PLAN COLOMBIA IS WELL WORTH U.S. SUPPORT

Colombia is beset by a crisis with profound implications for the United
States. Unfortunately, the country's strategy to counter these difficulties
- - "Plan Colombia" - and US support for it have been frequently
misunderstood and misconstrued.

Some claim that Plan Colombia is a US plan aimed at fighting insurgents,
certain to "militarize" Colombia. They say it will produce "another
Vietnam" by engaging the United States in a "civil war," exacerbating civil
conflict, heightening human rights violations, and poisoning the environment.

None of these allegations has any basis in fact.

Colombia's ills go well beyond drug production and trafficking. Plan
Colombia is multifaceted, aimed at supporting peace, bolstering democracy,
improving the economy, and enhancing respect for human rights, while
attacking the narcotics scourge and the violence it engenders.

Last year the US Congress passed, with strong bipartisan backing, a $1.3
billion package in support of Plan Colombia. This package consists of
substantial counternarcotics support, but it also contains some $230
million in aid to protect human rights, strengthen democratic institutions,
improve the administration of justice, fight corruption, protect the
environment, and provide alternative development opportunities for small
farmers engaged in coca cultivation.

Colombia is by far the largest source of the cocaine and heroin that enter
the United States. The illegal crops - coca leaf and opium poppy - used to
make these drugs are a source of enormous income to the drug traffickers
and illegally armed groups, both guerrillas and paramilitaries, in
Colombia. Most of the coca is grown in remote areas of southern Colombia,
where government control is weak and the illegally armed groups are strong.

In past years, these groups, enriched by their proceeds from illegal drugs,
have unleashed a wave of violence against legitimate authorities and the
Colombian population. They are responsible for most of the grave human
rights abuses that have occurred.

Opinion polls show that public support for the guerrillas and
paramilitaries is negligible.

A cornerstone of the counter-drug program is eradication of coca and poppy
throughout Colombia, but especially in the south.

The Colombian government, with US support, is fumigating large-scale coca
fields. Areas to be sprayed are carefully selected and spraying is tightly
concentrated on coca. Small-scale farmers of coca who sign an agreement to
eradicate their illegal crops manually in return receive support in finding
alternative ways to make a living and are not subject to spraying. The goal
is not to punish farmers but to wean them from growing. More than 11,000
families have signed agreements with the Colombian government to eradicate
their coca in exchange for alternative development assistance.

The product used in serial eradication of coca and poppy is the herbicide
glyphosate. The Environmental Protection Agency approved glyphosate for
general use in 1974 and recertified it in 1993. It is employed in more than
100 countries.

In Colombia, the efforts account for no more than 10 percent of the
glyphosate used annually.

The remaining 90 percent is used for common agricultural activities.

In aerial eradication of coca in Colombia, 3.35 pounds of glyphosate is
used per acre sprayed, well within US-approved application levels.
Glyphosate is one of the least harmful herbicides to appear on the world
market, less toxic than common salt. Exhaustive studies have shown that,
received orally or though the skin, it has a very low acute toxicity in
humans and was undetectable in muscle, fat, milk, and eggs of animals, even
after long-term feeding tests.

The EPA has placed glyphosate in "category E" - the most favorable possible
- - on a scale of carcinogenicity, and it does not contaminate water.

It is specifically approved for use around water and is used in the
Galapagos Islands and the Everglades. Accounts that claim that glyphosate
is causing widespread environmental destruction or harm to fish, birds,
animals, and humans are totally unfounded.

There is however, a real threat to the environment of Colombia - that posed
by the cutting and burning of tropical forests to clear the way for coca
cultivation and the dumping of tons of highly toxic chemicals used to
process cocaine into rivers and streams of the Amazon basin by the drug
producers.

Neither do the facts add up on the Colombia-Vietnam comparison. For
starters, Plan Colombia is a plan for peace, and the United States supports
President Pastrana's peace efforts.

From the begnning, we have stated that there is no military solution to
Colombia's problems. US military personnel train Colombian soldiers and
police for counterdrug operations, and they are prohibited from entering
into combat or joining any other field operations. Their number is also
capped by Congress at 500 in the country at any time, a fact frequently
unmentioned in media accounts. At present, the number is well below that cap.

Colombia's ills go well beyond drug production and trafficking. That is why
Plan Colombia is aimed at bolstering democracy, improving the economy, and
respecting human rights while at the same time attacking narcotics.

As a democratic neighbor in need, Colombia deserves our help. And we are
providing it through a comprehensive, balanced assistance package in
support of Plan Colombia.