DATE=1/21/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=COLOMBIA / US (L)
NUMBER=2-258302
BYLINE=JIM RANDLE
DATELINE=PENTAGON
CONTENT=

VOICED AT: 


INTRO:  Top U-S officials are in Colombia working out 
details of a proposal to greatly increase military and 
other aid to the troubled nation.  But a critic of U-S 
drug policy says the one-point-6 billion-dollar plan 
is more likely to increase bloodshed than cut cocaine 
exports to the United States. V-O-A's Jim Randle 
reports a-soon-to-be-released C-I-A report says more 
cocaine than ever is growing in Colombia. 



TEXT:  The U-S delegation includes Secretary of the 
Army Louis Caldera and deputy Drug Policy Chief Thomas 
Umberg. The officials say the aid package is designed 
to help Colombian forces regain control of the major 
coca-producing areas in the southern part of the 
country.  Coca is refined into cocaine in clandestine 
laboratories for shipment to the United States and 
other nations.  

Washington hopes training two more battalions of 
Colombian troops to attack and seize drugs and 
laboratories and providing dozens of helicopters to 
move the soldiers around the rugged countryside will 
be an effective part of a strategy to cut the flow of 
illegal drugs out of Colombia over the next 18 months.

The U-S Congress must still consider the proposal and 
authorize the aid.

The discussion comes as U-S officials say the Central 
Intelligence Agency is putting the finishing touches 
on a report that shows the number of hectares planted 
in illegal crops in Colombia has increased sharply 
over the past few years, in spite of drug control 
efforts. 

Critic Larry Birns says the aid package is misguided 
because it will `further militarize' and `broaden and 
deepen' U-S involvement in Colombia's overlapping wars 
against leftist guerrilla groups and drug cartels.  

Mr. Birns heads the `Council on Hemispheric Affairs' 
in Washington, a private group that monitors and 
analyzes U-S policies in Latin America.   

Current U-S policy allows anti-drug actions, but 
forbids fighting political insurgents in Latin 
America.  

But experts say it nearly impossible to make such 
distinctions in Colombia's jungles because some rebels 
finance their military operations by collecting 
massive fees to protect drug operations. 

Mr. Birns says in this complex, dangerous situation, 
U-S aid could boost the level of violence, and suck 
American troops into a morass. 

            /// Birns act  ///

      I then see more and more trainers being sent 
      down from the United States.  One could envisage 
      that the guerrillas will go after these trainers 
      and kill a few.  That will further enrage the 
      United States, thus escalating U-S involvement, 
      and we will be involved in a battle with a well-
      trained, well-deployed 15-thousand member 
      guerilla force.  That sounds to me like big 
      problems.


            /// end act ///   

U-S officials have said to the extent that the 
guerrilla groups are benefiting from the drug trade, 
they could be subject to attack by the newly-trained 
and equipped anti-drug forces.

Fighting in Colombia has taken at least 30-thousand 
lives in the last 36 years. (Signed)


NEB/PT



(Signed). 



21-Jan-2000 15:02 PM EDT (21-Jan-2000 2002 UTC)
NNNN

Source: Voice of America
.