Pubdate: Wed, 14 Aug 2002
Source: BBC News (UK Web)
Copyright: 2002 BBC
Contact: http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/talking_point/forum/
Website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/558
Author: Peter Greste, BBC South America Correspondent in Bogota

US BACKS COLOMBIA'S 'DRUG WAR'

A senior US State Department official has underscored Washington's support 
for the new government in Colombia, and its fight against what they have 
called "narco-terrorism".

The undersecretary of state for political affairs, Marc Grossman, said he 
held extremely productive talks with the president, Alvaro Uribe, and his 
senior cabinet ministers who were inaugurated last week.

The visit is likely to speed up US support for Colombia's deepening war 
against the rebel guerrillas and right wing paramilitaries.

The discussions with Mr Uribe and his senior cabinet ministers went more 
than an hour longer than scheduled, a clear sign, said Mr Grossman, that it 
was extremely productive.

At the top of the agenda: Washington's growing support for the new 
Colombian president's plan to beef up military campaign against the array 
of leftist insurgents and right-wing paramilitaries.

Emergency Tax

Particularly pleasing to Mr Grossman was President Uribe's decision on 
Sunday to impose an emergency war tax raising an extra eight hundred 
million dollars.

"It will make the assistance we're giving today more effective," he said. 
"And I think it will capture the attention of those in congress who support 
Colombia and recognise now that more is being done here."

The Americans clearly want to help anything that targets Colombia's huge 
coca crop, which winds up on US streets as cocaine.

But in the past, they have been terrified of crossing a fuzzy line that 
separates the drug traffickers from the rebels with political agendas.

Now though, Mr Grossman said, that line has gone.

Drug traders "The FARC, the ELA and the AUC are involved in every aspect of 
the elicit drug trade and their efforts to undermine government authority 
create a climate in which drug trafficking, kidnapping and other illegal 
activities thrive," he said, referring to Colombia's two main rebel groups 
and right-wing paramilitaries.

In effect then, no longer are there shackles limiting the use of hundreds 
of millions of dollars in American military aid to narrowly defined 
counter-narcotic operations.

And it means that still more money is coming. Washington's one concession: 
an admission that the US shares responsibility for Colombia's war by 
consuming the vast bulk of its drugs.

It is all music to the Colombian government's ears, but critics say all the 
help so far has done nothing to stem the tide of narcotics on American 
streets and it has only driven Colombia deeper into war.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager