By
The Associated Press
CARTAGENA, Colombia - In a country beset by decades of violence, President Clinton delivered a $1.3 billion U.S. aid package yesterday which he said would help Colombia defeat its drug traffickers without getting the United States into a Vietnam-like quagmire.
"We will not get into a shooting war" with Colombian guerrillas, he said, standing alongside Colombian President Andres Pastrana, both in short sleeves in the sweltering heat of this Caribbean port city.
Pastrana stressed that Colombia has no intention of drawing the United States into its military conflict.
"As long as Andres Pastrana is president, we will not have a foreign military intervention in Colombia," he said.
There were reminders, during Clinton's half-day visit to Cartagena, of the fear and violence that bleeds this Andean nation.
Police said they discovered and deactivated a 4.4-pound bomb found five blocks from a neighborhood Clinton planned to tour.
Officials said the bomb was intended to spread rebel pamphlets and would have been unlikely to cause harm. A U.S. Secret Service official, Terry Samway, insisted that only materials for explosives were found, not a bomb.
In an unusual display of bipartisan support, Clinton was accompanied by House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and 10 other members of Congress. Hastert was instrumental in pushing the aid package through Congress, despite misgivings by some who feared the United States would get drawn into the guerrilla conflict and help an army long criticized for human rights abuses.
Clinton was also accompanied by Attorney General Janet Reno, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Barry McCaffrey, Clinton's chief drug policy adviser - part of a delegation of 35. Daughter Chelsea also came along.
"Why are we here today?" Hastert said. "Not only do we share a great heritage of democracy, but we also share a great burden" - the threat drugs pose both to countries that produce drugs and those that consume them.
"In our nation, over 14,000 young people, children, lose their life every year to either drug use or drug violence, and it happens in our wealthiest communities and the street corners of our most devastated inner cities," Hastert said.
The U.S. assistance is part of Pastrana's $7.5 billion "Plan Colombia," designed to end decades of civil war, fight drug trafficking, strengthen the judicial system and revive an economy in the doldrums.
Pastrana called the U.S. assistance "a recognition that the menace of illegal drugs is truly international and therefore requires a concerted global response."
Clinton praised the Colombian leader, who is foundering in opinion polls, and urged the Colombian public to "be patient with him" as he struggles to find a lasting solution to a guerrilla war that feeds off the drug trade.
Security was heavy for Clinton's entourage wherever it traveled in this Caribbean port city. Snipers stood atop buildings at the airport, and armed security guards stood watch in patrol boats along the shoreline.
But those concerns didn't prevent Clinton from mingling with a crowd of thousands that lined the streets in a poor neighborhood where he visited a freshly painted community justice center, a one-stop shop for Colombians needing help resolving criminal and civil problems. "Clinton, Clinton," they crowd chanted.
After night fell, Pastrana escorted Clinton and his entourage on a walking tour of Cartagena's historic district, which the president, with Chelsea at his side, cheered street dancers and tried on one of their straw hats. Chelsea broke into a dance as a Vallenato band using traditional accordion instruments serenaded the group.
Pastrana said Clinton's one-day visit - the first by a U.S. president since George Bush came on a similar anti-drug mission in 1990 - "leads us to know that we are no longer isolated in our struggle."
Clinton said there must be an end to human rights abuses by the warring factions in Colombia, and that includes security forces as well as the rebels.
The largest part of the $1.3 billion U.S. contribution to Plan Colombia is for military assistance, including 60 helicopters to be used mostly by the Colombian army in eradicating the lucrative drug crop. The United States already has about 100 soldiers - mostly members of the Army's 7th Special Forces Group from Fort Bragg, N.C. - in Colombia to train counternarcotics battalions of the Colombian army.
Clinton dismissed predictions by some in the United States that he is starting down the path of an open-ended military commitment in a nation that has been mired in a guerrilla war for more than three decades.
"A condition of this aid is that we will not get into a shooting war," Clinton said. "This is not Vietnam, neither is it Yankee imperialism. Those are two of the false charges that have been hurled at Plan Colombia," he said.
"There won't be American involvement in a shooting war because they don't want it and because we don't want it," Clinton said.
Clinton made a plea to Colombia's South American neighbors to support Pastrana and set aside their concerns that an intensified drug war will have a spillover effect with refugees and guerrilla battles on their borders.
"Let's be candid," Clinton said. "If it's successful, some of that will happen."
But he stressed that part of the $1.3 billion in U.S. aid to Colombia is intended to deal with these spillover effects.
"I understand the reluctance of the leaders of other countries to embrace this," Clinton added. "It's a frightening prospect to take on this." On the other hand, he said, it would be unfair to corral all of the region's drug problem in Colombia and expect the Colombian people to bear the full burden.
