House appropriations committee approves aid

WASHINGTON, March 9 -- The House appropriations committee easily approved an emergency aid package tonight of $1.7 billion to shore up Colombia's tottering democracy and enable its military to step up its war against narcotics traffickers. The vote was 33 to 13, with opponents noting the abysmal human rights record of the Colombian Army, which will receive much of the money and equipment.

The House package, which was crafted by the Republican leadership and was an increase over the original request from President Clinton, included more money to help with human rights and judicial reform in Colombia and to help neighboring countries fight the narcotics trade.

"If we move the druggies out of Colombia we don't want them to land in another country in the region," said Representative C. W. Bill Young, Republican of Florida, chairman of the committee.

The president had asked for $1.2 billion for his two-year plan to support Colombia's tottering democracy and bolster its military efforts to fight the drug trade by reducing the booming production of cocaine and heroin in Colombia. The House panel today added $500 million to the program's budget.

Colombia is the source of 90 percent of the cocaine consumed in the United States.

But the country is embroiled in a three-sided civil war including rebels and paramilitary groups that are lavishly supported by the drug trade.

Democrats objected to what they said was the hastiness of today's action, arguing that the administration may believe it is only fighting a war against drugs in Colombia but could find itself unwittingly pulled into the civil war.

Calling on lessons learned from Vietnam, Representative David R. Obey, Democrat of Wisconsin, said that while he didn't think the administration had any plans to send American troops to fight in Colombia, he worried that there "could be a confluence of events that could lead to that."

Mr. Obey failed to persuade the committee to withhold temporarily the $500 million of military aid earmarked for training and equipping two army counternarcotics battalions. He said Congress needed to know more about their mission to gain control over two cocaine-producing provinces in southern Colombia before approving the money.

The House package also includes money for 30 Blackhawk and 30 Huey helicopters for the Colombian Army and police forces and $115.5 million for the national police.

The entire $9 billion emergency spending bill -- which also includes aid for the Kosovo and East Timor peacekeeping missions, natural disaster assistance, and money to pay the Pentagon's rising fuel bill -- will go to the floor of the House within two weeks, according to committee aides.

Central to today's debate was the sense that Colombia's president, Andres Pastrana, may be running out of time to implement his "Plan Colombia" to strengthen democracy, a program that is also seeking money from Europe and international financial institutions.

Both Republicans and Democrats praised Mr. Pastrana today for placing human rights as a priority and for trying to negotiate peace with the guerrillas, even though he has failed to reach a cease-fire.

"He is in the middle, he is trying to lead Colombia into the modern world," said Representative James P. Moran, Republican of Virginia. "If we don't help him now it may be too late later."

But several Democratic opponents of the bills argued that it would be better to provide economic and humanitarian aid, and the Senate is likely to raise even greater concerns about human rights in Colombia when it considers the bill.

WASHINGTON - Backing President Clinton, House Republicans on a powerful committee gave their prescription yesterday for the war on drugs: yes for $2 billion to fight drugs at their source in Colombia; no for $1.3 billion to treat addicts at home.

Brushing aside amendments by leading Democrats to delete funds for the Colombian military and pour money instead into treatment, the votes by the House Appropriations Committee boosted the White House's ambitious plan to battle drug cultivation in Colombia. The panel voted 33-13 last night to approve the entire $9 billion emergency supplemental request. The measure now goes to the full House.

"They want a military solution. We want a humanitarian solution to the war on drugs," said Representative Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat who introduced the $1.3 billion treatment amendment. "The discussion is not over."

The amendments by Pelosi, the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee on foreign operations, and Wisconsin Democrat David R. Obey underscored the deep unease among Democrats and some Republicans about the Colombia initiative. The administration estimates it would last a minimum of five years.

The $2 billion funding, which the Republicans increased by $428 million over Clinton's proposal, was for two years, but administration officials say the final cost could easily include a few billion dollars more.

The partisan debate yesterday at times grew heated, with Republicans finding themselves oddly in the same corner with the Democratic president. Some GOP members, who had pushed for intervention in Colombia for years, chided Democrats for not standing with Clinton.

"I think you must have confidence in your president," said Representative Sonny Callahan, an Alabama Republican, speaking to Obey. "Your lack of confidence in your president is stunning to me."

Obey replied: "I elect my president every four years to be my leader, but I do not elect my president to do my thinking for me."

Obey urged the committee to at least temporarily remove $552 million from funds for the Colombian military, which has been linked to the notorious paramilitary forces in three recent reports by human rights organizations. He said more time was needed to study the military's role in the counter-narcotics fight.

But Chairman C.W. Bill Young, a Florida Republican, said there was no time to lose.

"It is essential to eliminate the product where it is grown," Young said. "Every day we delay eliminating these drugs, another hundred or a thousand kids could be addicted. ... We're not satisfied this is the best program, but are we ever?"

The committee defeated Obey's amendment 36-20.

Later, Pelosi cited a Rand Corporation study in 1994 that found money spent on treatment was 23 times more cost-effective than eradication of crops and 11 times more cost-effective than interdiction. She noted that only 37 percent of America's 5.7 million hard-core addicts received treatment in 1997.

"How can we neglect the obvious need in our country when sending all that money to Colombia that is 23 times less effective?" she asked.

Representative John Edward Porter, an Illinois Republican, answered that the Clinton administration didn't view treatment of drug addicts as an emergency priority and didn't include it in the package.

Pelosi's amendment lost 30-23 in a mostly party-line vote.