Pubdate: Tue, 16 Apr 2002
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2002 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Karen DeYoung

COLOMBIAN AID LIMITS REVIEWED

Pastrana, Bush Ask a Skeptical Congress to Lift Restrictions

Another difficult and controversial foreign policy issue is about to crowd 
onto President Bush's already overflowing plate, as Congress takes up his 
plan for a major expansion of U.S. involvement in Colombia's guerrilla war.

Hearings scheduled to stretch into next month began last week on the 
proposal to stop restricting U.S. military aid to Colombia's fight against 
cocaine and heroin production and export.

The restrictions were designed to keep the United States from becoming 
directly involved in South America's oldest guerrilla conflict. But the 
Bush administration maintains that left- and right-wing insurgents fighting 
the Colombian government and each other are both drug traffickers and 
terrorists whose activities threaten not only Colombia but the stability 
and security of Latin America and the United States.

Colombian President Andres Pastrana arrives in Washington today for a 
four-day visit to help lobby for the plan, which would also waive a number 
of human rights provisions and other restrictions Congress has attached to 
Colombia aid.

With little to show for nearly $2 billion already spent fighting Colombia's 
drug war since 2000, however, Bush and Pastrana face an uphill task. 
Skeptical legislators have indicated they want a better explanation of past 
failures and a far more detailed description of the new policy than has 
been provided.

"You're asking for an unprecedented level of decision-making power over 
policy in Colombia -- with no specifics," Rep. Jim Kolbe (R- Ariz.) told 
Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman at a House appropriations 
subcommittee hearing last week. "I don't feel I know any more about what 
U.S. policy in Colombia is than I did before."

Language authorizing the policy change is contained in one sentence, deep 
inside the voluminous White House request for $27 billion in emergency 
anti-terrorism aid sent to Congress last month. Superseding all existing 
restrictions, it says that all previously approved and future aid "shall be 
available to support a unified campaign against narcotics trafficking, 
terrorist activities, and other threats to [Colombia's] national security."

The administration has said it will not send U.S. combat troops to 
Colombia, nor extend the U.S. military mission beyond training and 
supplying military equipment. But there would be no restrictions on 
Colombia's use of U.S. equipment and U.S.-trained troops.

The new request explicitly retains Congress's 400-person cap on the number 
of U.S. military personnel in Colombia, and observance of a worldwide 
requirement for human rights vetting of any foreign troops trained by U.S. 
forces.

Grossman explained that the "new authority would allow us to address the 
problem of terrorism in Colombia as vigorously as we currently address 
narcotics, and help the government of Colombia address the heightened 
terrorist risk that resulted" from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The 
change, he said, would also help Colombia deal with the collapse of peace 
talks last month between Pastrana and the largest rebel group, the leftist 
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

The State Department lists both FARC and the United Self-Defense Forces, a 
paramilitary group of equal size and viciousness, as "foreign terrorist 
organizations," along with a smaller leftist guerrilla group. All are 
financed principally by the illegal drug business that supplies nearly all 
of the cocaine that enters the United States, and much of the heroin. The 
three groups regularly attack civilians in addition to their battles with 
the Colombian army and each other.

FARC, in particular, has escalated attacks against Colombia's national 
infrastructure since February, when Pastrana ended three years of 
sputtering peace talks following a spate of kidnappings of public officials.

The proposed change in ground rules for Colombian aid marks the first time 
since Sept. 11 that the administration has suggested that domestic 
insurgents in another country pose a terrorist threat even if they have not 
directly targeted the United States and have no known connection to any 
group that has.

With virtually no progress in the drug fight, some in Congress have 
suggested the administration is creating a terrorist danger in Colombia to 
justify throwing good money after bad, and in the process risking a 
Vietnam-type quagmire.

Worse than a "slippery slope . . . I think we're approaching a cliff," Rep. 
Ron Paul (R-Tex.) told Assistant Secretary of State Otto J. Reich at a 
House International Relations subcommittee hearing last week.

Administration officials say that the infusion of drug money into FARC and 
AUC has led to their rapid growth and inserted a new element into the long 
history of Colombian insurgency. The drug and terror wars are now so 
intertwined, they argue, that neither can be won without U.S. involvement 
in both.

Beyond the firewall restricting the use of U.S.-trained troops and 
U.S-provided equipment to counter-narcotics missions, more specific limits 
on Colombia assistance would also be waived under the new policy.

Congress has refused to release any military-related funds in a $300 
million Colombia aid package it appropriated for 2002 until the 
administration can certify that the Colombian army has ended collusion with 
the AUC, suspended and prosecuted senior officers credibly alleged to have 
been involved in human rights violations and moved to arrest AUC leaders. 
The leftist FARC and the right wing AUC are officially equal enemies, but 
both the Colombian and U.S. governments display far more interest in 
combating the former than the latter.

Money to continue a U.S.-paid aerial fumigation program has been withheld 
pending proof that the herbicide being sprayed on drug crops is nontoxic 
and safely used. Neither the military certification nor the herbicide 
information has been provided.

In February, the Senate prohibited spending any of the new 2002 money for 
any purpose, until the administration provides a more detailed outline of 
its strategy.

According to senior Colombian and U.S. officials, the cutoff is beginning 
to pinch. "We're scraping bits and pieces" left in accounts from earlier 
years to keep the military and spraying programs going, an administration 
official said. But "we're at a precipice in terms of where there begins to 
be an impact."

While arguing there has been modest progress in all areas of U.S. effort in 
Colombia, the administration agrees it has been insufficient. Army 
collusion with AUC, which the State Department's human rights reporting 
holds responsible for civilian massacres and brutality as well as drug 
trafficking, has continued, while there have been few advances in the war 
that both are fighting against FARC.

Members of Congress also have asked why the administration proposes 
spending more money to defend Colombia, including more than $500 million 
requested for 2003, when Colombia itself is spending less.

Although Pastrana increased defense spending in 1998, his first year in 
office, it has declined as a percentage of gross domestic product every 
year since then. Colombia now spends slightly less than 2 percent of its 
GDP on the army, and 3.3 percent for all security forces combined.

"I'm not at all satisfied with the commitments" Colombia has made, Rep. 
Sonny Callahan (R-Ala.) told administration officials. "We're talking about 
a lot of money going into a very small area that can show me zero progress."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens