Secretary of State Colin Powell and Colombian President Andres
Pastrana to
Rethink Anti-Drug Plan Amid Perception That It Has Been 'A
Catastrophe'
NEW YORK, Sept. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Disturbed
by the failings of the
controversial plan he inherited to fight drugs and
guerrillas in Colombia,
Secretary of State Colin Powell is on his way this
week to meet with
Colombian President Andres Pastrana for a "frank"
discussion about "what has
worked and what hasn't," according to a State
Department official.
(Photo:
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20010909/HSSU002
)
Many U.S. officials told Newsweek Investigative
Correspondent Michael Isikoff
that they fear that Plan Colombia has had
little success. "
What's happening
down there is a
catastrophe," one congressional staffer says in the September
17
issue (on newsstands Monday, September 10).
Plan Colombia was approved
by Congress as an "emergency" response over a year
ago, after being
vigorously pushed by then-President Clinton and his hard
line drug czar
Barry McCaffrey. George W. Bush signed off on the $1.3 billion
program in
his first few weeks in office and even asked for an additional
$880 million
for an "Andean regional initiative" to expand key elements to
neighboring
countries.
But since then, Isikoff reports,
the situation on the
ground has gone from
bad to worse. Leftist guerrillas control large swaths
of countryside, peace
talks with the Colombia government have all but
collapsed and drug production
continues to soar.
The
architects of Plan Colombia envisioned, among other things, a dramatic
increase in aerial fumigation flights, dosing large segments of the
country's
agricultural regions with chemical herbicide, but public
opposition to crop
eradication has been growing. The anti-fumigation
campaign is picking up
support from Colombian provincial governors and
environmental groups, the
country's comptroller general called for immediate
suspension of spraying,
and even Pastrana may be having doubts, telling
reporters last week that a
new "evaluation" of the fumigation program was
needed.
Officially, State Department officials remain bullish, citing
the success of
a U.S. supported Colombian Army-backed offensive in the
guerrilla-controlled
Putumayo region on the Ecuadorian border that they
claim eliminated 25,000
hectares of coca growth. "It's sort of like
establishing a beachhead in an
amphibious operation," says one U.S.
official. "We've secured the beach --
and the first reports from the field
are promising."
(Read Newsweek's news releases at
http://www.Newsweek.MSNBC.com.
Click "Pressroom.")
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SOURCE Newsweek
CO: Newsweek
ST: New York, Colombia
IN: PUB
SU:
09/09/2001 11:00 EDT
http://www.prnewswire.com