DATE=3/10/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT (L-ONLY)
TITLE=COLOMBIA-US AID
NUMBER=2-260075
BYLINE=LETA HONG FINCHER
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:


INTRO:  The U-S House of Representatives will vote 
soon on a one-point-seven billion dollar emergency aid 
package to help fight drug trafficking in Colombia. 
The money would help strengthen the Colombian Army and 
support human rights and institutional reforms.  But 
as V-O-A's Leta Hong Fincher reports, the package is 
generating controversy in Washington.

TEXT:  The chairman of the House International 
Relations Committee, Representative Benjamin Gilman, 
urged support for the bill (Friday) in a speech 
delivered to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative 
think tank in Washington.  Mr. Gilman said Colombia 
matters strategically, because it is the source of 80 
percent of the cocaine and 75 percent of the heroin 
consumed in the United States.

            /// GILMAN ACT ///

      The fate of Colombia's democratic government is 
      of extreme importance to our nation.  The anti-
      drug strategy that we're pursuing in Colombia is 
      straightforward.  By preventing illicit drugs 
      from reaching our shoreline, we're protecting 
      our citizens from their poison and undercutting 
      the flow of drug money that arms and sustains 
      the insurgent forces that have been 
      destabilizing that country.

            /// END ACT ///

Although Colombia has been plagued by drug-related 
violence for decades, its problems are now compounded 
by a severe economic crisis.  Unemployment has reached 
20 percent, the highest in Latin America.  In 
addition, Colombian President Andres Pastrana is 
trying to negotiate a cease-fire with paramilitary 
groups that are financially stronger now than ever 
before.  The Colombian ambassador to the United 
States, Alberto Moreno, says that U-S aid is critical 
to help create peace in his country.

            /// MORENO ACT ///

      Several months ago, some 10-million Colombians 
      took to the streets in the largest public 
      demonstration in our history, and their message 
      was clear:  No more violence, no more bloodshed 
      and no more insecurity.

            /// END ACT ///

U-S aid would include money to train anti-drug forces 
in the Colombian Army and provide them with 60 
helicopters. But critics of the aid package are 
concerned that the United States could be dragged into 
a counter-insurgency war reminiscent of Vietnam.  The 
bill does not commit U-S troops to Colombia's anti-
drug battle.  But Roger Noriega, who is on the staff 
of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says the 
Clinton administration has not laid out a clear 
strategy for its intervention in Colombia's crisis.

            /// NORIEGA ACT ///

      You have to realize -- and we do -- that this is 
      a serious commitment, that people are going to 
      die.  And I was in Colombia and saw the young 
      people who frankly are going to be among the 
      first to die, the young people training in these 
      counter-narcotics (units).  So this is deadly 
      serious business, and it is just beginning and 
      it is just the down payment.

            /// END ACT ///

The House of Representatives is expected to vote on 
the aid package as early as next week.
(signed)

NEB/LHF/JP




10-Mar-2000 16:14 PM EDT (10-Mar-2000 2114 UTC)
NNNN

Source: Voice of America
.