HUMAN RIGHTS: A CASUALTY OF COLOMBIA'S DRUG WAR

US aid in war on drugs draws fire from critics who say human rights are
being overlooked.

All Dora Isabel Camacho Serpa wanted was the "quiet miracle of a normal life."

Instead, the midwife and neighborhood leader was pulled from her family's
modest home in the northern coastal town of Cienaga by paramilitary gunmen
Monday, police officials say. Her husband and children found her in a
nearby ditch, shot in the back of the head. Nine other residents of her
poor neighborhood suffered the same fate in this country afflicted with
staggering abuse of human rights.

Visiting this Caribbean city Wednesday, President Clinton told Colombians
in a televised address that a substantial increase in US assistance - which
will make this South American country the third- largest recipient of US
aid after Israel and Egypt - had been approved in a spirit of solidarity.
The $1.3 billion in new aid to help fight a drug war and bolster a
"democracy under attack" is a lifeline, he said, to Colombians demanding
peace, justice, and "the quiet miracle of a normal life."

But what he did not say was most telling: To make Colombia eligible for
aid, Clinton overrode, "for national security reasons," six human rights
conditions that the Senate had attached to the aid bill. The conditions
were included by the Senate to bolster flagging support among members wary
of Colombia's human rights record. But in an election year, when no one
wants to appear soft on drugs, little congressional protest was heard when
Clinton bypassed the State Department's determination that Colombia's human
rights record could not be "certified."

"The official discourse is fully compatible with international human rights
concerns," says Jose Miguel Vivanco, director of the Americas Division of
Human Rights Watch in Washington. "But the gap between that language and
reality is huge."

At least seven civilians died in leftist guerrilla attacks on various towns
during the few hours Clinton was in Colombia. Last year, more than 2,500
abductions made Colombia the world's kidnapping capital. Nearly 2 million
people have been displaced by the civil war. Executions like those this
week in Cienaga are common.

But human rights leaders say the worst problem Colombia faces is
longstanding, increasing collusion between units of the country's armed
forces and paramilitary organizations. With Colombia facing heightened
scrutiny over human rights violations, the armed forces are acting to keep
their record clean - but in some cases by simply contracting out their
dirty work, critics say.

"Often the information available to us shows a clear case of criminal
omission on the part of military brigades," Mr. Vivanco says. Sometimes
evidence indicates that an Army unit actually supplied logistical support,
or allowed the paramilitaries free transit in Army-patrolled areas. "But
the standard practice is simply to look the other way when the
paramilitaries are in action," he says.

At a press conference Wednesday, Colombian President Andres Pastrana
recognized the serious state of human rights in Colombia, and noted that he
had assigned the country's vice president to oversee human rights issues.
Clinton said the two leaders discussed "efforts to punish all violators" of
human rights, and especially Pastrana's efforts to hold violators among
law-enforcement bodies accountable.

Last February, Human Rights Watch issued a scathing report documenting
links between three Army brigades and paramilitaries. In response, Pastrana
named a special commission to investigate paramilitary activities. Says
Vivanco: "That commission hasn't met a single time."

Human rights groups say nothing will change until the international
community demands action.

"The waiver sends exactly the wrong message to all levels of the Colombian
military," says Bruce Bagley, a Colombia expert at the University of Miami.
"Basically, it says, go ahead as you always have."