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.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom