NOT SMART FOR U.S. TO GET INVOLVED IN COLOMBIA'S WAR

The United States should start thinking quick and hard about the grave
consequences of military intervention in Colombia's civil war.

On July 26, the Clinton administration's top anti-drug officer, Gen. Barry
McCaffrey, and State Department and military officials arrived in Colombia
to assess the deepening crisis in that country. The United States stands
ready to offer $1 billion in emergency assistance ostensibly to bolster the
war on drugs. But that aid may end up financing the Colombian military's
brutal war against the guerrillas.

McCaffrey said, "The United States has paid inadequate attention to a
serious and growing emergency."

I fear that what McCaffrey means by "attention" is sending in more American
troops to Colombia, selling more arms and war vehicles, installing more
surveillance satellites and exacerbating an already dangerous crisis.

Tensions in the area are at an all-time high. The wreckage of a missing
U.S. reconnaissance plane, on an anti-drug mission with five American
soldiers and two Colombian military officers on board, was spotted Sunday
in the jungles close to the border with Ecuador. This southwest region of
Colombia is bristling with guerrilla activity, and there is speculation
that the FARC, Colombia's largest rebel army, may have brought down the
plane. The United States is saying that it was probably an accident due to
poor visibility.

Any U.S. disaster on Colombian territory can cause civilians on both sides
of the Panama Canal to walk on eggshells.

Colombia is at a vulnerable, desperate stage, with an economy at its lowest
point in 70 years. Meanwhile, peace negotiations between the FARC and
President Andres Pastrana seem like a comic farce. Groups like the FARC and
the ELN, another rebel group, have gained power over 40 percent of the
rural countryside of Colombia and are now heavily involved in cocaine and
heroin trade. The Colombian military and paramilitary squads are also
involved in the drug trade. Fear has spread even to Bogota, where the FARC,
the army and paramilitary groups have brought their skirmishes to the
outskirts of the capital city.

Colombia is the third largest recipient of American aid after Israel and
Egypt. The country is expected to receive $289 million in assistance for
crop eradication and anti-drug programs this year alone. Many Colombians
want the outside economic help but prefer to fight their war by themselves.

President Clinton's unwavering support for Pastrana and the recent rise in
guerrilla presence has many in Latin America concerned about permanent
American involvement in their region. Peru, Brazil and Venezuela have made
recent statements condemning any outside interference in Colombia.

Colombia's future could be a hell. The last vestiges of democracy may give
way to a military dictatorship. Colombia's rulers may move to wipe out
guerrilla activity and engage in widespread human-rights abuses, as
occurred in Chile, El Salvador and Guatemala, with the help of the U.S.
government. The United States must never bolster another military
dictatorship in any part of Latin America again.

During this deteriorating political and economic situation in Colombia, the
United States should be supplying more economic and less military aid.
American troops should be kept out of this volatile region.

I don't want to be left waiting for some kind of incident that "threatens
U.S. interests" and pushes this country into another ugly Latin American
war. Colombians shouldn't have to be the new war refugees in the United States.

Lopez is a free-lance writer living in New York City.