Pubdate: Wed, 18 Oct 2000
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2000 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact:  PO Box 120191, San Diego, CA, 92112-0191
Fax: (619) 293-1440
Website: http://www.uniontrib.com/
Forum: http://www.uniontrib.com/cgi-bin/WebX
Author: Larry Rohter, New York Times News Service

COLOMBIAN CONFLICT DOMINATES TALK AT WESTERN HEMISPHERE DEFENSE SUMMIT

MANAUS, Brazil -- Defense ministers from throughout the Western Hemisphere 
assembled in the heart of the Amazon yesterday to begin four days of 
meetings aimed at strengthening military and security cooperation in the 
region.

But the formal agenda of the meeting in Manaus was overshadowed by the 
deepening conflict in Colombia and the increased American commitment there. 
Leaders continued to express reservations about being drawn into the 
conflict in any way.

Both the U.S. secretary of defense, William Cohen, and his Colombian 
counterpart, Luis Fernando Ramrez Acuna, were on hand to allay concerns 
generated by the Clinton administration's recent decision to provide $1.3 
billion in emergency aid, most of it in military assistance, to the 
Colombian government.

"It's a very delicate situation internally in Colombia," Fernando Henrique 
Cardoso, president of Brazil, said at a news conference yesterday afternoon 
after formally opening the conference, attended by every country in the 
Americas except Cuba. But, he added, "the problem is a domestic problem," 
and "we are not interested at all in any kind of Brazilian intervention in 
Colombia."

This city and the issue of Amazon security were chosen as the locale and 
theme of the meeting months before the United States approved the aid 
package, which is aimed at weakening drug traffickers and the guerrilla 
groups that protect them.

But "Plan Colombia," as the effort is called, has forced every government 
in the region to reassess its military readiness and has drawn widespread 
criticism from politicians, the press and religious leaders.

During a visit to Brazil in late August, for instance, President Hugo 
Chavez of Venezuela warned that the American aid plan could lead to "the 
Vietnamization of the entire Amazon." Without mentioning Chavez by name, 
Cohen, who returned to Washington yesterday afternoon in order to attend a 
memorial service today for sailors who died in the attack on the destroyer 
Cole, emphatically denied that any such escalation would take place.

"We do not, under any circumstances, intend to become involved militarily 
in Colombia," Cohen said. "Anything that you read or hear to the contrary 
is completely false and fabricated."

Government leaders, especially in the five countries that border Colombia, 
have expressed concern that an influx of coca cultivation, refugees and 
fighting on their own territory may result from the push the Colombian 
government is planning into coca-growing areas under guerrilla control. But 
Cohen argued that any effort to ignore the crisis or stay aloof from it was 
likely to backfire.

"The United States is concerned that the 'spillover' of those problems to 
neighboring states, which has been increasing in recent years, will only 
worsen if we do nothing," he said yesterday. "Working together, we hope to 
help Colombia in its time of need and prevent the conflict from shifting 
Colombia's problems to its neighbors."
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