Colombian President Seeks Support from U.S. Mayors for Aid Package to Combat Drugs

By Guy F. Smith

Colombian President Andres Pastrana, in an unprecedented speech to a Conference of Mayors event, told a Wednesday plenary session that the issue of drug trafficking and consumption must be confronted by increase cooperation between the U. S. and his country.

A former Mayor of Bogota, President Pastrana spoke in 1989 to an Annual Meeting of the Conference in Charleston, South Carolina. But his return appearance followed a meeting with President Clinton the day before and had a sense of urgency: a request that the mayors of the United States lend their support to an ambitious Clinton aid plan just announced of $1.6 billion to Colombia. The funds will be used to supplement Colombia’s initiative, Plan Colombia, which President Pastrana has proposed to address the issues of economic recovery, national security, and ways to cope with drug production and trafficking.

Pastrana was in the United States to promote his ambitious agenda. His visit here included meetings with key Congressional leaders, as well as Administration officials. He was joined at the luncheon by head of The Office of National Drug Control Policy General Barry R. McCaffrey who is lending his support to the Pastrana agenda.

Pastrana told the mayors that the core of Plan Colombia is “our strategy to reduce the cultivation, processing, and distribution of illegal drugs within our borders by 50 percent over the next five to six years.”

To do so, Pastrana said Colombia has plans to :

• Modernize armed forces to help dismantle trafficking organizations.

• Interdict more drugs at their source with a better trained national police force.

• Work to improve human rights through such efforts as judicial reform.

• Develop alternative sources of income and employment for farmers affected by coca and poppy cultivation.

Pastrana said Colombia will provide the majority of funding to implement this $7.5 billion Program over the next three years.

In his address, Pastrana took note of drug issues in the U. S., saying he was well aware that mayors are in the front lines of the battle against illegal narcotics, and in working to make schools safe from drug criminals, and to work with police forces to stem the tide of drugs.

In Colombia, Pastrana said he faced the same issues, but added he has a guerrilla insurgency of many years standing and the worst economic crisis in decades.

Still, he said, Plan Colombia must be implemented to help rid our cities and nations of illegal drugs.

In asking mayors to help support his plan in Congress, Pastrana said that “your voices will help ensure that this critical legislative initiative is not side-tracked by other legislative priorities or doomed by partisanship or politics.”

After his speech, Pastrana took questions from mayors from the podium and held a lively press conference on his proposals at the Capital Hilton Hotel, Conference headquarters.

President Pastrana, 45, was elected June 21, 1998, as President of his country of 38 million. He is a former television announcer and his father, Misael Pastrana, was Colombian President from 1970 to 1974.