Pubdate: Fri, 09 Mar 2001 Source: Northwest Florida Daily News (FL) Copyright: 2001 Northwest Florida Daily News Contact: http://www.nwfdailynews.com/ COLOMBIA UPDATE The news from Colombia early this week was anything but encouraging. Over the weekend leftist guerrillas killed six people and kidnapped several others. Bomb attacks in Cali, Colombia's third-largest city, leveled buildings near a military base and injured three people. A bomb exploded Sunday in Cartagena, a popular tourist spot on the Caribbean coast. Then on Monday at least 24 people were killed in clashes between leftist guerrillas (the FARC, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and paramilitaries who may or may not be affiliated with the Colombian military near the village of El Prodigio, about 45 miles south of Medellin. The outlawed paramilitary Self Defense Forces (AUC) had warned that they are prepared "to die or conquer" in an effort to prevent Colombian President Andres Pastrana from turning over control of a 1,500-square-mile area in northern Colombia to a second rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN). Last week President Pastrana was in Washington asking President Bush to pledge more aid to Colombia in addition to the $1.3 billion in mostly military aid to fight coca production, manufacturing and smuggling in and out of Colombia, the illicit trade that finances much of the violence that wracks the country. The administration is said to be considering aid to Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru, neighbors of Colombia whose governments previously had expressed doubt about American involvement in Colombia's drug war - which is supposed to be separate from but is inextricably linked to a 40-year civil war the country has endured. Before the involvement begun by the Clinton administration is so intense that it becomes a matter of not wanting to appear as if the United States is backing down, the Bush administration should take a hard-nosed, skeptical look at U.S. intervention in Colombia. One can understand a desire to help a country facing such a violent struggle. But the likelihood of playing a constructive role is so low, and the cost of trying and failing could be so high, that prudence would suggest ending the U.S. commitment in Colombia. The current civil war has its roots in the 1950s, when a 10-year struggle called "La Violencia" followed the split of the two main parties. The conflict simmered for years, then gained new energy in the 1980s when Colombia emerged as a leading producer of coca and cocaine. Leftist guerillas and then rightist paramilitaries offered to protect cocaine traffickers for a share of the profits, and drug money has made it possible for all sides to escalate the violence. The notion that the United States can help the Colombian government eradicate cocaine trafficking without becoming embroiled in the ongoing civil war is naive at best. The United States might hope to play a strictly advisory role, but U.S. forces are more likely to be drawn in or targeted the longer the United States is an active player. It is unlikely the U.S. government will end its war on drugs, which would be the most effective way to take much of the profit out of the trade and steam out of the civil war. But it should think long and hard before increasing a commitment to a conflict that eventually must be settled by those participating in it, not through the intervention of Uncle Sam. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom