Vote Clears Way for Drug Crackdown : Colombia: The election of hard-liner Gaviria as president should speed delivery of U.S. military aid, officials say.

The weekend election of another staunchly anti-drug president in Colombia was hailed by U.S. officials Monday as providing a crucial opening for a long-postponed, American-backed military crackdown on narcotics traffickers in the region.

The officials said that the victory of Cesar Gaviria--regarded as a hard-liner in the mold of outgoing President Virgilio Barco Vargas--will allow the United States to speed delivery of a $40-million package of military aid, including funds for a new, 1,300-man Colombian army anti-drug strike force.

The aid is part of a $125-million military package promised by the Bush Administration to Peru, Bolivia and Colombia last fall but still undelivered. With the new leadership in Bogota now assured, U.S. officials said that additional American trainers, advanced new weapons and a high-tech radar system could arrive in Colombia within the next few weeks.

“Everything will come together,” one key Administration official predicted. “The next three to six months will be a crucial test of our Andean strategy.”

The strategy, unveiled last fall, essentially calls for U.S. funding of a proxy war by Latin American military forces against drug traffickers. But delays and election-induced uncertainties since then have meant that the drug war in South America has proceeded largely without additional U.S. military assistance.

With voting over in Colombia, relieved U.S. officials said the United States no longer needs to worry that a backlash against its increased role might result in the victory of a candidate willing to accommodate the powerful cocaine cartels.

“It’s going to be difficult to find much daylight between Gaviria and Barco,” one senior State Department official said. “In most cases, it will be very much a continuation of Barco’s policy.”

Although Gaviria does not assume power until early August, the U.S. officials said they expect that, within days, representatives of both countries will sign a formal agreement opening the way for the military shipments from the United States.

Apart from the additional military assistance, U.S. officials said they expect drug war efforts in South America to be enhanced in coming months both by the elimination of election-year distractions and by dry-season weather, which should improve the mobility of security forces.

The imminent U.S.-Colombian pact will follow a similar deal, concluded last week, that has opened the way for $34 million in new U.S. assistance to Bolivia. According to recently declassified documents, part of the package would fund the creation of two Bolivian light-infantry battalions to combat the narcotics industry.

Peru, however, may lag. A hotly contested election campaign there has put a $37-million U.S. military assistance plan on hold.

The stalemate has been compounded by demands from outgoing President Alan Garcia that the package include immediate economic assistance. And Washington is developing new qualms about the wisdom of increasing American military involvement in a nation preoccupied with its war against Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrillas.

“We are not interested in falling down some slippery slope here,” one State Department official said. “We don’t want to be walking blindly into a Peruvian civil war.”

Among the main components of the Peruvian package is more than $11 million to build and operate of a military base in the Upper Huallaga Valley, where U.S. Special Forces troops are slated to train Peruvian military units for counter-narcotics operations.

That base is causing particular concern in Washington. Members of Congress and some Administration officials are debating whether to further restrict some of the military assistance until Peru demonstrates that it will be used for counter-narcotics missions, sources said.

But even if the assistance to Peru is slow in coming, U.S. officials expressed confidence that the impending shipments to Bolivia and Colombia will add new military power to anti-drug efforts waged for the most part by ill-equipped national police forces.

Among the principal new U.S.-provided tools are radar and military aircraft designed to help Colombian and Bolivian authorities monitor and interdict drug-related air traffic.

Also included in the package is more than $2 million worth of advanced, lightweight rifles to arm 10 new companies in a Colombian army anti-drug strike force, to be established at a cost of more than $10 million.

Some details about the $125-million Andean package remain classified, and it is unclear how some of the money will be spent. Administration officials have said, for example, that intelligence assistance accounts for some of the expenditures not included in the separate budgets for each country.

The process for establishing the anti-drug package has so far been “tricky and tentative,” federal drug czar William J. Bennett said in a recent speech. But the months ahead, he said, will provide “an important window of time that should give (the United States) a good indication about the possibilities” of a drug war in the Andes.