Pubdate: Fri, 05 Nov 1999 Source: Reuters Copyright: 1999 Reuters Limited. CLINTON SAYS NO DIRECT U.S. ROLE IN COLOMBIA -REPORT CHICAGO (Reuters) - President Clinton said the United States should not be drawn into direct involvement in Colombia's long-running civil war, according to an interview released Friday. "I'm going to keep trying to help Colombia," Clinton told Telemundo Spanish-language television in an interview given Thursday. "But I don't think we should be. "I don't think it would work, and I think it would actually hurt the cause of freedom and the integrity of governments in Latin America," Clinton said. Clinton noted that Colombia gets the third-largest chunk of U.S. foreign aid after Israel and Egypt, and said he was "very concerned about the combination of the narco-traffickers and the people that have been engaged in the civil war down there totally destabilizing Colombia." However, he said, "if we were to become directly involved, I think it would ensure a disastrous result for the Colombian government, and people would accuse us of being imperialists in some way." Colombia's three-decade-old conflict, which pits guerrillas against ultra-right death squads and state security forces, has claimed more than 35,000 lives and forced more than a million civilians to flee their homes in just the last 10 years. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D