Pubdate: Sun, 25 Aug 2002
Source: Agence France-Presses (France Wire)
Copyright: 2002 Agence France-Presse
Author: Jacques Thomet

COLOMBIA "STUDYING" ICC IMMUNITY FOR US, SEEKS EUROPEAN ANTI-DRUG AID: URIBE

CARTAGENA, Colombia - Colombia is studying a US request to back immunity 
for its troops before the International Criminal Court, said President 
Alvaro Uribe, who also told AFP Sunday he would like more European 
anti-drug aid.

"Colombia must examine all the issues," surrounding the International 
Criminal Court, Uribe said in an exclusive interview.

"The foreign ministry is studying the issue and we will make a decision," 
but not in concert with other Latin American countries.

Uribe, who took office August 7, was in the Caribbean coastal city of 
Cartagena meeting with the Colombia's association of manufacturers.

US officials have asked allies to sign on to a waiver so that US troops 
could not be tried for genocide before the court.

Under the American Service Members Protection Act signed into law by US 
President George W. Bush this month, Washington could withhold military aid 
from ICC member countries that do not agree to protect US troops from the 
court.

Colombia is the third-largest recipient of US foreign aid, after Israel and 
Egypt. The aid is aimed at helping Bogota suppress a four- decade-old civil 
war that has killed 200,000 people.

The war pits government forces against rightist paramilitary squads and 
leftist guerrillas. Both guerrillas and paramilitary forces receive money 
from selling drugs, such as cocaine and heroin extracted from crops grown 
in Colombia.

"I hope for a lot of help from Europe because the conflict is financed by 
an international business that is drug trafficking, fought with arms 
manufactured outside (Colombia) and (because) the violence is affecting 
this democracy and the population," Uribe said.

"All democratic countries can help. I hope for a lot of help, of a special 
sort that I am going to talk about today: help to finance payment to 
growers of the drug (crops) so that they may substitute drugs for trees. 
The cost? The country must find 400 million dollars year after year (and) 
to find out how much Europe can help us.

"Jacques Chirac was made aware of this project during my visit to Paris 
after my election. If he comes to Colombia, we will receive him with open 
arms. Here, there is a great appreciation for France and if President 
Chirac visits, he will visit a land that will receive him with every warmth 
... and we will ask him for aid."

The United States has funded Colombia's war on illegal drugs with almost 
two billion dollars in assistance since 2000, including military 
helicopters used to spray herbicide on coca crops. Coca is the raw material 
from which cocaine is processed.

Colombia remains the world's top producer of illegal narcotics, producing 
580 tonnes of cocaine and six tonnes of heroin annually, most of it sold in 
the United States and Europe.
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