DATE=1/24/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=CLINTON- COLOMBIA (L-ONLY)
NUMBER=2-258381
BYLINE=DAVID GOLLUST
DATELINE=WHITE HOUSE
CONTENT=

VOICED AT:


  /// EDS: CLINTON-PASTRANA MEETING AT 2:30 PM EST ///


INTRO:  Colombian President Andres Pastrana meets with 
President Clinton at the White House Tuesday on a 
Washington visit aimed at lining up support for a 
massive increase in U-S aid to Colombia. The Clinton 
Administration is asking Congress for one-point-six 
billion dollars over two years to help the Bogota 
government, which is besieged by drug traffickers and 
leftwing insurgents. V-O-A's David Gollust reports 
from the White House.


TEXT:  The Colombian leader's schedule includes 
meetings with House Speaker Dennis Hastert and other 
top leaders of Congress of both parties. And 
Administration officials say they hope the two-day 
visit will help overcome opposition to the big 
increase in aid to the Bogota government.

The aid package would include the provision of more 
than 60 helicopters to help Colombian security forces 
reassert control over the southern part of the country 
where the production and trafficking of cocaine has 
flourished under protection of leftwing insurgents.

Opponents of the Administration plan, including some 
leading Congressional Democrats and human rights 
advocates, say the aid package will draw the United 
States farther into Colombia's civil war, in which 
government forces and allied paramilitary groups are 
accused of widespread rights violations.

But briefing reporters here, Clinton spokesman Joe 
Lockhart insisted again the U-S aid is targeted only 
against the drug traffickers and he expressed 
confidence the Administration can get the aid moving 
to Colombia within a few months:

            /// LOCKHART ACTUALITY ///

      We haven't done a vote count. But fighting 
      drugs and narcotics has enjoyed bipartisan 
      support in the past and we expect to get 
      bipartisan support on this plan early this year 
      when Congress takes it up.

            /// END ACT ///

The administration plan also includes funds to train 
and equip special anti-drug units of the Colombian 
security forces, to step up the eradication of drug 
crops, and to strengthen the Colombian judiciary 
system. 

Officials here say that partly because of 
increasingly-effective anti-drug efforts in 
neighboring countries, Colombia has become the supply 
source or transit point for 80-percent of the illicit 
cocaine entering the United States.

The Administration aid package is to be the U-S 
contribution to the more than seven-billion dollar 
national recovery strategy - called "Plan Colombia"  -
- outlined by President Pastrana at the U-N General 
Assembly last September. 

U-S aid to Colombia has risen sharply since Mr. 
Pastrana took office in 1998 after the drug-tainted 
administration of former President Ernesto Samper -- 
making Colombia third-largest American aid client 
after Israel and Egypt. (Signed)

NEB/DAG/TVM/gm



24-Jan-2000 16:15 PM EDT (24-Jan-2000 2115 UTC)
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Source: Voice of America
.