Pubdate: Tue, 28 Nov 2000 Source: Minneapolis Star-Tribune (MN) Copyright: 2000 Star Tribune Contact: 425 Portland Ave., Minneapolis MN 55488 Fax: 612-673-4359 Feedback: http://www.startribune.com/stonline/html/userguide/letform.html Website: http://www.startribune.com/ Forum: http://talk.startribune.com/cgi-bin/WebX.cgi WELLSTONE HEADS TO COLOMBIA TO QUESTION DRUG WAR With tight security arrangements in place, Sen. Paul Wellstone is headed to Colombia today to investigate the U.S. government's plan to spend $1.3 billion on a military operation that includes destroying coca fields. The Minnesota Democrat will arrive tonight in Bogota and meet with Colombian President Andres Pastrana on Wednesday to discuss "Plan Colombia," an attempt to eradicate the drug fields that supply as much as 90 percent of the cocaine that finds its way to the United States. A stepped-up aerial fumigation program is set to begin shortly in Colombia, and Wellstone intends to observe a spraying operation already underway. With kidnappings running rampant in Colombia, Wellstone is not being allowed to travel alone in Barrancabermeja, where he intends to meet with the city's mayor and human-rights defenders. "It's not an easy trip," Wellstone said in an interview on Monday. "The number of massacres that have taken place in Colombia -- and the number of people that have been kidnapped and executed every day -- is pretty frightening." Colombia has a homicide rate about 10 times higher than that of the United States and, with more than 3,000 abductions in 1999, the highest kidnapping rate in the world. Wellstone will be accompanied by Jim Farrell, his policy adviser and press officer, and Charlotte Oldham-Moore, his foreign-policy adviser. Oldham-Moore said Wellstone had originally planned to fly to Barrancabermeja on a civilian aircraft, but those plans were changed; he'll fly there on a military aircraft. "They're taking extremely high-level security arrangements for him," she said. "They're not allowing him to even travel in the city because it's so infiltrated by paramilitaries and guerrilla groups." As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Wellstone has been a persistent critic of U.S. military aid to Colombia, which Congress voted to continue in June. In July, Wellstone urged Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to investigate the reported killing or disappearance of 71 Colombian civilians in February. Wellstone described the incident: "They come in ... they drink, they rape, they murder. Human-rights workers are trying to get to the village and the military is stopping them. We don't want our money to be used for that. That's what I want to focus on." Wellstone, who is making his first trip to Colombia, said his travel is timed to a key decision awaiting President Clinton: In December, Wellstone said, the president must decide whether to waive human-rights protections that Congress wanted Colombia to meet before receiving any aid. Among the conditions is that Colombia is to ensure that Armed Forces personnel who have committed gross human-rights violations are brought to justice, and that those who have helped paramilitary groups are suspended from duty with the Colombian Armed Forces. "I am especially focused on the human-rights questions because the president is going to make a decision in December," Wellstone said. He opposes a waiver, saying, "The reason [the conditions are] in the legislation is that we're going to insist that the government live up to that." The trip also will give Wellstone an opportunity to make his case that the United States would be better off by giving more money to pay for drug treatment in the United States instead of trying to destroy Colombian coca fields. "The history of these eradication efforts is that they just grow it somewhere else," Wellstone said. "And there is some not insignificant controversy about the use of the herbicide. We've been down this road before. ... I want to find out more, but I'm certainly very skeptical. I think people have every right to say, you know, 'Look, this is getting into the water, we're concerned about the rashes, we're concerned about respiratory problems.' ... And the question becomes if this just invites further conflict if people in the countryside have no alternative way of feeding their families." Wellstone is not the only Minnesotan raising questions in Washington. Earlier this year, Rep. Jim Ramstad, R-Minn., said the $400 million cost of the helicopters alone in Colombia would provide treatment for 200,000 Americans addicted to drugs. "This is ludicrous and this is wrong," said Ramstad, who called the military operation a "Colombia boondoggle." Wellstone called the situation in Colombia "incredibly complicated" and said the trip is important for him. "I can't do this unless I see it with my own eyes," he said. "This is a big part of my work in the Senate in terms of foreign policy." Wellstone said he is following the work of Don Fraser, the former mayor of Minneapolis and a longtime Minnesota congressman. Wellstone called him "a giant in the international community when it came to human-rights questions," adding that his trip to Colombia "is very much in our tradition." Wellstone plans to return to Washington on Friday. "We're going to be very careful," he said. - -- The New York Times contributed to this report. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom