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. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens