REAL LIVING IN COLOMBIA

It will take a few years, or maybe only a few months, before anyone knows
if $1.3 billion in U.S. aid to Colombia will make a difference in that
nation's effort to uproot its drug trade. The task will be devilishly
difficult, if the past decade of murder, terrorism, corruption and defeat
is any measure. The money, delivered by President Clinton in a nine-hour
drop-in to a relatively safe Colombian port city, will be spent mostly for
military wares.

A few things already are clear, though. Clinton put human rights progress
at risk -- in what the State Department considers one of the most violent
nations in the world -- by waiving human rights conditions placed on U.S.
aid. It's possible, furthermore, that a good deal of the money will end up
benefitting crooked government officials. That would weaken American
interests in the region rather than advance our influence.

Americans contemplating the pros and cons of Clinton's policy also should
be reminded that many Colombian farmers forced by poverty to grow coca and
poppy plants wish they didn't have to. Those farmers may make in the range
of $200 a month in an enterprise they know to be dangerous, morally
repugnant and gangster-ridden. Harvard-educated Andres Pastrana, the
Colombian president, asked Clinton to lower U.S. trade barriers for
Colombian products, which might make traditional crops like coffee and
cotton profitable again. That would be an effective, enlightened strategy
to pursue.