BACK COLOMBIA WITH SAFEGUARDS

When Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe meets President Bush at his ranch in
Crawford today, he will seek continued support for the hard-line policies
he is applying in the South American nation to quell violence and eradicate
narcotics. Mr. Uribe, who has shown enormous courage in taking the battle
to the two powerful guerrilla armies that have controlled vast areas of
Colombia for decades, deserves Washington's backing. But some strings
should be attached to his request for funding to pay for a plan to
demobilize a paramilitary army and reincorporate its 20,000 fighters into
society.

Colombia's two left-wing guerrilla armies, the Marxist Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and the Castro-Communist National Liberation
Army (ELN), have rejected President Uribe's peace initiatives. But the
right-wing paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) has
agreed to disarm under the recently passed "Peace and Justice" law.

The problem with the law is that it has loopholes that will enable drug
traffickers to evade extradition to the United States to face justice for
their crimes, which is what they most fear. Leaders of the AUC who have
carried out massacres of innocent peasants would also go free.

Washington has a big stake in seeing President Uribe make a success of
"Plan Colombia." The United States has invested $3.5 billion in helping the
Colombian government wipe out cocaine and other drug production. Both
left-wing guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries protect and profit from
Colombia's cocaine cartels.

It would be unwise for President Bush to sign off on the demobilization of
the paramilitaries without safeguards along the lines proposed by a
bipartisan group of legislators who have attached a provision to the bill
that will fund aid for Colombia, including $130 million more to demobilize
the paramilitaries. They want guarantees that the AUC will be put out
business completely and assurances that drug traffickers will continue to
be extradited to the United States.

President Uribe's tough policies have paid off by making him personally
popular (his approval rating is 70 percent), and he has achieved military
successes against the FARC, despite recent setbacks. It would be a mistake
to go soft on the right-wing paramilitary groups, which are heavily
involved in trafficking the narcotics that plague the United States. For
"Plan Colombia" to succeed in eradicating the cartels that are world's
major suppliers of drugs, there can be no concessions. President Uribe
should stay tough on all fronts in the war against narcotics and all
political violence.