Powell Promises More U.S. Aid

U.S. officials Wednesday promised Colombia increased support to fight its civil war, as Secretary of State Colin L. Powell completed a trip intended to demonstrate a deepening commitment to the troubled Andean country.

Following meetings with President Alvaro Uribe and senior Cabinet members, Powell and other U.S. officials said they would seek increases in aid as the Colombians had requested.

“This is a partnership that works, and a partnership that we must continue to make an investment in,” Powell said.

Anne W. Patterson, U.S. ambassador to Colombia, said U.S. officials are searching for ways to step up aid “across a broad range of areas,” including intelligence support, military spare parts and maintenance, and help in eradicating the coca crop. Officials would also like to increase economic assistance, they said.

The United States has provided $1.8 billion since fiscal 2000 to help Colombia in its war against two leftist guerrilla groups and right-wing paramilitaries, Powell said. The U.S. spent $411 million in fiscal 2002, and the administration has sought $537 million for this fiscal year.

The latest pledge of assistance is precisely what had been sought by Uribe, who has stepped up the war since his landslide election in May. Colombian officials have lamented privately that their cause was falling off Washington’s radar screen since last year’s terrorist attacks on the U.S.

Even so, the deepening U.S. commitment also raises difficult issues. Human rights advocates worry that Uribe could go too far in the emergency steps he has taken to destroy rebel and paramilitary groups. And some members of Congress worry that the 38-year-old civil war could be a Vietnam-like morass for the United States.

Patterson told reporters that the clearest sign of success is the increasing destruction of the coca crop. She said that U.S.-trained Colombian troops have destroyed about 300,000 acres of coca fields this year, up from 232,000 acres last year.

Officials noted that despite domestic opposition to the eradication program, Uribe has asked for more U.S. helicopters. The United States has provided 71 helicopters for the Colombian military and another 61 for the police.

Powell promised that early next year, the United States would resume its program of aerial intelligence that enables Colombian and Peruvian air forces to track and intercept aircraft carrying drug cargoes out of the country.

The United States has been reworking the program since April 2001, when a Peruvian air force fighter plane mistakenly shot down a private plane, killing an American missionary and her infant daughter.

The Colombians have been eager for resumption of the program, which they consider a major success.

Patterson said the U.S. military is to begin training a Colombian brigade to protect a major oil pipeline from constant rebel attacks. Thirty-three U.S. Special Forces troops and others have arrived in the Arauca region of northeastern Colombia to begin the training; about 60 more are expected by the beginning of next year.

Despite this visible new commitment, Powell noted there are limits to how much the U.S. can provide Colombians, especially when the American defense budget is already on the rise.

Though “I would like to be able to get a lot more funding for Plan Colombia, there are practical limits,” he said.

Colombia has been the third largest recipient of U.S. aid, after Israel and Egypt. The civil war is by far the bloodiest conflict in the Western Hemisphere, claiming about 3,500 lives a year in a country of 39 million.

The Bush administration has been trying to achieve a delicate balance in its Colombia policy. While U.S. officials enthusiastically support Uribe’s efforts to step up the war, they are also wary that some in the Colombian government could go too far and violate human rights.

Some members of Congress have voiced reservations that Uribe, not long ago considered a member of the right-wing fringe, may overstep proper bounds.

“Human rights have to be in the forefront of all our activities,” Powell said Tuesday. On his first official trip to Colombia, Powell also met with Colombian civic groups and laid a wreath at a police counter-narcotics facility.

Security was tight during the visit. Armed troops stood guard around the buildings Powell visited, and U.S.-built Black Hawk helicopters flew overhead. Although the war has been waged mostly in the countryside, rebels have increasingly attacked the cities, and they fired mortars during Uribe’s inauguration ceremony in August.