A FORMER GOVERNOR PLEADS FOR PEACE IN COLOMBIA

I am a former governor of Choco, the most impoverished department of
Colombia. In 1998, I tried to declare Choco a neutral zone, a territory of
peace free from the combat ravaging my country.

Because of my work for peace, I was kidnapped by people who identified
themselves as paramilitaries. Death threats were leveled at my family and
myself. Fearing for our lives, we fled to the United States in July of
2000. We now live here in exile.

But the majority of the Colombian people do not have the option of exile.
They have nowhere to run from the violence in my country. The Bush
administration's announcement that it plans to expand the Clinton
administration's $1.3 billion aid package to Colombia and its neighbors
will only make matters worse for a lot of my fellow citizens.

The aid package, which is supposedly intended to help bring a "peaceful and
sensible resolution" to Colombia's conflict, is a grave mistake. It will
force Americans to pay with their checkbooks, and Colombians with their lives.

Sixty percent of the aid the Colombian government is receiving will go to
the Colombian military, notorious for having one of the worst human-rights
records in the world. According to Human Rights Watch's most recent annual
report, "Colombia's armed forces continue to be implicated in serious human
rights violations."

Paramilitary groups, working closely with the Colombian military, often
harass and terrorize citizens. Just last month, right-wing paramilitaries
entered the village of Chengue in northern Colombia before dawn and herded
the men of the village into the town square. The paramilitaries then killed
at least 25 of them with sledgehammers and rocks, as their families
watched, before setting fire to houses and shops. Survivors told The
Washington Post that the Colombian military provided safe passage to the
paramilitaries and sealed off the area to facilitate the massacre.

There are now more than 1.8 million Colombians who are refugees within our
own country. Left with no other option, some move to the large cities and
join the ranks of the urban poor. Others, desperate and destitute, join
guerrilla organizations or the paramilitaries for survival. The cycle of
oppression and poverty continues, and the conflict deepens.

But peace, for so long a distant prospect, has begun to light the Colombian
horizon. In October 2000, the long-ignored Colombian people met with
representatives of the Colombian government and rebel groups in Costa Rica
in a conference named Paz Colombia (Peace Colombia). This conference was an
attempt to begin a democratic dialogue that will bring a political and
peaceful end to Colombia's civil conflict. Only two years ago, such a
meeting between the intensely divided sectors of the Colombian people would
have been difficult to bring about.

Even the left-for-dead peace negotiations between the Colombian government
and the FARC, Colombia's largest rebel group, have been resuscitated.
Colombian President Andres Pastrana and FARC leader Manuel Marulanda are
meeting this week to revive the talks.

Despite these overtures, the Bush administration has unwisely decided to
extend weapons to Colombia instead of olive branches. As a result, the
hopeful glow of peace dims in the darkness of this 40-year war. The
Colombian military, newly trained and armed by the United States, is
planning major offensives in the south.

The guerrillas, battle-tested after four decades in the jungle, are digging
in, preparing for the coming battles. And the Colombian people are caught
in between. They desperately want -- and deserve -- to live in a country
without war.

Murillo is a former governor of the department of Choco. He and his family
reside in the Washington, D.C., area.