U.S. CERTIFIES COLOMBIA ON RIGHTS

After a long delay, the State Department decided to certify Colombia on
human rights, allowing the country to obtain about $70 million in aid. The
move drew complaints from rights activists.

WASHINGTON - The State Department has issued a long-delayed human- rights
certification for Colombia, freeing about $70 million in aid despite
complaints that its government is soft on security forces accused of
abuses, human-rights activists said Tuesday.

The department was expected to issue a formal statement today, one day
before President Bush is to meet with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe - -
a top U.S. ally in the war on drugs -- at his Texas ranch.

As a condition of U.S. aid, the State Department must certify every six
months that Colombia's government is investigating and prosecuting security
force members alleged to have committed human-rights abuses. The last
certification was due at the end of last year but was not issued until now
because of U.S. concerns about recent charges of abuses.

Plan Colombia, a massive U.S.-funded antidrug program launched in 2000, has
helped Colombia's police and armed forces get training and equipment to
fight drug traffickers, guerrillas and paramilitaries.

But for the first time since the plan's money began flowing, the State
Department late last year delayed the rights certification because of
concerns that Uribe's government had not moved strongly enough in some
cases of alleged abuses.

Uribe was elected in 2002 on a promise to return security to a country
almost torn apart by leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries.
Security forces have long been accused of cooperating with the
paramilitaries, which regularly execute suspected guerrilla sympathizers.

Eric Olson, Americas director for Amnesty International, said U.S.
officials did not cite specific instances of progress at a briefing Tuesday
on recertification, noting only a Bogota "strong commitment to do more."

"This decision is a major blow to the promotion of human rights in Colombia
and is based on only the narrowest reading of the law and the thinnest of
evidence," said Dr. William F. Schulz, executive director of Amnesty
International USA.

Lisa Haugaard, executive director for the Latin America Working Group, a
Washington-based advocacy group usually critical of U.S. policies, said the
U.S. government was sending a "very weak message" to Colombia.

She said the certification delay had led to progress on a few high- profile
cases monitored by the U.S. embassy, but that other cases were "moving with
agonizing slowness."

Last month, Colombia charged three soldiers and an informant in the 2003
deaths of three labor union leaders in the province of Arauca.

Prosecutors also have ordered the arrest of six soldiers in the killing of
a family last year in a rebel stronghold.