Pubdate: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 Source: Guardian Weekly, The (UK) Copyright: Guardian Publications 2000 Contact: 75 Farringdon Road London U.K EC1M 3HQ Fax: 44-171-242-0985 Website: http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/GWeekly/front/ Author: Scott Wilson EU CUTS BACK ON DRUG AID FOR COLOMBIA The European Union plans an aid package for Colombia that falls far short of what Colombian officials had expected, weakening an anti-drug strategy that has failed to win significant domestic or international support beyond the United States. Assembled in Costa Rica for a conference on the Colombian conflict, European diplomats said the $250 million aid package will not be given directly to the Colombian government. Instead, the aid will be channeled mostly to programs run by nonprofit groups working for human rights, judicial reform and economic development. In addition, its size - only a quarter of the amount Colombia anticipated - will mean less money than expected for government grass-roots work considered essential for persuading farmers to abandon the drug trade and grow legal crops. The decision is something of a setback for President Andrés Pastrana's government, which had built its $7.5 billion anti-drug strategy, known as Plan Colombia, around a $1 billion European commitment. Excluding money the Colombian government had already planned to spend on anti-drug programs, Plan Colombia now amounts to roughly half the size originally advertised. Europe's reluctance arises from the plan's $1.3 billion U.S. contribution, heavily weighted toward military aid. The plan has been denounced in three days of workshops on human rights, economic development and anti-drug strategies. European diplomats said they will pointedly separate their financial assistance from Plan Colombia, leaving only the U.S. and Colombian governments as major donors to a "war strategy." The concern among the plan's supporters is that, without significant European support, the program will be vulnerable to domestic criticism that it is another U.S. military intervention in Latin America. "The military aid [in the plan] has been like putting a blue stocking in the wash with white clothes - everything comes out blue," said Marianne da Costa de Moraes, Austria's ambassador to Colombia. Since taking office in 1998, Pastrana has sought foreign support by presenting Colombia's domestic drug industry as an international problem. What emerged was Plan Colombia, a three-year strategy to eradicate the coca and poppy crops that help finance leftist guerrillas. The United States agreed to send money for social development programs, judicial reform and crop substitution. But the bulk of the package will arrive as 57 helicopters to shuttle U.S.-trained anti-drug battalions through the conflict zones. European countries view Colombia as experiencing a humanitarian crisis solvable only through social development, and they condemn the military elements of the strategy. "It's the only aid package I know of where the military component was put smack in the middle of a development package," said one Scandinavian diplomat here. "It contaminated everything in the eyes of Colombian civil society and the European community." - --- MAP posted-by: Andrew