Washington — Representative Benjamin A. Gilman, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, has abruptly withdrawn his support from the decision to funnel $1.3 billion in mostly military aid to Colombia, arguing that the United States is on the brink of a “major mistake.”
Mr. Gilman, Republican of New York, sent a letter this week to the White House drug policy coordinator, Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, contending that the American plan to increase the role of the Colombian military in the drug fight will end disastrously, because the military has undermined its political support after a history of corruption and human rights abuses. That position echoes other critics of the plan.
Mr. Gilman called on the Clinton administration to redirect its assistance, including at least 40 Black Hawk helicopters, from the military to the national police in Colombia. Mr. Gilman has long admired the police, which he views as more effective and less tainted by human rights violations.
“If we fail early on with Plan Colombia, as I fear, we could lose the support of the American people for our efforts to fight illicit narcotics abroad,” Mr. Gilman said. “If we lose public support, we will regret we did not make the mid-course corrections for Colombia that I have outlined here.”
Last summer, Mr. Gilman voted to support Plan Colombia, a $7.5 billion strategy drafted jointly by American and Colombian officials and passed by Congress. In addition to the military spending, the program allocates money to promote alternative crops, economic renewal and human rights. The plan seeks to halve drug production over five years in Colombia, reportedly the source of most of the cocaine and heroin that enters the United States.
Congressional sources said Mr. Gilman was troubled by recent military failures in rural areas where rebel forces operate.
It is unclear what effects, if any, Mr. Gilman’s shift will have. A Senate Republican aide who follows Colombia closely said it was “far too early” to criticize the plan. Mr. Gilman is expected to relinquish his chairmanship next year because of term limits.
Critics of the plan have argued that the military aid would merely intensify the conflict in which two rebel groups have joined forces with narcotics traffickers against the government, a conflict that could eventually draw the United States directly into fighting the rebels.
Leaders of Colombia’s neighbors also have expressed fears that the fighting will spill into their countries.
Washington counters that Colombia’s increasingly jumbled battle lines make it necessary to equip and deploy the military in the fight against drugs. The American plan calls for training three counternarcotics battalions, with a total of up to 3,000 troops.
The administration also has promised to watch over the military’s record on human rights. A spokesman for General McCaffrey, Robert Weiner, said today that denying aid to the military on the basis of its past performance would ensure defeat.
“Granted they’re not a superpower,” Mr. Weiner said. “One of the major purposes of the Plan Colombia is to provide the military with the resources they need. This actually scares the cartels to death.”
In southern Putumayo Province, where half of the coca in Colombia is grown, rebels have sealed off roads, arguing that the military has to rein in right-wing gunmen who are associated with the armed forces.
A botched operation in a northern town, Dabeiba, resulted last month in the downing of one of the army’s seven American-made Black Hawks and the deaths of 22 troops.
The helicopter had been carrying reinforcements to assist soldiers locked in a firefight with rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. But sloppy communications led the pilot to land in a rebel-controlled area, an American official said.
The rebels “were waiting for them,” the official said. “What kind of intelligence is that? They were dug in like the Ho Chi Minh Trail.”
A high-ranking official in President Andrés Pastrana’s government defended the military involvement on the grounds that the drug war has fundamentally changed in the last five years.
“It used to be an urban drug war, which the police were very capable of handling,” the official said. “It has now become a drug war fought in the jungles, and you can’t do that without military support.”
Another official said, “The fact that there are voices that are against these tactics doesn’t mean that the strategy is going to change.”
