ACT NOW TO AID COLOMBIA

President Clinton has acted rightly in proposing $1.28 billion in emergency
aid to Colombia, whose coca and poppy growers are at one end of a narcotics
pipeline that empties onto US city streets.

Colombia's democratic system is teetering under multiple pressures:
economic chaos, drug traffickers, and guerrilla insurgencies. To ignore its
woes is to invite even deeper drug problems and political chaos in a key
region of Latin America - and possibly more costly US involvement down the
road. But what should the aid do?

The administration's plan follows a request by Colombian President Andrés
Pastrana: equal aid for economic development and the training and arming of
the military and police, even as Mr. Pastrana tries to keep peace talks
alive with the guerrillas.

Republicans in Congress want the aid concentrated on antinarcotics
offensives. But many Democrats view Colombia's security forces, especially
the Army, as human-rights abusers that should get no aid.

There's plenty of room to sort out these differences without scuttling the
plan. A strong emphasis on security aid is needed, including training for
police, prosecutors, and judges. And the US should continue its backing for
new Colombian units specially trained to battle the narco-forces - both the
guerrillas that protect and tax the drug trade and the traffickers
themselves. US-backed training must include sensitivity to human rights and
efforts to screen out people with past records of abuse.

Pastrana pleads that peasants forced to stop growing coca need help to
develop alternatives. True. But first the insurgencies and the drug
industry that demand the raw materials for cocaine and heroin must be
weakened. Stronger, more professional security forces will also nudge the
guerrillas toward the peace table.

We hope Congress acts soon to strengthen Colombia's institutions, from the
Army to the judiciary, before the US presidential race absorbs all of
Washington's energies.