"RESCUING COLOMBIA"

American interests at home and in South America have been increasingly
threatened by the crisis in Colombia. We must protect ourselves from
the flow of Colombian heroin and cocaine.

And we must support the democratic government, the rule of law,
economic stability, and human rights in that beleaguered country.

The administration has proposed a two-year assistance package of $1.6
billion. Colombia would receive equipment such as UH-60 Black Hawk
helicopters, training and technical assistance for its police and
criminal justice system, funds for alternate economic development,
drug interdiction, and support for peace initiatives. Peru and
Bolivia, which have achieved dramatic reductions in cocaine
production, would also receive modest enhancements in US aid.

The Pastrana government has committed $4 billion to ''Plan Colombia''
and requested $3.5 billion in bilateral foreign assistance from the
international community.

Colombia estimates that $7.5 billion will be required over the next
three years to reverse the country's role as the hemispheric hub for
drugs.

Efforts are underway to build support among potential donors in Europe
and Asia. The world has come to realize that the drug problem is
multinational and demands an international response. A nation the size
of Texas, New Mexico, and Arkansas combined, Colombia is home to 38
million citizens caught in the crossfire between 20,000 guerrillas,
6,000 paramilitary terrorists, and national democratic forces trying
to define an elected government. The level of violence is greatly
exacerbated by drug profits, which fuel different parties to the
conflict and allow outlaw factions to purchase more weapons.

Some 35,000 Colombians have been killed in the past decade in Latin
America's longest-running internal conflict.

If the United States doesn't help, even greater quantities of cocaine
and heroin are likely to be exported. Colombia's role in the drug
trade has changed over the last decade.

As coca cultivation plummeted in Peru (down 66 percent since 1995) and
in Bolivia (down 55 percent since 1995), it rose in Colombia by 140
percent - an increase compounded by the introduction of a higher-yield
strain of plant. New cultivation is concentrated in the
guerrilla-dominated areas of the Putumayo and Norte de Santander.

In the past, Colombia primarily distributed Peruvian and Bolivian
cocaine. Now it produces 520 metric tons of cocaine a year, two-thirds
of the world's total. At the beginning of the 1990s, Colombian drug
organizations made a strategic decision to enter the heroin business.

Opium poppies can be grown year-round in Colombia with multiple
harvests.

A majority of the heroin seized on America's eastern seaboard now
comes from Colombia. After the demise of integrated cartels based in
Medellin and Cali, smaller cells began specializing in limited aspects
of the drug trade.

Such groups are hard to disrupt.

Dismantling one has little impact on the others. The increase in drug
production acted like gasoline thrown on the fire of Colombia's
insurgency problems.

Guerrilla and paramilitary groups on both the left and right profit
enormously from the drug trade and organize peasants who grow illegal
substances. The drug industry swelled the war chests of the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, National Liberation Army, and
the AUC (a paramilitary group).

Dollar estimates of their income from drugs run as high as hundreds of
millions annually.

Drug money augments the funds such organizations get from kidnapping,
extortion, and bank robbery.

The US State Department has documented that these groups hijack
airplanes and murder Americans as well as innocent Colombians. Serious
human-rights violations committed by the outlaws include executing
prisoners, torture, expropriating property, and recruiting minors.

Colombia's economy is shrinking for the first time in three
decades.

The gross national product decreased 5 percent in the first six months
of 1999. Unemployment exceeds 20 percent.

Displaced people, especially in rural areas, are seeking paid jobs
with narco-traffickers and illegal armed groups. Recruits reportedly
earn twice as much as army conscripts. With nearly a million citizens
having lost their homes, Colombia has more displaced people than
Kosovo. Without help from international partners, the Colombian
government will be unable to reduce narco-trafficking or regain
control of areas where illegal drugs are flourishing. The old drug
dichotomy between source countries and consumer nations is misleading.
Drugs are used wherever they are produced.

Therefore, a global strategy is imperative against international
trafficking. Colombia is too close geographically to pretend that we
are not affected.

It is in our national interest to support Colombia's strategy for
combating illegal drugs.

Our families and communities are poisoned by these
substances.

Barry R. McCaffrey is director of the White House Office of National
Drug-Control Policy.