PEACE IS COLOMBIA'S BEST HOPE

MOMENTUM IS BUILDING for negotiations to end Latin America's longest-running
civil war.

Today, Colombia - after decades of violence and instability - has its best
chance of peace in a generation. The process will likely be long and
arduous.

The role of the United States will be crucial.

Colombia's new president, Conservative Andres Pastrana, has made peace his
priority. He has met with guerrilla leaders who convinced him they were
serious about ending the conflict. He is supported in his quest by the
majority of Colombians, who are weary of a conflict that has displaced a
million people, fueled serious human rights abuses, and torn the country's
social fabric.

U.S. policy toward Colombia is at a crossroads. One road points to continued
military strategies to stem the flow of drugs - Colombia is the source of 80
percent of the cocaine and heroin entering the United States. The other
looks to negotiations accompanied by increased human rights Protections as
the best framework for addressing Colombia's myriad problems, including the
question of drug production and export.

The first strategy, pushed by conservatives in Congress, plays to legitimate
American fears of the continued flow of drugs into the United States, but
offers simplistic solutions to a complex prolbem. More military aid to
Colombia and a campaign of eradicating drug crops, they argue, will stanch
the flow of illegal rugs into the United States. But this approach has
struck out.

Hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid and more than a decade
of

eradication programs have not stopped the illegal-crop acreage from growing
twelve-fold - to 250,000 acres - since 1985. Increased militarization of the
drug was has fomented social unrest and human rights violations, and fueled
support for the guerrillas.

Instead, the "peace track" offers the prospect of a comprehensive solution
to Colombia's complex problems and of adressing the major concern of the
United Les - the flow of drugs. U.S. "drug czar" Barry McCaffrey recently
argued a long-term strategy to bolster democratic institutions in Colombia
rather than throwing military hardware and money at the problem. Yet that is
precisely what we have been doing, at the rate of $100 million a year. Hard
liners in Congress and the Pentagon urge more of the same.

None of Colombia's problems can be dealt with in isolation. Negotiations
offer the best prospect for: rebuilding state institutions, particularly law
enforcement and the judicial system; regenerating the economy and offering
small farmers alternatives to drug cultivation; and, reincorporating
guerrillas into society.

There are precedents for overcoming equally bitter conflicts in El Salvador,
in Guatemala, in Bosnia and in Northern Ireland. No other nation or
institution is as crucial to peace in Colombia as the United States. Upping
the military ante, threatening the Colombian government with cutting off its
aid for demilitarizing remote rural areas, will only undercut long-term U.S.
interests.

The United States government should send a clear message: our values and
core interests are best served by a resolution of the central political,
economic and social issues that fuel Colombia's armed conflict. We must
support immediate steps to strengthen human rights protections - which
should not wait for a final peace agreement.

Pushing for more military aid and the forced destruction of crops is the
best recipe for more violence and upheaval, growing human rights abuses, and
the continued scourge of illicit drugs entering the United States. Peace
will be a long, hard road. But it is the only viable way out of the quagmire
in Colombia.

Winifred Tate is a fellow and Hugh Byrne is a senior associate at the
Washington Office on Latin America

Checked-by: Don Beck