Pubdate: Sat, 01 Sep 2001
Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)
Copyright: 2001 The Dallas Morning News
Contact:  http://www.dallasnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/117

U.S. SEEKS EXPANDED MILITARY EFFORT IN COLOMBIA

Administration Wants To Step Up Fight Against Drugs, Insurgents.

The Bush administration will examine ways of expanding its military effort 
to fight drug traffickers and insurgents in Colombia as it seeks funding 
for an $882 million regional anti-drug package, a senior U.S. official said 
Friday.

"I think that's part of the ongoing review between our two countries," the 
official said as a U.S. delegation, headed by Marc Grossman, undersecretary 
of state for international political affairs, concluded a three-day visit 
to Colombia.

The official said the possible expansion of U.S. military training and 
anti-drug assistance, now encompassed under a $1.5 billion assistance 
program known as Plan Colombia, would be a matter of continuing discussion 
with President Andres Pastrana's government in the coming months. Secretary 
of State Colin Powell is scheduled to continue the discussions during a 
Sept. 11-12 visit.

Mr. Pastrana, who has less than a year left in office, is under fire for 
having embraced a U.S. military-assistance package that, many Colombians 
believe, is partly responsible for an increase in violence and guerrilla 
attacks around the country.

His peace process has virtually ground to a halt while the U.S. and 
Colombian governments celebrate the results of a 6,000-troop offensive 
against the nation's largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed 
Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Both governments accuse the FARC and its 
arch-rival, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, of supporting and 
profiting from the drug trade.

"Is this success a result of our advice?" the U.S. official said. "I think 
that the increase in the effectiveness of the Colombian military and the 
Colombian police, in terms of the counternarcotics mission, is the result 
of the training and the equipment we have provided. And I think that's a 
good thing and not a bad thing."

The official said the possibility of expanding the U.S. role will be 
discussed in Washington and Bogota "as President Pastrana looks down the 
road to the successes they've had, and what they need to do now, and as our 
country looks at how do we continue to support" the military and police 
counter-narcotics effort. "That will continue to be part of the ongoing 
dialogue."

His remarks were in sharp contrast to those of Peter Rodman, assistant 
secretary of defense for international policy, who told reporters last week 
that Washington was "rethinking" its support of Plan Colombia.

"You never, ever, ever have a policy that's this big and this complicated 
without trying to make sure that it's right all the time," the official 
said. "But there is absolutely no -- zero, none -- difference between us 
and anybody else in town about our support for Plan Colombia and the fact 
that Colombia matters. ... There is no rethinking."

The official said the results of the military campaign, as well as an 
intensive aerial herbicide-spraying campaign that has been in progress 
since last November, are being assessed. More than 120,000 acres of drug 
crops have been sprayed.

"If it's true, which I think it is, that there have been some successes now 
on the counternarcotics side as a result of what the Colombians do ... and 
what we've helped them do," the official said, "we would need to talk about 
whether we want to do more of that."

Gen. Peter Pace, chief of the U.S. Southern Command, accompanied Mr. 
Grossman Thursday on a tour of the Colombian military bases where the U.S. 
training has been focused.

Another senior U.S. official said that both countries agree on the need to 
expand a Colombian government security presence throughout the country, 
where nearly one-fifth of the nation's 1,074 municipalities do not even 
have a police station, much less a military presence.

"First of all, it is a fact that the Colombian military and the Colombian 
police combined are not strong enough to provide security throughout the 
entire country," the official said. "Everyone recognizes that there is a 
need to have that capacity increased."

The officials, who spoke to foreign correspondents on condition of 
anonymity, did not say whether an expansion of U.S. assistance would 
involve a request to increase the presence of U.S. military forces here.

Congress has set limits of 500 active-duty military personnel and 300 
military-contract workers in Colombia at any given time. The U.S. troops 
are involved in various training and support activities related to 
anti-drug interdiction and the fight against insurgents supporting the drug 
trade.

U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson has said publicly in recent weeks that 
Washington is studying an expansion of the U.S. training mission to 
establish a combat-ready counterdrug/counterinsurgency brigade of nearly 
2,000 troops in southern Colombia, where the presence of FARC and 
self-defense forces are heavy.

"In southern Colombia, the U.S.-trained counterdrug brigade has shut down 
scores of narcotics fields and laboratories," Mr. Grossman told reporters 
Friday. "The combination of aerial spraying of coca plantations and 
voluntary, manual eradication for farmers who sign crop-substitution pacts 
with the government has had a serious impact on drug production in southern 
Colombia."

However, officials acknowledged that in spite of what he described as heavy 
U.S. expenditures, the amount of acreage under drug-crop cultivation in 
Colombia has actually increased since Plan Colombia made its debut last year.

"I can't give precise figure on how much drug production might have been 
increased without America's effort, but I would say that ... the amount of 
increase would have been greater had the effort not been made," said Rand 
Beers, the assistant secretary of state who is in charge of U.S. 
counternarcotics efforts in Colombia. "I have no doubt that, without our 
effort, the amount of that increase would have been higher."

Mr. Grossman fielded numerous questions from reporters about a 
herbicide-spraying campaign that has prompted complaints from farmers in 
southern Colombia. The complaints have ranged from skin rashes and other 
health problems to what the farmers in some areas say is the near-total 
destruction of their legal subsistence crops.

The two governments are negotiating plans to reimburse farmers who can 
prove legal crops were destroyed during eradication flights.

Mr. Grossman defended glyphosate, the chemical herbicide used in the 
spraying, and welcomed independent, scientific study to determine whether 
the alleged health effects are a result of the U.S.-sponsored eradication 
campaign.

"We say all these things not because we're trying to be defensive about it 
but because there is a public concern about it in Colombia. And that's 
fair," he said. "This is exactly the kind of issue that ought to be talked 
about in public. We think the facts are on our side."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart