COLOMBIA'S TRAGEDY

Congratulations on Rick Salutin's Colombia: This Week's Kosovo (Sept. 1).
It was a great satisfaction to find the plain and unvarnished truth about
U.S. policy toward that long-suffering country set forth so explicitly.
Those of us who work for human rights and a just peace in Colombia had
hoped that Canada, like some European countries, would take a clearer
position against the folly of Plan Colombia. But Ottawa, true to a fine
Canadian tradition of facile posturing, has gone along with the plan while
expressing mild reservations about some aspects of it. Meanwhile, the
fragile peace process in which the Colombian government, the insurgents and
civil society are striving to end that country's conflict is on the point
of collapse. The stream of refugees from Colombia will soon become a flood
and the drug-trafficking mafia led by paramilitary butcher Carlos Castao
will not suffer one iota as U.S. interventionism continues on its arrogant
path.