29 October 1998
(Goal would be to find options to narcotics crops) (430) By Eric Green USIA Staff Writer WASHINGTON -- The United States says an international donors conference is being considered to help drug-producing countries such as Colombia develop alternative crops, says State Department deputy spokesman James Foley. Briefing reporters October 29, Foley said that both President Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, in their meetings this week in Washington with Colombia's leader Andres Pastrana, pledged U.S. support to the Colombian peace process, which is linked to stopping Colombia's drug trafficking problem. An international donors conference, Foley said, "would be one of a number of ways in which we could offer support" to countries like Colombia, "and we want to be as helpful as we can in this respect. I don't believe that on either side they've gotten down to the nuts and bolts of specific initiatives that would be undertaken, but that's obviously one that is going to be looked at." Pastrana said earlier October 29 that the resources obtained from the conference of countries willing to provide financial assistance would be earmarked to assist a plan to end his country's 40-year-old civil war. Colombia ranks first in the world in the production and distribution of cocaine and also is an important supplier of heroin and marijuana. Pastrana told reporters that one alternative to the growing of narcotics plants was rubber plants. Foley said that Albright's discussion with Pastrana was "wide-ranging, substantive, and, of course, very cordial. Among the issues discussed were President Pastrana's efforts to resolve Colombia's 40-year-old civil conflict, the issue of human rights, of counter-narcotics and the new opportunities for U.S.-Colombian economic engagement, and they certainly shared a convergence of views on all of these issues." Foley added that narcotics and Colombia's civil conflict "are part and parcel of our agenda with Colombia, and no one can argue" that there are links between them. A donors conference, he said, "which would be looked at, could help" deal with both of these issues. "And as I've noted also, we have a very strong interest in Colombia's economic development." Pastrana was meeting later in the day with officials at the World Bank, hoping to obtain international backing for Colombia's economic recovery program. He was also scheduled to meet with U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, officials of the Inter-American Development Bank, and was to address the Organization of American States.