Pubdate: Wed, 06 Feb 2002 Source: Detroit Free Press (MI) Copyright: 2002 Detroit Free Press Contact: http://www.freep.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/125 BUSH SEEKS MORE AID FOR WAR IN COLOMBIA Millions Would Help Protect Oil For U.S. BOGOTA, Colombia -- A top-level Bush administration delegation announced plans Tuesday to widen U.S. involvement in Colombia's civil war. Under the plan, the United States would provide training, weapons and aircraft to Colombian troops to protect a pipeline carrying U.S. oil. "We are committed to help Colombians create a Colombia that is a peaceful, prosperous, drug-free and terror-free democracy," said Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman. He said the Bush administration would ask Congress for $98 million to strengthen a Colombian army brigade to guard the 490-mile Cano Limon pipeline, whose oil field is operated by U.S. firm Occidental Petroleum Corp. The aid comes on top of already massive U.S. assistance intended to wipe out cocaine and heroin production in the Andean nation. The Bush administration sent Congress a fiscal year 2003 budget Monday that included money for training a second antidrug brigade as part of a 14-percent increase in anti-narcotics spending in the Andean region. Of the $731 million proposed for the regional effort, $439 million was for Colombia. Wary of getting dragged into a conflict that has claimed 40,000 lives in the past decade, the United States has not granted President Andres Pastrana's request for authorization to use U.S. anti-narcotics aid against guerrillas and far-right paramilitaries in nondrug operations. The 120,000-barrel-a-day Cano Limon pipeline, which is currently not in operation due to repairs, was bombed 170 times last year and has been bombed at least 13 times this year. It is targeted by both the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by the Spanish initials FARC, and the smaller National Liberation Army, or ELN, as part of extortion campaigns. The United States calls the two rebel groups terrorist organizations. Meanwhile in Washington on Tuesday, three human rights groups charged that Pastrana's government has failed to meet human rights conditions for continued U.S. military aid. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the Washington Office on Latin America accused Colombian forces of extensive collaboration with an illegal right-wing paramilitary group that has been killing suspected rebel collaborators. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom