President Delivers Aid To Colombia

President Clinton's $1.3 billion in U.S. aid will fund a big part of Colombia's $7.5 billion initiative to beat back drug traffickers and repair the economy.

But in Bogota—where a police officer died Wednesday in clashes with protesters—and back home, Mr. Clinton's contribution to "Plan Colombia" is drawing criticism, reports CBS News Correspondent Bob Orr.

The American aid package includes the largest build-up in military assistance to any Latin American country since the civil war in El Salvador in the 1980s.

It funds 60 Blackhawk and Huey military helicopters and training for two special army battalions that will protect Colombian police missions to destroy drug plantations and labs in guerrilla-controlled areas of southern Colombia.

It also pays for improvements in the judiciary, schools, and alternative crops programs meant to encourage coca farmers to switch to non-narcotic crops.

Illustrating the extent of U.S. military involvement in Colombia, U.S. officials said the Pentagon plans to post Army Brig. Gen. Keith Huber, head of the U.S. Southern Command, in the troubled Latin American nation to oversee implementation of parts of the U.S. plan. He will be the only U.S. general posted in South or Central America.

At the same time, U.S. officials are going to great lengths to try to refute any notion that the aid package is an initial step in getting involved in a Vietnam-like quagmire in Colombia.

On his trip Wednesday, the president pledged that American troops would not be drawn into the fight.

"A condition of this aid is that we are not going to get into a shooting war. This is not Vietnam, neither is it Yankee imperialism," Mr. Clinton said.

Officials say, however, that U.S.-trained troops and equipment will be used against guerrillas who try to block efforts to destroy labs and eradicate the poppy and coca fields that yield most of the cocaine and heroin used in the United States.

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An initial team is already in Colombia and has begun the training.

Mr. Clinton's waiver last week of human rights conditions in order to begin releasing the U.S. assistance triggered outrage among human rights organizations.

They complain that Colombian military officers who have committed serious abuses are routinely acquitted and that dozens of prominent human rights cases go unsolved.

"I think the message the Colombian Army takes away from all this is that they don't have to be too serious about human rights in order to still get the level of U.S. assistance that they want," said William LeoGrande, an American University professor.

Mr. Clinton said the U.S. package provides human rights training for the Colombian military and police, and denies U.S. assistance to any units of the Colombian security forces involved in human rights abuses or linked to abuses committed by paramilitary forces.

A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it will probably take six months to determine whether the training is taking hold and years before Colombia rebounds.

"We may not be able to pull it off, but we think our assistance can do a heck of a lot of good. It would be tragic if we looked the other way. They deserve a chance for a fresh start," said the official.

Even Pastrana, in an interview with The New York Times, seemed pessimistic that progress could be made on international drug trafficking until the United States and other countries stemmed their appetite for drugs.

Pastrana hopes for a 50 percent reduction in coca cultivation, returning to 1997 levels. Coca has production exploded, despite a large increase in American aid, as Bolivia and Peru cracked down on the drug trade.

But critics question whether the beefed up U.S. aid to Colombia may do more harm than good.

It may ratchet up the violence: A more aggressive Colombian military will likely meet stiffer resistance from guerrillas and right-wing paramilitary groups who are making hundreds of millions of dollars a year protecting and taxing cocaine and heroin.

Already, Ivan Rios, a commander of the most powerful guerrilla group known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, has vowed to resist what he calls "U.S. aggression."

And critics say the billion dollars in aid may not reduce the amount of drugs entering the United States. If Colombia gets too hot for traffickers, they'll simply move to friendlier turf. As long as the U.S. demand for drugs is high, there'll be no shortage of suppliers.

Other Latin American countries are watching the U.S. plan with great interest, some with concern and others with cautious enthusiasm at the prospect of removing an unstable situation in the region.

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez Wednesday warned that the U.S.-backed efforts to combat drug traffickers and leftists guerillas could engulf much of South America in a Vietnam-like war.

"It would be very dangerous if the operation leads to a military escalation of the conflict," Chavez said at a news conference. "It could lead us to a Vietnamization of the whole Amazon region."

It was the first time a South American leader cautioned that Plan Colombia could degenerate into guerrilla warfare of continental dimensions.