SEND A MESSAGE TO COLOMBIA AND ITS 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 hear, 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 anytime, 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 to the crisis, and make Colombia's neighbors more nervous.

Andres Oppenheimer is a Latin America correspondent for the Miami
Herald.