HOW TO HELP COLOMBIA

President Bush Turns An All-Military Policy Into A Broader, Enlightened One

With $1.3 billion in American aid, Colombia is the leading recipient of
U.S. assistance in the hemisphere, and ranks just behind Israel and Egypt.
Yet many Americans, not to mention Colombians themselves, have questioned
what they are getting for that money.

At the moment, it appears to be only a ground war on drugs that might draw
U.S. troops into a long-standing civil war. To his credit, President Bush
is taking a longer and more practical view of the situation.

The $1.3 billion was approved by former President Clinton to pay for Plan
Colombia, a program designed to help the Colombian military crackdown on
drug cartels and eradicate coca production. But the results haven't been
impressive. As Colombian soldiers force peasants off their land once they
are discovered to be growing coca, the property usually falls into the
hands of the wealthy class. In 1984, the ruling class controlled 32 percent
of the land in Colombia. Today, it claims 47 percent.

As the gap between the rich and poor widens, so does Colombia's civil
strife, including a growing number of hostages from the upper class being
held by guerrilla groups for huge ransoms. Meanwhile, the peasant farmers
who were forced off their lands have moved deeper into the countryside to
plant a new coca crop and start the cycle all over again.

Critics have suggested that U.S. aid should be steered toward the farmers
themselves, to motivate them to switch from coca to other crops. But
supporters of Plan Columbia have argued that contracting to purchase such
alternate crops could be expensive and might only shift coca production to
other farms or neighboring nations.

Now comes Mr. Bush with an $882 million plan of his own, one that would
include crop substitution as part of its overall strategy. The money would
be split among Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela and Brazil in an
attempt to contain coca growers from simply being chased from one country
to another. Some of the aid also would be directed toward court reform and
to help local governments.

Regrettably, Mr. Bush would also continue Plan Colombia. That has earned
him a share of criticism, but he nonetheless deserves the benefit of the
doubt for now. He might just have struck the right balance between military
interdiction and constructive alternatives aimed at making crop
substitution a viable part of the war on drugs. At the least, the plan
deserves some time to prove itself.