COLOMBIAN DRUG WAR IS REALLY A CIVIL WAR

When I went to Colombia in January, I met Rigoberto Guzman and Elodino
Rivera, peasants who had been displaced for two years from their homes and
farms. At that time, the farmers showed me their crops -- some of which had
been devastated during their forced exile.

On July 8, paramilitary gunmen killed Rigoberto, Elodino and four other
people. The assassins also struck a Catholic nun and pushed her aside when
she told them that the peasants were not on the side of the guerrillas. Then
they warned the residents of La Union, a neutral hamlet in the northwestern
part of Colombia, that they had to leave the area within 20 days.

These peasants are caught in the crossfire of a brutal civil war between
leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries that are allegedly tied to
the Colombian military. According to eyewitnesses, soldiers of the 17th Army
Brigade were stationed nearby, but did not act to stop the attack. And an
army helicopter hovered overhead.

This attack is, unfortunately, just one of many by the paramilitaries. In
February, a paramilitary death squad tortured and executed 36 people in the
tiny village of El Salado.

Tragedies like these show the wrongheadedness of U.S. policy toward
Colombia. The United States has just agreed to send $1.3 billion in aid to
the Colombian armed forces and police. But a February report by Human Rights
Watch found "detailed, abundant and compelling evidence of continuing close
ties between the Colombian army and paramilitary groups responsible for
gross human rights violations."

The group believes that half of Colombia's brigade-level units are connected
to paramilitaries. According to the Colombian government, more than 2,500
people have died in more than 500 attacks in just the past 18 months. Most
of these are unarmed peasants who are victims of paramilitaries.

"U.S. support for Colombia cannot include partnership with an army
implicated in gross human-rights violations," says Sen. Paul Wellstone,
D-Minn. Wellstone has tried unsuccessfully to redirect aid from the
Colombian military to U.S. domestic drug-treatment programs.

We are told that this aid is designed for the war on drugs. But the
paramilitaries are deeply involved in the drug trade themselves. And the
Colombian government is working hand in glove with the paramilitaries, as a
June 1999 report by the General Accounting Office made clear.

The war on drugs in Colombia is, in reality, a war against the guerrillas.
By allying itself openly with the Colombian army, the United States is
taking sides in the Colombian civil war, which has already cost 35,000
lives. More U.S. aid will only add more victims -- like Rigoberto and
Elodino -- to this casualty list.