(30 Aug 2000) English/Nat
XFA
U-S President Bill Clinton was in Colombia on Wednesday.

He was there with U-S officials backing more than a billion dollars of aid to help the South American nation in its battle against illegal drugs.

Security was tight in the coastal city of Cartagena where Clinton met with Colombian President Andres Pastrana.

U-S officials say bomb-making materials where found in the city just hours before Clinton's arrival.

President Clinton arrived in the coastal city of Cartagena for a nine-hour visit, preparing to hand over more than a billion dollars in aid for Colombia's drug war.

Clinton and daughter Chelsea emerged from Air Force One only hours after security forces had discovered bomb making materials in the city.

The President was joined by lawmakers from the U-S Congress who support the aid effort, along with top U-S officials, including Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Attorney General Janet Reno.

They were all there in a high-profile show of support for Colombia's multi-billion dollar program to ease the narco-traffickers' grip on the South American nation.

Some three hundred U-S Secret Service personnel were also on hand to help the Colombian military and national police forces against terrorist concerns.

Cartagena is hundreds of miles from the poppy and coca fields in Colombia that yield much of the cocaine and heroin used in the United States.

Colombia's seven billion dollar program to fight illegal drugs also seeks to make peace with rebel groups who are financed in part by the illicit drug trade.

Hosted by Colombia's President Andres Pastrana, Clinton says the U-S aid effort targets those forces that are challenging Colombia's struggling democracy.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"Our program is anti-drugs and pro peace. Forty years of fighting has brought neither side closer to military victory. The president himself has said that over and over. Counter-drug battalions will not change that and that is not their purpose. Their purpose is to reduce the drug trade that aggravates every problem that Colombia faces, and exports chaos to the world, including the United States. I reject the idea you must choose between supporting peace and fighting drugs. You can do both. Indeed to succeed we must do both."
SUPER CAPTION: Bill Clinton, US President.

Colombian president Pastrana also underscored the view that his nation's problem is one that must be viewed as a global problem.

SOUNDBITE: (English translation)
"The U.S. assistance is a recognition that the menace of illegal drugs is truly international and therefore requires a concerted global response."
SUPER CAPTION: Andres Pastrana, Colombian President.

U-S officials say some 90 percent of the cocaine in the U-S market, and two-thirds of the heroin on the East Coast, comes from Colombia.

The U-S aid program includes anti-drug training and other joint efforts by U-S and Colombian military forces.

But U-S officials scoff at concerns from critics in Colombia and elsewhere who say the U-S aid amounts to heavy-handed meddling in Colombian affairs.

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