DATE=8/4/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=CLINTON-COLOMBIA (L)
NUMBER=2-265157
BYLINE=DAVID GOLLUST
DATELINE=WHITE HOUSE
CONTENT=
INTRO: President Clinton will make a brief visit to
Colombia August 30th to underscore U-S support for
Colombian President Andres Pastrana's efforts to fight
drug trafficking and end a long-running conflict with
left-wing insurgents. VOA's David Gollust reports from
the White House.
TEXT: Mr. Clinton will spend only six or eight hours
in Colombia. But he will take a bipartisan
Congressional team with him including Republican House
Speaker Dennis Hastert in a high-profile show of
support for President Pastrana.
Announcement of the trip was coupled with the issuance
of a presidential directive aimed at speeding delivery
of the one-point-three billion dollars in new U-S aid
to Colombia approved by Congress last month.
The aid package includes 60 U-S helicopters and
training for special anti-drug units of the Colombian
security forces by as many as 500 U-S military
advisers.
The aid plan was opposed in Congress by many members
who fear it will drag the United States into a
Vietnam-style involvement in Colombia's civil war.
Officials who briefed reporters here on the Clinton
directive insisted the U-S aid is aimed at fighting
drugs and not Colombian insurgents.
But they said elements of the leftwing FARC guerrilla
movement are involved in the drug trade, and as one
put it "there could very well be" clashes between U-S-
supported units and the guerrillas.
The U-S aid money would also support the chemical
eradication of drug crops, alternative farm programs,
efforts to strengthen the Colombian legal system and
respect for human rights, and programs to the
country's troubled economy.
The White House document says 90 per cent of the
cocaine that reaches the illicit U-S drug market
originates in or passes through Colombia.
It says drug abuse costs U-S society 52-thousand lives
and 110-billion dollars a year, while in Colombia
pervasive violence has killed 35-thousand people in
the last 15 years and displaced one-point-four million
people - the fourth largest such refugee crisis in the
world.
Administration officials say that while the
President's itinerary had not been finalized, he will
likely fly to the Caribbean port city of Cartagena -
far from the drug battle zone of southern Colombia -
for a meeting with President Pastrana and other
events.
It will be the first U-S Presidential visit to
Colombia since 1990, when former President George Bush
also made a one-day visit to highlight counter-drug
efforts. (Signed)
NEB/DAG/PT
04-Aug-2000 16:37 PM EDT (04-Aug-2000 2037 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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