Pubdate: Wed, 19 Jun 2002
Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA)
Copyright: 2002 San Jose Mercury News
Contact:  http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/390
Author: Tim Johnson, Knight Ridder
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/colombia.htm

U.S. WANTS COLOMBIA TO STEP UP WAR EFFORTS

Aid Will Be Shifted To Fighting Rebels

WASHINGTON - President-elect Alvaro Uribe of Colombia, who began a three-day
visit to Washington on Tuesday, is likely to face pressure from U.S.
officials who want Colombia to put up more of its own money and soldiers to
fight lawlessness.

Uribe's visit comes at a moment when Congress is about to enact a policy
change that raises the U.S. stakes in Colombia by shifting the focus of aid
programs to include fighting guerrillas as well as combating drugs.

Almost without exception, analysts believe that the shift, combined with
Uribe's hard-line platform, will bring about a near-term increase in
bloodshed.

"The security situation is going to get worse before it gets better,'' said
Stephen Johnson, a Latin America policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation,
a conservative think tank.

Uribe met with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Tuesday afternoon and
was to consult with Senate Majority leader Tom Daschle in the early evening.
Today he will speak with Secretary of State Colin Powell. National security
adviser Condoleezza Rice receives Uribe at the White House on Thursday,
before he heads to Canada and Europe.

Uribe will be briefed on the policy changes by administration officials, who
have embraced his tough, anti-guerrilla stance. But he is likely to
encounter a mixed reception on Capitol Hill.

A breakdown in peace talks in Colombia in February convinced many U.S.
lawmakers that Washington must expand its role in Colombia, but some now
question Colombia's commitment to pay for and prosecute the war.

"Everybody from the Colombian desk officers to Powell, to the National
Security Council to the Pentagon, everyone is going to hammer home to Uribe
this message: Don't wait for the U.S. Marines to get there. They are not
coming,'' said a Senate Republican staff member, who insisted on anonymity.

Colombia has received nearly $2 billion in U.S. assistance during the past
three years, making it by far the largest U.S. recipient of aid in this
hemisphere, and the White House has proposed $538.2 million for the next
fiscal year, beginning Oct. 1.

"There have been many verbal commitments from Colombia but too little action
and only meager results,'' said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who is head of
the foreign-operations panel of the Senate Appropriations Committee. "This
needs to be a partnership, especially as the Bush administration continues
to ask for more money to expand our involvement there.''

Uribe, who takes office Aug. 7, has pledged to double the size of the
Colombian armed forces and set up a 1 million-strong civilian defense force.
Some observers voice skepticism.

"Double the size of the army? Where's he going to get the money for that?''
asked a congressional staffer, who noted that Colombia never fulfilled
commitments for social spending under its five-year Plan Colombia
counternarcotics program adopted in 2000.

Uribe is certain to get an earful of questions about a scandal over $2
million in missing U.S. assistance that has already implicated about 60
members of the Colombian National Police, including senior officers in the
anti-narcotics squad.

He is also likely to be grilled over what a General Accounting Office
summary describes as a lack of cooperation by the Colombian armed forces in
fighting narcotics trafficking.

The one-page GAO summary, obtained by the Miami Herald, says the Colombian
army was supposed to provide 250 pilots for training on 14 Black Hawk and 30
Super Huey helicopters given to Colombia but "has been slow in providing the
number of trainees needed.''

Moreover, the air force has failed to train pilots for the Black Hawks and
makes "very little use'' of U.S.-provided A-37 aircraft "to interdict
drug-trafficking operations,'' the summary says.

Earlier this year, the Bush administration asked Congress to lift
restrictions that limit U.S. assistance only to counternarcotics efforts. If
granted, Colombia could employ U.S.-provided aircraft, including scores of
helicopters, and other assistance in its war against two guerrilla groups
and an outlaw paramilitary force.

The House approved the request, included in a $30 billion comprehensive
counterterrorism bill, on May 24, and the Senate followed suit June 7.
Conferees from the two chambers are resolving differences in the two bills,
and may finish their work by the end of June.

Equally important, the Bush administration is considering other broad
changes in U.S. policy toward Colombia, including a plan to share
intelligence with Colombia to help it target and kill senior leaders of the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, who have eluded capture for
decades.

Pentagon officials foresee a "strike and hold'' military strategy to help
Colombian soldiers move back into the swaths of territory where guerrillas
and right-wing paramilitary forces have free rein and regain effective
control, an official said.
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