Pubdate: Mon, 26 Feb 2001
Source: Miami Herald (FL)
Copyright: 2001 The Miami Herald
Contact:  One Herald Plaza, Miami FL 33132-1693
Fax: (305) 376-8950
Website: http://www.herald.com/
Forum: http://krwebx.infi.net/webxmulti/cgi-bin/WebX?mherald
Author: Juan O. Tamayo
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/area/Colombia (Reports about Colombia)

PLAN COLOMBIA FACES SCRUTINY

Bush, Pastrana To Hold First Meeting Tuesday

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Asked recently whether Colombia's myriad problems ever 
gave him nightmares, President Andres Pastrana said he slept well. "It's 
when I wake up that the nightmares start," he said.

But as Pastrana readies for his first meeting with President Bush on 
Tuesday, he might be losing some sleep over a U.S. president and Congress 
much different from the ones that sent him $1.3 billion last year in mostly 
military aid for a crackdown on Colombia's narcotics industry.

Today, Washington is rife with doubts about the U.S. policy of interdicting 
drug trafficking abroad, the stress on military aid to Bogota, the 
Colombian security forces' ability to fight and their alleged links to 
right-wing paramilitary killers.

Underlining Washington's interest in Colombia, now the third largest 
recipient of U.S. aid behind Israel and Jordan, Pastrana will be only the 
fourth head of government to meet with Bush, who has met with President 
Vicente Fox of Mexico and prime ministers Jean Chretien of Canada and Tony 
Blair of Great Britain.

Pastrana arrived Saturday in Washington to begin meetings with political 
and business leaders before he sits down with the U.S. president.

Today he is scheduled to see Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, Defense 
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Commerce Secretary Donald Evans.

Plan Colombia, Pastrana's ambitious $7.5 billion plan to strengthen the 
government, make peace with rebels and reduce cocaine and heroin production 
by half in five years, is now widely perceived in Washington as being in 
need of serious rethinking.

"This administration is going to take a hard look at the overall policy, 
starting with Pastrana's visit," said Michael Shifter, an analyst with the 
Inter-American Dialogue in Washington. "This is not going to be simply how 
many coca fields were destroyed, but what's the real purpose of U.S. policy?"

Pastrana has himself spoken of a desire to refocus U.S. aid away from the 
military side, condemned by neighboring countries that are afraid that a 
squeeze here will force Colombia's war and drugs across their own borders.

"We have already said it: More than money, we need opportunities for our 
exports in the U.S. market," the president told foreign businessmen last 
week as he previewed some of the topics he will discuss with Bush.

Pastrana Wishes

He wants lower U.S. import duties on Colombian textiles and apparel, which 
now generate 400,000 jobs in a nation with 20.5 percent unemployment, 
saying that a good salary is the best way to keep Colombians from turning 
into drug traffickers or guerrillas.

But whatever Pastrana says to Bush, it's clear that he would like a 
continuation of the U.S. largess.

Penciled into the proposed U.S. fiscal 2002 budget is $400 million in 
follow-on aid to the $1.3 billion approved last summer, a bit less than the 
$500 million mentioned by some Colombian officials in recent weeks.

Most of the new money is earmarked for continuing the non-military parts of 
the U.S. aid package, such as alternative-crop incentives for coca and 
opium poppy farmers, judicial reforms and human rights protections.

But the new money, some of its congressional critics argue, would 
effectively make the U.S. involvement in Colombia all but permanent.

"There's a lot of confusion about what the U.S. is trying to do there -- 
solve the drug problem, save democracy or defeat the FARC," Shifter said, 
referring to the leftist guerrilla Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

Easing Restrictions

A Bush aide during the election campaign spoke of a possible easing of the 
restrictions on U.S. aid to the Colombian military, now limited to 
drug-fighting missions, and allowing its use for fighting the leftist 
guerrillas.

Reps. Benjamin Gilman, R-NY, and Dan Burton, R-Ill, lead a group of 
conservatives arguing that more U.S. aid should go to the Colombian 
National Police, whose charge it is -- not the military's -- to fight drugs.

And human rights groups in Washington want to halt all aid to Colombia 
until the military severs its alleged links with right-wing paramilitary 
units accused of massacring thousands of suspected rebel sympathizers.

Shift In Focus

It is a situation ripe for shifting the focus of Plan Colombia without 
changing its military component, said Arlene Tickner, Chicago-born director 
of the Center for International Studies at the University of the Andes in 
Bogota.

"Pastrana will try to stress social and economic issues in seeking to 
'de-narcotize' relations with the U.S.," Tickner said.

"But neither the U.S. side nor the Colombian side see an alternative to the 
military strategy, given the strength of the guerrillas and the paramilitaries."
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager