Pubdate: Sun, 15 Oct 2000
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2000 The New York Times Company
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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. 
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