Pubdate: Thu, 31 Aug 2000
Source: Irish Examiner (Ireland)
Copyright: Examiner Publications Ltd, 2000
Contact:  http://www.examiner.ie/
Author: Steve Holland

CLINTON ON DAY LONG VISIT TO COLOMBIA

BILL CLINTON left for Colombia yesterday on the first trip there by a US 
President in a decade, to show friendship and solidarity with Colombians in 
their war against drugs and rebels.

Mr Clinton, who returned on Tuesday from a trip to Nigeria, Tanzania and 
Egypt, was accompanied by his daughter Chelsea on the flight from Andrews 
Air Force base to the Caribbean resort of Cartagena.

Mr Clinton will hold formal talks with Colombian President Andres Pastrana 
and have lunch with him during his day long visit to Colombia. The 
President will also inspect drug interdiction efforts in the Port of 
Cartagena and meet members of the Colombian national police and talk to 
widows of police officers killed in the line of duty. In a videotaped 
message to the Colombian people on Tuesday, Mr Clinton said he would bring 
a message of friendship and solidarity for the Colombian people, for 
Pastrana and for Plan Colombia, the $7.5 billion anti drug plan to which 
the United States is contributing $1.3 billion.

"As you struggle, with courage, to make peace, to build your economy, to 
fight drugs and to deepen democracy, the United States will be on your 
side," Mr Clinton said.

Colombia is a country going through a violent period of kidnappings, 
massacres by paramilitaries and insurgents and drug trafficking that funds 
an insurgent conflict and feeds crime. White House National Security 
Adviser Sandy Berger said the country was engaged in a life or death 
struggle for democracy. The aid package includes 60 military helicopters 
and training for two special army battalions that will protect Colombian 
police missions to destroy drug plantations and labs in guerrilla 
controlled areas of southern Colombia.

US officials are going to great lengths to try to refute any notion that 
the aid package is an initial step in getting involved in a Vietnam like 
quagmire in Colombia.

An initial team of what will be as many as several hundred US advisers is 
already in Colombia and has begun the training.

"There is no plan, and there is no proposal, and there is no idea of 
committing American forces in Colombia to do anything but ... providing 
training," said Thomas Pickering, US undersecretary of state for political 
affairs.

Colombia's main rebel forces and key labor organisations have condemned the 
US plan. They said the aid signaled growing US intervention that could 
inflame Colombia's three decade old conflict.

Other Latin American countries are watching the US plan with great 
interest, some with concern and others with cautious enthusiasm at the 
prospect of removing an unstable situation in the region.

Mr Clinton's waiver last week of human rights conditions in order to begin 
releasing the US assistance triggered outrage among human rights organisations.

They complain that Colombian military officers who have committed serious 
abuses are routinely acquitted and that dozens of prominent human rights 
cases go unsolved. Mr Clinton said the US package provides human rights 
training for the Colombian military and police, and denies US assistance to 
any units of the Colombian security forces involved in human rights abuses 
or linked to abuses committed by paramilitary forces.

"Today's world has no place and no patience for any group that attacks 
defenseless citizens or resorts to kidnapping and extortion," Mr Clinton said.

A senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it would 
probably take six months to determine whether the training was taking hold 
and years before Colombia rebounded.

"We may not be able to pull it off, but we think our assistance can do a 
heck of a lot of good. It would be tragic if we looked the other way. They 
deserve a chance for a fresh start," said the official.
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