DRUG USER VS. DRUG SUPPLIER

U.S. makes narco-trafficking lucrative, then we help fund a military that
could trample on human rights

IF Colombian President Andres Pastrana is tired of hearing the drug addict
blame his pusher, we don't blame him.

A drug problem requires a consumer and a provider. As long as rich
countries like the United States can't curtail the number of consumers,
Pastrana said the day before President Clinton landed in Colombia for a
visit, poor countries like Colombia have no chance of eradicating the
suppliers.

If Clinton's day-long visit Wednesday provided some bucking up to a
besieged country, it will have served a good purpose.

Colombia is being shattered by a war between guerrillas and
counter-guerrilla paramilitaries, with narcotrafficking financing both,
while the government tries ineffectually to suppress guerrillas and drugs.

The New York Times description of Colombia as a country where ``parents
with means buy bulletproof vests for their children'' chillingly distills
the state of life there.

The government of Colombia estimates that 800,000 people, those with means,
have left in the past four years. They are liquidating their businesses and
taking themselves and their money out of the country. Behind them they
leave more unemployment.

The impetus to leave? Recently, one guerrilla group announced a ``tax'' of
10 percent on anyone worth more than $1 million. Pay or be kidnapped was
the threat.

By the count of one human rights group, 1,559 people, including 127
children, were kidnapped in the first six months of this year.

Of course, most Colombians don't have the money to leave. As many as 2
million have been displaced from their homes within Colombia.

Colombia desperately needs domestic peace. It desperately needs assistance
to counter drug traffickers and to establish alternatives to growing coca
that offer a decent living to the poor. One way the United States could
help is to reduce its tariffs on products such as textiles and clothing,
made by low-skill labor.

But there are too many indications that U.S. policy toward Colombia is
driven by the same blinkered war on drugs that makes the federal government
apoplectic over the thought that a cancer patient might be finding relief
through marijuana.

Clinton's visit was occasioned by the approval of $1.3 billion in U.S. aid
to Colombia. Too much of the money is going to provide 60 military
helicopters, with too little assurance that Colombia's military and civil
authorities will show sufficient regard for human rights. (The guerrillas
and paramilitaries show none at all.)

In constructing the aid package, Congress watered down the human rights
protections. Then Clinton waived one of the remaining safeguards to send
the money promptly on its way.

Colombia's neighbors fear a military escalation of the drug war will drive
growers and traffickers into their countries.

Colombia needs a northern neighbor more aware of its own role in making the
drug trade lucrative, and less enthusiastic about a military solution for
either the scourge of drugs or the social turmoil in Colombia.