MEN WITH GUNS RULE COLOMBIA U.S. MILITARY AID IS WRONG KIND OF HELP.

Last week, the historic port city of Cartagena, Colombia, was cleaning up
its appearance, sweeping the homeless children off the streets and giving
itself a facelift - like a girlfriend trying to impress a suitor.

That nervous suitor stayed only six hours but handed over a check for $1.3
billion in the name of war. When Bill Clinton visited Colombia, he launched
the U.S. military effort to step up the fight against leftist guerrilla groups.

But U.S. involvement can only make the civil war in Colombia even bloodier.
In the past four decades, more than 35,000 people have died in this
conflict. The two main leftist rebel groups, the FARC - Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia - and the ELN - the National Liberation Army - have
fought the Colombian military to a stalemate. The rebels now occupy 40
percent of Colombia's territory, and the Colombian military knows it can't
vanquish the rebels.

The rebels aren't angels. Although they once offered protection to
Colombia's remote rural areas, in the last decade the guerrilla groups have
become more like bandits, capturing innocent people for ransom and taking
part in coca-growing.

But the Colombian military and the paramilitary groups affiliated with it
are not angels, either. They are responsible for the lion's share of
human-rights abuses, which include brutal massacres. In February, a
paramilitary group tortured and executed 36 people in the village of El
Salado, according to The New York Times.

The latest embarrassment for President Andres Pastrana was the killing of
six children by soldiers of the Colombian army who claimed they were
shooting at rebels. But many witnesses say the rebels were never near the
children, who were on a nature hike.

The shootings demonstrate why Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International
oppose military aid to Colombia.

Nor are the rebels the only ones involved in the drug trade. Paramilitary
groups are closely allied with the drug trade, as the U.S. General
Accounting Office noted in a June 1999 report titled "Narcotics Threat from
Colombia Continues to Grow." The report said that some paramilitary leaders
"have become major drug traffickers."

Colombia is in a desperate situation and needs assistance to end the civil war.

But more weapons and an increased U.S. military presence are not going to
help. They will only intensify the conflict, ultimately increasing the
massacres and keeping Colombians hostage to men with guns and drugs.

Unless the United States can offer something besides military aid,
Colombians will never fully trust America's good intentions.