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Bush administration announces expansion of Plan Colombia

By CNN State Department Producer Elise Labott

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Bush administration announced Monday it plans to expand Plan Colombia to include Colombia's neighbors in the Andes.

"You cannot deal with Colombia in isolation, as if it was the sole country in America or the Western Hemisphere," said William Brownfield, deputy assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs. "We need a more regional approach to address the issues, the crises that are emanating from Colombia today."

CNN reported last week that the administration plans to extend Plan Colombia to other Andean countries.

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The original U.S. commitment to Plan Colombia for neighboring countries was $180 million. But a senior official told CNN last week that the 2002 budget President Bush will introduce to Congress next month will see a "major increase" in programs for Colombia's neighbors.

Government officials in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia have expressed concern that Colombian rebels will move their drug operations to their countries, and have asked for a more comprehensive approach to deal with Colombia's drug problem.

The neighboring economies are fragile, and poor people along the border could see the prospect of involvement in drug trade as an incentive to join the rebels.

U.S., Colombian and other Latin American officials told CNN that the administration has already solicited ideas from regional leaders about what programs are needed. Officials said the initiative will be "tailor made" to address problems unique to each county, while taking into account the "commonalties" endemic to the region.

Officials from the State Department, the United States Agency for International Development and Department of Justice laid out plans Monday to increase alternative development, strengthen democratic institutions and increase law enforcement programs in Colombia and neighboring countries to prevent any "spillover" that Plan Colombia might cause.

George Wachtenheim, director of the USAID mission in Colombia, said another focus of U.S. efforts will be a "social program" to address the "root causes" of drug cultivation.

U.S. programs will seek to create jobs for the unemployed, offer alternative crop development for farmers, improve human rights and ease the plight of Colombia's internally displaced people to limit emigration to neighboring countries.

Colombia has one of the largest numbers of displaced people of any country in the world, with more than one million.

U.S. officials said the Bush administration will be smart about the distribution of aid, and will ensure the United States is not stampeded by countries that might see it as a "cash cow."

A Colombian official said the best thing the United States could do to diminish drug trade from the Andes would be to increase trade in other products.

Bush has said he would press Congress to approve the Andean Trade Preference Act in the coming months.

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