Pubdate: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 Source: Miami Herald (FL) Copyright: 2000 The Miami Herald Contact: One Herald Plaza, Miami FL 33132-1693 Fax: (305) 376-8950 Website: http://www.herald.com/ Forum: http://krwebx.infi.net/webxmulti/cgi-bin/WebX?mherald Author: Kevin G. Hall, Herald World Staff COLOMBIA PLAN WON'T BE A VIETNAM, COHEN VOWS Latin American Defense Ministers Fear Escalation Of The Drug War. MANAUS, Brazil -- U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen promised Latin American defense ministers Tuesday that Colombia's expanding drug war will not become a Vietnam-like quagmire. But in interviews, defense leaders from countries bordering Colombia said they fear they will suffer escalating cross-border movements of Colombian drug traffickers and the guerrillas that thrive on protecting them. Addressing 30 Western Hemisphere defense ministers, Cohen stressed that Plan Colombia, an international anti-drug effort that includes $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid, is essentially a training and equipping mission. It is not, he insisted, the first stage of a U.S. military intervention. ``Anything you read or hear to the contrary is false and fabricated. We want to be of assistance. We will work with Colombia. We hope others can help in their own individual ways,'' Cohen said. The Clinton administration insists Colombian units can break up drug operations without U.S. troops getting involved in an escalating civil war against rebels protecting Colombia's narcotics. But its neighbors say Colombian rebels are already trying to draw them into a widened conflict to weaken regional support for Plan Colombia. The kidnapping last week in eastern Ecuador of a group of oil workers, including five Americans, is part of that campaign, Ecuadorean military officers said. They said intercepted radio communications indicate that the kidnappers are rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or =46ARC. ``I don't have information as to who is responsible. . . . That will not alter Plan Colombia,'' Cohen said at a news conference. ``Plan Colombia is designed to deal with narco-trafficking and other elements that are trying to basically take democracy away from the people of Colombia.'' Venezuelan forces reportedly crossed into Colombia over the weekend in pursuit of suspected drug traffickers. ``Worries remain in the countries that are neighbors of Colombia,'' said Venezuelan Defense Minister Gen. Ismael Eliezer Hurtado. A group of Colombian insurgents stormed across the northwest border into Panama's Darien region on Saturday, killing an 11-year-old girl and wounding nine civilians and three border policemen, according to Panamanian officials. ``This makes us think that in some form, they want to push Panama, into the [conflict] that Colombia is experiencing now,'' said Pablo Quintero Luna, chief of Panama's national security board. Colombian Defense Minister Luis Ramirez Acu=F1a countered that Colombia's neighbors need to better protect their borders. ``What is needed is that we act together, the neighboring countries, to strengthen our borders so that Panama has more military presence at its border, so that Ecuador also has it and Venezuela,'' he said, noting that drug traffickers will continue operating where they meet the least resistance. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D