PUT HUMAN RIGHTS ON AGENDA IN COLOMBIA

During his one-day visit, Clinton has an unusual opportunity to send a
message to Colombia and its nervous neighbors.

President Clinton's one-day visit to Colombia may be just a photo
opportunity to help the Democratic Party look tough on drugs in the
November U.S. elections, but the trip also has the potential to produce a
dangerous backlash in Latin America.

By visiting Colombia only days after releasing $1.3 billion in military aid
to help President Andres Pastrana of Colombia fight drug traffickers and
their Marxist guerrilla allies, Clinton will draw international attention
to what critics are prematurely calling a "new Vietnam."

The trip on Wednesday to the coastal city of Cartagena has unleashed a
barrage of criticism from U.S., Colombian and other Latin American human
rights groups.

They say the U.S. military aid package will worsen human rights abuses by
the Colombian military and the paramilitary groups they often protect.
That, in turn, will trigger an even more violent reaction from the more
than 15,000 Marxist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia,
they say.

In addition, Colombia's neighbors such as Ecuador, Peru and Brazil fear
that the U.S-backed military offensive will push drug traffickers and
guerrillas to cross into their own territories. And President Hugo Chavez
of Venezuela, a former army officer who sees the world through military
lenses, fears U.S. aid will turn the Colombian army into a formidable force
that could become a threat to Venezuela, with which Colombia has an
unresolved border dispute.

From what I heard in Washington this week, the White House is confident
that U.S. television images of a triumphant Clinton embracing Pastrana as a
hero in the war on drugs will far overshadow the three-second sound bites
that human rights activists may get to voice their concerns.

Clinton is expected to highlight the non-military portion of the U.S. aid
package, about $240 million that will go to fund human rights monitors,
judicial reform and economic development projects. And he will reassure the
world that, under U.S. law, no more than 500 U.S. military trainers and 300
contract employees will be allowed to be in Colombia at any time, and that
they will be barred from going into combat.

Will the world believe him? I'm not so sure. While there is a consensus
that Colombia's war is a humanitarian catastrophe - it has already produced
up to 1.8 million internal refugees over the past decade, according to
human rights groups, more than Kosovo and East Timor together - many
countries fear an escalation of the conflict.

If Clinton is looking beyond U.S. domestic politics and wants to help end
the Colombian war, he should stress two key points during this trip:

First, he should state that as a condition for releasing the future
disbursements of the U.S. aid package, Colombia will have to take very
concrete human rights steps laid out by the U.S. Congress. Among them,
suspending military commanders known to have committed human rights
violations, and prosecuting leaders of paramilitary groups.

Second, he should make a call to encourage other Latin American nations to
take a more active diplomatic role in the Colombian conflict.

"Latin American countries should become more engaged," says Peter Hakim,
head of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank. "Nobody is
asking them to send troops or money, but to make it clear to European donor
countries that Latin Americans support the peace plan."

Clinton will have an unusual opportunity to send a message to Colombia's
neighbors: a day later, Brazil will host a summit of all South American
presidents. And Brazilian Foreign Minister Luiz Felipe Lampreia told me in
a telephone interview that Brazil and other South American countries would
"be receptive" to serving as mediators in Colombia's civil war, should
Colombia request it.

Unless Clinton uses his visit to Colombia to speak bluntly about human
rights and regional cooperation, his presence there will only draw new
attention on the crisis, and make Colombia's neighbors more nervous.