Pubdate: Tue, 24 Jul 2001
Source: Orlando Sentinel (FL)
Copyright: 2001 Orlando Sentinel
Contact:  http://www.orlandosentinel.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/325
Author: William E. Gibson, Washington Bureau

HOUSE FACES COLOMBIAN DRUG VOTE

With fragile hopes and little optimism, the House this week almost 
certainly will approve another huge investment in the South American 
drug war despite its dim prospects.

Congress has become a reluctant soldier in the drug war -- or, 
rather, a highly skeptical financial backer.

Critics fear the United States will get bogged down in the Andean 
anti-drug mission, which is built around military aid to Colombia. 
The House, nevertheless, is expected to approve $676 million to help 
the initiative as part of a $15-billion foreign-aid bill -- a 
grudging step taken for lack of a better alternative.

If Plan Colombia fails to show clear signs of success by next year, 
however, future funding is in jeopardy.

Congress has become discouraged with the strategy, mainly because it 
has failed to curb the flow of illegal narcotics from Colombia and 
neighboring countries. From the start, critics also fumed about 
funding Colombian armed forces that were notorious for human-rights 
violations. Political support was further damaged when Peruvian 
pilots mistakenly shot down a missionary plane, killing an American 
woman and her baby.

Colombian-Americans, especially, are torn by the dilemmas posed by 
U.S. funding. Many have fled to the United States, bringing their 
money with them, because of the turmoil and the imminent threat of 
kidnapping and murder.

"It's a controversial plan within the Colombian community. Some 
Colombians support it and some don't," said Jose Luis Castillo, 
chairman of the Miami-based Colombian American Foundation. "Some 
Colombians fear it is only going to escalate the situation by putting 
more firewood on the fire. Others think it's necessary to be more 
aggressive."

For now, Congress is reluctant to undermine Colombian President 
Andres Pastrana while he is struggling to broker a peace agreement 
with guerrilla forces, quell the booming drug trade, eradicate 
illegal crops and repair the storm-damaged countryside. Pastrana must 
do all of this while trying to stem the flow of people and money out 
of Colombia and counter narcotics-funded terrorism from the left and 
right.

Colombia's intractable problems cannot be ignored, most members of 
Congress agree, because they threaten American anti-drug efforts as 
well as the stability of a strategically important region with ties 
to the United States, especially Florida.

"The worst thing we could do is pull the rug out from under President 
Pastrana. That would be a disaster for Colombia and our allies in the 
Western Hemisphere. That would be the last resort," said Rep. Robert 
Wexler, D-Boca Raton, a member of the House International Relations 
Committee.

He and others predicted, however, that the United States is unlikely 
to keep bankrolling Pastrana's strategy, known as Plan Colombia, 
unless it begins to reduce the supplies of cocaine and heroin that 
flow to the United States and Europe. So far, most evidence shows 
those supplies have increased as leftist guerrillas and right-wing 
paramilitary forces pump up production to fund their conflicting 
causes.

"Plan Colombia probably has one more year to prove itself before it's 
really curtains," Wexler said. "It's just too much American money 
being spent without results, and Pastrana, whose term ends in 2002, 
will be gone after next year."

Even those who point to signs of progress, such as reduced coca crops 
in Bolivia and Peru, acknowledge that the Andean initiative is 
teetering on the brink of defeat.

"It is nearly as fraught with the possibility for failure as it is 
for success, but we have no alternatives," Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., 
told his colleagues last week when the House began debating the 
foreign-aid bill. "Without our help, there is a significant 
likelihood that Colombia will become an outright narco-state 
effectively under the control of terrorists and drug lords."

At former President Clinton's request, Congress last year approved 
$1.3 billion for the Andean initiative, most of it for police or 
military aid to eradicate coca crops and stem the drug trade in 
Colombia's unruly southern provinces. The strategy was controversial 
from the start because it put so much of the money into military 
training, counternarcotics hardware and helicopters, and relatively 
little into economic aid.

The Bush administration and Congress have proposed another round of 
aid, but with modifications: About half the money in the House bill 
would be spent directly on anti-narcotics efforts, with the rest on 
economic assistance and other aid. About $399 million of the $676 
million would go to Colombia, with the rest sent to other nations in 
the region.

The House is expected to approve these measures, perhaps as early as 
today. The Senate will take up a similar version, though perhaps not 
until after its August break.
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MAP posted-by: Kirk