Pubdate: Mon, 20 Aug 2001
Source: Inquirer (PA)
Copyright: 2001 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc
Contact:  http://inq.philly.com/content/inquirer/home/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/340
Author: T. Christian Miller, Los Angeles Times

ACTIONS IN COLOMBIA TEST CONGRESS' LIMITS

BOGOTA, Colombia - The U.S. State Department has directed its largest 
private contractor in Colombia to hire foreign pilots to fight the 
drug war, an order that helps get around Congress' attempt to keep 
the United States from slipping further into this country's messy 
civil war.

Last year, Congress limited to 300 the number of civilian contract 
workers participating in U.S.-financed drug-eradication efforts in 
Colombia. But in a little-noticed decision, the State Department has 
counted only U.S. citizens toward that limit.

As a result, the private contractor, DynCorp, has 335 civilians 
working on the antidrug campaign here, but fewer than one-third of 
the workers are U.S. citizens, the contractor's chief of operations 
said.

There also are 60 to 80 U.S. citizens working for other companies 
involved in the drug-eradication effort, such as Bell Helicopter 
Textron Inc., Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., Northrop Grumman, and Lockheed 
Martin.

So at least 395 contract workers in Colombia are paid as part of last 
year's $1.3 billion aid package, although fewer than 200 are U.S. 
citizens.

A senior aide to Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D., Vt.), who has been at the 
forefront of the battle over U.S. assistance to Colombia, 
acknowledged that the language passed by Congress specified that the 
cap applied to "United States individual civilians" and that the 
State Department was not obliged to include foreigners in their 
reports to Congress.

"They may be within the law," said the aide, Tim Reiser, "but in 
terms of congressional interest in being informed on what U.S. money 
is being used for, that is of interest to Congress, and it's 
something that the Congress should be informed about."

State Department officials said they were not required to inform 
Congress that they had ordered DynCorp to hire as many as 50 pilots 
from Guatemala, Peru, Colombia and other countries to transport 
Colombian army forces into cocaine-growing zones.

The pilots, most of them former Central and South American air force 
members who fly the most dangerous antidrug missions here, also are 
hired to reduce the risk of bad publicity resulting from the downing 
of a U.S. citizen, according to U.S. Embassy officials.

"I'm under no illusion what it would mean to have an American shot 
down here, and no one in the U.S. is," Ambassador Anne Patterson said 
in a recent interview with reporters.

U.S. lawmakers and aides accused the State Department of 
circumventing congressional intent to limit U.S. involvement in 
Colombia's 37-year civil war, in which leftist rebels and right-wing 
paramilitary forces depend on the cocaine trade for financing.

The issue goes to the heart of congressional critics' fears about 
Plan Colombia, the U.S.-financed antidrug campaign: that it will lead 
to a slow increase of U.S. presence in a messy conflict without 
sufficient oversight.

"This seems to be a loophole around the cap, a way to get around 
them," said Rep. Janice D. Schakowsky (D., Ill.), who has sought to 
eliminate the use of private contractors in the region since a U.S. 
company was involved in an accidental downing of a private airplane 
by the Peruvian military in April that killed a missionary and her 
7-month-old daughter.

"Every time we find out more about what goes on in Colombia, a dozen 
more questions are raised," Schakowsky said. "Most members of 
Congress interpreted the cap to mean we will limit to a total of 300 
personnel, no matter what their nationality is."
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MAP posted-by: Josh