The President’s Drug Plan : Medellin Rocked by 2 Bombs After Bush TV Speech

Two bombs rocked Colombia’s cocaine capital Tuesday night minutes after President Bush ended a televised speech unveiling a tough new anti-drug strategy.

Within half an hour of Bush’s speech, which was broadcast live on Colombian television, seven people were injured by bombs at two banks in Medellin, the radio network Caracol reported.

Also on Tuesday, two gunmen killed an army colonel’s wife outside a supermarket, and Washington delivered five helicopters to aid the Colombian government’s effort to break the drug lords’ violent grip on the country.

Increased Military Aid

Bush proposed a fourfold increase in the amount of military and law enforcement aid for Colombia, Bolivia and Peru, to $261.2 million in 1990. He called it the down payment on a $2-billion, five-year anti-drug program in the Andean region.

In Bogota, Camilo Cano, the international editor of the newspaper El Espectador, said Bush has “a clear intention” of fighting drug traffickers.

“The most interesting thing would be to know what is going to be the specific destination of the $2 billion he promised,” Cano said after the speech. Cano’s newspaper office was heavily damaged Saturday by a bomb linked to drug terrorists that killed one person and wounded 83 others.

Calls Aid Vital

In Lima, Peru’s anti-drug police chief said that new U.S. aid is vital to this major coca-producing country’s battle against the drug trade.

A power interruption prevented Peru’s major radio network, Radio Programas, from broadcasting Bush’s speech live, a station spokesman said.

But Peru’s anti-drug police chief, Gen. Felix Garcia, told the Reuters news agency that the new money is “vital for poor countries such as Peru, which lack resources for the drug fight.”

Peru and Bolivia produce about 90% of the world’s coca, the source of cocaine.

“I believe Peru will probably get the smallest share of the aid, because we are producers of coca and not cocaine,” Garcia said.

Nighttime Curfew

In Colombia, police patrolled the streets of Medellin, 150 miles northwest of Bogota, where a nighttime curfew has been in effect since a wave of bombings began last week.

A police spokesman said by telephone that he had no details on the latest bank bombings, but the Caracol radio network said two girls, 7 and 11, were among the seven people suffering cuts from flying glass and other minor injuries.

Police in Medellin also said that an armed gang earlier forced everyone out of a restaurant, then set it afire with gasoline. It was not immediately clear if the attack was related to the cocaine barons fighting the government crackdown.

Gunmen Flee

In Bogota on Tuesday, Angela de Guerrero, 32, was shot four times as she sat in her small sedan outside a supermarket in the capital’s northern suburbs by two gunmen who fled in a white car.

The victim was identified as the wife of Col. Carlos Guerrero, a logistics planning officer for the joint military forces.

Police have blamed previous instances of random violence on drug traffickers retaliating for the government crackdown.

The mayor of Bogota banned outdoor marches and demonstrations for an indefinite period as a precautionary measure in response to terrorist attacks by drug traffickers, Colombian radio reported.

Seeks ‘Normal Order’

The private national radio network RCN said Mayor Andres Pastrana Arango ordered the ban “to maintain normal public order.”

The United States delivered five UH-1H “Huey” transport helicopters, modified versions of the combat choppers that gained prominence during the Vietnam War.

They arrived in a C-5 transport plane at Bogota’s El Dorado Airport, the last of the big-ticket items in Bush’s $65-million emergency aid package.