The New York Times

Thursday, July 1, 1999

Aid Bill Listing Yugoslavia as Terrorist Passes

By TIM WEINER

WASHINGTON -- The Senate Wednesday night overwhelmingly passed a $12.7 billion foreign aid bill that designates Yugoslavia a terrorist state.

The measure also acknowledges American support for one of the world's most notorious intelligence services, in Peru.

The vote was 97 to 2. The bill eliminates $1.9 billion from President Clinton's request for foreign operations, cutting money for counterterrorism, peacekeeping operations, carrying out Mideast peace accords and stopping the spread of nuclear weapons.

The White House called it grossly inadequate and threatened a veto.

The provision to declare Yugoslavia a terrorist state would bar American aid there and let Kosovars sue President Slobodan Milosevic for damages in American courts. The bill includes $20 million for training and equipping a Kosovo security force that its authors say could include members of the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army.

The White House opposes giving guns or money to the rebel army, because NATO is trying to disarm the force. The Administration also objected to designating Yugoslavia as a terrorist nation, a traditional State Department role.

Senator Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican who is chairman of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee, said he saw no difference between Yugoslavia and nations officially designated as state sponsors of terrorism like Iraq and Libya.

"Frankly," McConnell said, "I am hard pressed to understand the difference between thugs' blowing up a village with car bombs and thugs' shelling and burning a village to the ground."

Each year, the foreign aid bill seeks to use dollar diplomacy to compel political change in allies and enemies alike. Congress cannot make foreign policy, but it uses the power of the purse and the force of law to shape it.

In a striking passage, another chapter of the bill criticized "U.S. support for the Peruvian National Intelligence Service," known by its Spanish acronym, SIN. The United States has not openly acknowledged a liaison with SIN.

The executive director of the Americas division of Human Rights Watch, Jos Miquel Vivanco, called the admission shocking.

The service has a reputation as an instrument of violent right-wing repression and, despite its ostensible role as a counternarcotics force, as an institution corrupted by cocaine.

"It's really indefensible for us to be supporting a corrupt and repressive organization like the Peruvian intelligence service," said Elliott Abrams, who as Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America in the Reagan Administration defended ties to right-wing forces. "The Congress ought to cut off this relationship now, before more damage is done to Peruvian democracy and to the reputation of the United States. You cannot fight drug trafficking by supporting a corrupt and repressive organization that is destroying the bases for a democratic Peru."

The bill also provides $50 million for training foreign troops, although it warned against abuses by Indonesian forces schooled under that program.

On a 55-to-43 vote, the Senate set aside an amendment to lift the ban on travel to Cuba by Americans. Many Republicans and some Democrats forcefully opposed the amendment, citing longstanding loathing for President Fidel Castro of Cuba and his policies.

"Give no quarter to the oppressive Government," said Senator Bob Graham, Democrat of Flordia.

A sponsor of the amendment, Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, said the rationale for the ban was long gone. "Let's have the courage to admit the cold war's over," Leahy said.

In many aspects, the bill provides less money, with more restrictions, than the White House wanted. For example, it threatens to cut economic aid to Moscow if Russian troops interfere with NATO's operations in Kosovo.

The measure allots $1.92 billion in military aid and $960 million in economic aid to Israel, $1.3 billion in military aid and $735 million in economic aid to Egypt and $150 million in economic aid for Jordan. But it eliminated $350 million that the Administration had sought to help put into effect the peace accords that Israel and the Palestinians signed last year.

The legislation includes $150 million in aid to Kosovo, $85 million for Albania, $60 million for Romania, $55 million for Macedonia, $45 million for Bulgaria and $35 million for Montenegro.

It would spend $220 million on the Peace Corps, $20 million less than the White House sought, and $175 million for antiterrorism programs, a cut of more than $30 million.

It would provide $610 million for the Red Cross and the United Nations to help refugees, with $60 million for those settling in Israel. It listed $10 million for Iraqi opposition groups and $6.5 million to support democracy advocates in Burma.

The House has not acted on its version of the bill.