administration has portrayed Plan Colombia as Mr. Pastrana's work, much of it was drafted by American officials, according to people familiar with its preparation. The plan emerged last year after Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the White House anti-narcotics coordinator - under pressure from Congressional Republicans - - declared that Colombia was a foreign policy "emergency." He noted its steady increases in drug cultivation, the widening influence of rebels and its general potential to destabilize the region, given Colombia's position between the Panama Canal and Venezuela, the largest foreign supplier of oil to the United States. "We've been totally naive in this process, in thinking that's going to shake loose some matching funds from the donor community," said a senior administration official. "From their perspective, this is our problem." Mr. Pastrana, who took office on a pledge to bring peace to his country, has himself proven a lackluster champion of the plan, American officials say, and has only allocated $15 million to the project. Analysts say Mr. Pastrana is torn between hopes that the American attention and largess could provide Colombia with a rare opportunity for foreign investment, on the one hand, and concerns, on the other, that deepening ties to the Pentagon could unleash greater violence in Colombia and possibly draw in its neighbors. Members of Colombia's largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, were suspected this week of kidnapping five American oil workers and five of their colleagues in neighboring Ecuadaor. The rebel group denied responsibility for the unusual cross- border operation, but Ecuadorean authorities said the guerrillas had carried it out in retaliation for Plan Colombia. Colombia's most influential neighbors - Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela - last month voiced support for peace negotiations in Colombia, but pointedly refused to back the military aspect of the plan. Mr. Pastrana is now touring the region trying to broaden their endorsement. President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has "reservations with respect to the military component of the Plan Colombia," said Toro Hardy, his ambassador in Washington. "It risks projecting Colombia's internal conflict into the neighboring countries." Clinton administration officials counter that the risk of doing nothing is far greater. "Colombia's historic neglect of the nation's outlying areas has allowed the problem to fester, and it has been exacerbated by an economic downturn of a magnitude Colombia has not seen for 70 years," said Rand Beers, assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs. Republican lawmakers who have vigorously pressed the administration to expand its military aid to Colombia say there are sufficient legal constraints on the American presence in that country - including on the size and nature of training programs - that there is little danger that American troops will get drawn into a decades-old civil war. "Colombia does not want - and has never asked for - American blood to be shed on its battlefields," Representative Benjamin Gilman of New York, the chairman of the House International Relations Committee, said in a hearing on Colombia this week. "Let's not be fooled by that old `it's another Vietnam' canard." But some critics voiced concerns that the United States is allying itself with an army that has a notorious human rights record. Amnesty International warned that increased support for Colombian security forces would result in a "humanitarian catastrophe" in the country's conflict zones. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom