DATE=8/12/1999 TYPE=LATIN AMERICAN ISSUES ABOUND TITLE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP NUMBER=6-11420 BYLINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE DATELINE=WASHINGTON EDITOR=ASSIGNMENTS TELEPHONE=619-3335 CONTENT= INTRO: While a good deal of U-S press and foreign- policy staff attention has been focused on the Kosovo situation, or the North Korean missile threat, or relations with China, serious problems have been expanding in Latin America. Nowhere else is the situation more serious than in Colombia where the new president's peace efforts with guerilla groups have apparently stalled. And, there are U-S papers that see the potential emergence of yet another Latin dictator in nearby Venezuela. We get a sampling now of editorials on these topics from ____________ who joins us with today's U-S Opinion Roundup. TEXT: The U-S drug czar, former-general Barry McCaffrey returned recently from a tour of Colombia. He told Congress more money and a higher degree of U-S involvement is needed to help the government of President Andres Pastrana cope with narco traffickers and insurrection. Those comments, and reports from the field have caused a renewed debate on the U-S role in Colombia, and the country's immediate prospects on both fronts. We begin our sampling with "The Los Angeles Times" which mentioned the country's 35-year-old civil war, which has taken at least 35-thousand lives, and then suggests: VOICE: Achieving peace will not be easy. The drug traffickers, the paramilitaries and others have profited from the absence of the rule of law in Colombia. They will resist any diminution of their power. The Clinton administration has been a staunch supporter of [Mr.] Pastrana's peace initiative, and it is in Washington's interest to help where it can without pushing. A negotiated peace in Colombia offers America a long-term answer to a big part of the drug menace. But this view is not universally shared in Washington. A small, but powerful, group of conservative Republicans, including .Senator Jesse Helms (of North Carolina), believes it knows what is best for Colombia. [Senator] Helms and company have placed their bets on a continued militarized anti-drug policy despite its evident failure. . Colombia does not need more guns from America. Instead Colombia's leadership must reach out to the deprived in the jungles and the highlands and offer them an opportunity to build communities based on a fair standard of living. TEXT: Going from the specific to the general, Hawaii's "Honolulu Star-Bulletin" feels in general, the Clinton administration has not been minding the store in its Latin American relations. VOICE: The United States can not afford to ignore disturbing developments in these countries. The Clinton administration is accused of ignoring disturbing trends in Latin America. Critics cite weakness of democratic systems in many countries, accelerating urban crime, persistent corruption, drug trafficking, low rates of economic growth, wide gaps between rich and poor, and high rates of extreme poverty. . no secretary of state has attended the annual meeting of Western Hemisphere foreign ministers in a decade. .. In Colombia, civil war and drug trafficking are tearing the country apart. In neighboring Venezuela, widespread disgust with 40 years of multi-party democracy has led to the emergence of a populist leader, President Hugo Chavez, who might assume dictatorial powers. Violent crime is soaring in Mexico and at least three states are controlled by drug traffickers. Mark Falcoff, a Latin American specialist at the American Enterprise Institute, says, "All the Andean countries are falling apart." TEXT: As regards General McCaffrey's call for expanded funding and military support for Colombia's anti-narco trafficking efforts, "The San Diego Union- Tribune" sums up a recent commentary with these conclusions. VOICE: While [General ] McCaffrey and his Office of national Drug Control Policy deserve praise for investing considerable sums in treatment and prevention, we need a sweeping public-policy shift in support of demand reduction. Clearly, our heavy emphasis on cutting supply is not working. TEXT: In Florida, with its proximity to the region, and a large number of expatriates from many Latin nations, "The St. Petersburg Times" opines that, whatever may be going wrong in Colombia, it is not our war. VOICE: The recent crash of a U-S anti-narcotics reconnaissance plane in the jungle of southern Colombia should send a wake-up call to officials who determine U-S policy there. For a nation that claims a war on drugs as its primary goal, the United States is treading on the verge of Vietnam-like involvement in Colombia's ever- growing political violence. . despite U-S counter-narcotics aid to Colombia, which totaled 289-million-dollars in 1998 alone, coca cultivation has risen 50-percent. Drug trafficking is a billion-dollar business, and it will not disappear as long as cartels continue to profit. A more concerted effort to reduce narcotics consumption in the United States might do more damage to Colombian drug lords than attacks on their home turf. TEXT: Not to slight the disturbing trends in Venezuela, we turn to the Rhode Island capitol, Providence where the "Journal" titles a recent commentary "Venezuela's budding dictator". The paper reminds readers that president Hugo Chavez, winner of last December's election, and an avid admirer of Cuba's Fidel Castro, led an unsuccessful military coup in 1992 against the democratic government in Caracas, and now he is President. But . there is more. VOICE: Since his inauguration in February, President Chavez . has caused independent observers earlier concerns to turn into stark fears. The way things appear headed; it will be a miracle if Venezuela can manage to avoid becoming a burial ground for constitutional democracy. There are vast gaps between rich and poor in Venezuela. Too many in the elite are enmeshed in political corruption. . But dictatorship is not a cure for the defects of constitutional democracy. /// END OPT /// TEXT: To conclude we read "The [Cleveland, Ohio] Plain Dealer's" foreign affairs correspondent, Elizabeth Sullivan, who suggests: VOICE: Colombia is losing its 35-year war with the rebels, who recently murdered three U-S missionaries. But America is losing its war against drugs in a nation where - despite intensive U-S-financed eradication - coca- growers have prospered. Colombia is now the world's top producer of cocaine and Number-one supplier of heroin to eastern U-S cities. More potent coca now in the ground means another 50- percent hike in output over the next two-years, the congressional General Accounting Office warned last month. .after suppressing the Cali drug kingpins, Colombia now must confront an insurgency that has become one of the best- financed on Earth, thanks to drug money. .in Mexico, they are talking about the "Colombia- zination" of politics-of society and of the anarchy that has resulted. .It is wake-up time for U-S policy. It is time to help a land just south of our shores, rich in talent and funds, awake to its own dangers and confront them. It is time to invest in the rescue of a society, and not just in a war. TEXT: With that assessment from Ohio's North Coast, and the Cleveland, Ohio, "Plain Dealer's" senior foreign policy analyst, Elizabeth Sullivan, we draw this Opinion Roundup on Latin American problems to a close. NEB/ANG/RAE 12-Aug-1999 13:28 PM EDT (12-Aug-1999 1728 UTC) NNNN Source: Voice of America .