DATE=8/29/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=CLINTON-COLOMBIA (L)
NUMBER=2-265954
BYLINE=DAVID GOLLUST
DATELINE=WHITE HOUSE
CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO:  President Clinton flies Wednesday to the 
Colombian port city of Cartagena for a brief visit 
designed to show support for the elected government of 
President Andres Pastrana, which is under siege by 
drug traffickers and left-wing rebels.  The 
administration is speeding delivery to Colombia of 
more than a billion dollars in anti-drug aid.  V-O-A's 
David Gollust reports from the White House.

TEXT:  Much of the U-S aid package would go to provide 
training and equipment - including helicopters - to 
special anti-drug units of the Colombian army and 
national police.  

There is concern among some members of Congress and 
human-rights activists that the United States might be 
drawn into a Vietnam-style involvement in the long-
running war between the Colombian government and left-
wing insurgents. 

But in a broadcast message to the people of Colombia 
on the eve of his visit, Mr. Clinton said the aid is 
intended only to bolster the two governments' common 
fight against drug traffickers.  He said United States 
wants to see a negotiated peace between the government 
and rebels in the insurgency:

            /// CLINTON ACT ///

      Please do not misunderstand our purpose.  We 
      have no military objective.  We do not believe 
      your conflict has a military solution.  We 
      support the peace process.  Our approach is both 
      pro- peace and anti-drug.

            /// END ACT ///

Mr. Clinton said the one-point-three-billion dollar U-
S aid package has a heavy human-rights component, and 
that American aid would be denied to Colombian units 
involved in human-rights abuses or linked to abuses by 
paramilitary forces. 

He also stressed that it is designed as the U-S 
contribution to the broader "Plan Colombia" 
reconstruction program of President Pastrana and that 
his government - not Washington -- is running the 
process:

            /// CLINTON ACT TWO ///

      Let me be clear about the role of the United 
      States.  First, it is not for us to propose a 
      plan.  Second, this is a plan about making life 
      better for people.  We are supporting the 
      Colombian plan.  You are leading.  We are 
      providing assistance as a friend and a neighbor.

            /// END ACT ///

The President will spend about eight-hours in 
Cartagena in a series of events stressing the 
government's efforts to restore the rule of law in a 
country where civil warfare and drug violence have 
killed 35-thousand people and left a half-million 
homeless over the last decade.

He will meet widows of police killed in the line of 
duty, and visit a U-S funded judicial center where 
low-income people can get access to legal services.

Mr. Clinton, who will be accompanied by a bipartisan 
Congressional delegation including House Speaker 
Dennis Hastert, will not visit the capital, Bogota, 
for security reasons.

It will the first visit to Colombia by a U-S president 
since George Bush made a brief stop in 1990.   
(SIGNED)

NEB/DAG/TVM/RAE



29-Aug-2000 15:07 PM EDT (29-Aug-2000 1907 UTC)
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Source: Voice of America
.