INTERVENTION IN COLOMBIA

Skeptics looking for confirmation of a Colombia in crisis need look no
further than the northern border towns of Vigia del Fuerte and Bojaya. In
March, insurgent guerrillas attacked these fishing villages near Panama.
Churches, homes and government buildings were destroyed. Thirty people were
killed, seven taken prisoner, and four are missing.

Statistics complement this story of a country in precipitous decline.
Between 1995 and 1999, annual cocaine production skyrocketed from 230 to
520 metric tons, 80 percent of world supply. Since 1990, Colombia's growing
guerrilla insurgency has murdered 35,000, including 5,000 police officers.
Worse, drug traffickers and insurgents bent on overthrowing the oldest
democracy in Latin America are working together, a merger that raises the
specter of a nation run by violent narcotics predators.

Another ominous sign is Colombia's struggling economy. Colombia is
suffering through its first sustained recession after nearly seven decades
of uninterrupted economic growth. The combination of 21 percent
unemployment, a robust black market economy and a lack of investor
confidence is an explosive cocktail. Were these problems self-contained, it
would be easy to dismiss them as another country's internal struggles. They
are not. More than 90 percent of the cocaine and 70 percent of the heroin
consumed in the United States originates in Colombia. U.S. interests in the
Andean region extend beyond helping target the source of this drug flow.
The struggle between insurgents and the Colombian government has bled into
neighboring nations, a development that recalls the spread of civil
disorder in Central America in the 1980s. And one of those nations -
Venezuela - is our largest petroleum supplier.

Colombia's economic troubles promise to hit the United States. As South
America's third-largest economy, Colombia has become our fifth-largest
export market in Latin America. In 1998 alone, it imported approximately $4
billion in U.S. goods and services. Colombia's oil reserves of 2.6 billion
barrels - slightly less than Qatar, Indonesia and Algeria - could serve as
a major energy source, but will remain untapped unless stability is restored.

In January, U.S. President Bill Clinton proposed $1.6 billion in U.S.
assistance to complement Plan Colombia, the recovery proposal constructed
largely through the efforts of Colombian President AndrIs Pastrana. The
package provides aid to help destroy the country's coca-growing capacity
and help in training, equipping and providing intelligence to Colombia's
security forces. The House of Representatives approved the plan on March 30.

We support this plan, but it is not a panacea for Colombia's woes, nor can
it represent the totality of U.S. involvement. Our greatest contributions
must come in helping Colombia develop the strong institutions it needs for
success, such as a professional military that protects human rights and a
respected judicial system. We can bolster Colombia's economy by extending
the Andean Trade Preferences Act, which for nearly 10 years has fostered
economic cooperation with our Andean friends.

But our best intentions will be in vain if we delay. The United States has
pledged half of the international assistance to help address Colombia's
growing problems; a slow pace in providing that aid could have a chilling
effect on other nations. Spain is hosting a June conference of nations to
aid Colombia, a meeting that could fail if we have not shown our commitment
to Colombian recovery.

Pastrana has made a good-faith effort to rebuild Colombia; Clinton has
responded in kind. Now that the House has acted, it is up to the Senate.
Given the rapidly deteriorating situation, assistance delayed will have the
effect of assistance denied or rendered irrelevant. But if Congress acts
quickly, we can contribute to restoring the societal and economic
conditions on which a stable Colombia and Latin America depend.