U.S. DRUG POLICY IN COLOMBIA SEEKS TO AID HUMAN RIGHTS

Colombia is beset by a grave crisis. A decades-old civil conflict, now
fueled by huge proceeds from drugs, undermines democracy and stability.
Profits from illegal narcotics feed the coffers of the guerrillas and
paramilitaries responsible for the great majority of human-rights
violations. The economy has been dragged down by violence, unemployment,
diminished investor confidence and instability.

To address these problems, Colombian President Andres Pastrana developed a
comprehensive plan for peace and development called "Plan Colombia." The
United States strongly supports this effort, the centerpiece of our aid
being a $1.3-billion package approved by Congress with broad bipartisan
backing last year.

U.S. support aims at substantially reducing the production and trafficking
of cocaine and heroin from Colombia, but it also contains some $230 million
in aid to improve human rights and administration of justice, preserve the
environment, and foster economic development.

U.S. support for Colombia has been frequently misconstrued. Some critics
have claimed that aerial spraying of illegal drug crops is done
indiscriminately and that it harms people, kills animals and damages the
environment. Others charge that U.S. policies exacerbate human rights
problems and have resulted in large numbers of displaced persons. These
claims are untrue.

Plan Colombia is a plan for peace and development, and the U.S. firmly
supports these goals, as underscored by President Bush in his Feb. 27
meeting with President Pastrana. There can be no military solution to
Colombia's ills. Rather, the factors that encourage violence and
lawlessness - illegal drugs, poverty, civil strife, and weak institutions
of government - must be dealt with simultaneously.

An important facet of Plan Colombia involves the effort to eradicate the
cultivation of coca leaf and opium poppy, raw materials for cocaine and
heroin coming illegally into the United States. The preferred approach is
for growers to eradicate their crops voluntarily. When they won't, aerial
eradication is required, an effort assisted by the United States.

Areas to be sprayed are carefully selected, and spraying is tightly
controlled, not indiscriminate. Aerial eradication focuses on
industrial-scale operations, not smaller-scale growers. The agent used in
aerial eradication is the herbicide glyphosate. In 1974 the EPA approved
glyphosate for general use and it is currently employed in over 100
countries, including ours. It is one of the least harmful herbicides to
appear on the world market. It does not contaminate water. Accounts
claiming that glyphosate causes damage to humans, animals and the
environment are unfounded.

Ironically, widespread damage has been done to the environment in Colombia
- - as well as in Peru and Bolivia - not by counter-drug efforts, but by the
drug traffickers themselves. Thousands of acres of tropical rainforests
have been clear-cut and burned to make way for coca and poppy fields. Tons
of highly toxic chemicals used to process cocaine are dumped into the
rivers and streams of the region by the traffickers year after year.

Counter-drug efforts have resulted in the displacement of very few people
since the aerial eradication campaign began in southern Colombia. Violence
spawned by the guerrillas and the paramilitaries, on the other hand, has
caused the internal displacement of hundreds of thousands of Colombians.

U.S. support for Plan Colombia is designed to improve the poor human-rights
situation in that country. Our aid package includes $119 million to protect
human rights and reform the justice system. Counter-drug programs attack
not only narcotics but also the violence and human-rights abuses engendered
by it. Furthermore, no U.S. assistance can be provided to any Colombian
military or police unit for which we have credible allegations of gross
human-rights violations.

Plan Colombia and U.S. support for it go well beyond counter-drug measures.
But it is important that Americans recognize the linkages among drugs,
violence and the terrible toll violence takes on the rights and well-being
of all Colombians. As a democratic neighbor, Colombia deserves our support.