U.S. MUST STAND BY COLOMBIA

After months of neglect, Colombia suddenly has appeared on the
Washington radar screen as Congress gears up to debate the U.S. role
in the Colombian conflict.

Last week, on the same day that the U.S. House Committee on Government
Reform held hearings, Colombia's main guerrilla group claimed credit
for the massacre of 34 peasants who were reportedly supplying its
enemies with coca. But Washington must not conclude that the war is
going badly. In reality, this gruesome event reveals a seriously
weakened, but dangerously desperate, insurgency.

The United States has been pouring about $700 million per year into
the country under Plan Colombia. This program finances mainly the drug
war, particularly aerial eradication of coca plants. But it has
steadily shifted toward more-direct counterinsurgency support. Plan
Colombia is expiring next year, so the United States now must redefine
its Colombia strategy.

The Colombian strife has been dramatically transformed over the last
two years. This is evident from a new computer database that my
colleagues Jorge Restrepo and Juan Vargas and I have assembled over
two years.

The main actors in the database are: government forces, two left-wing
guerrilla groups -- the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
and the National Liberation Army (ELN) -- and the right-wing
paramilitaries known as the United Self-defense Forces of Colombia
(AUC). The coffers of the guerrilla groups and the paramilitaries have
swollen in recent years from diverse income sources that include
drugs, kidnapping and extortion.

What do our numbers show?

The ELN is a spent force. Its attacking activity has dropped
precipitously since 2000 and now barely registers as a factor in the
conflict. The group is approaching the government to start
demobilization negotiations from a position of severe weakness.

The paramilitaries have been the biggest killers of civilians in
recent years. However, two years ago they were killing civilians at
more than three times their current rate of about 20 per month. The
present level is their lowest since 1988.

Government forces are hammering the FARC. Our data show that the
frequency of government clashes with the FARC has been at all-time
highs for the last two years. And the ratio of government soldiers to
guerrillas killed in these events reveals the best-ever performance by
the military, with continuous improvement to boot.

The last two points are closely linked. Paramilitary activity exploded
between 1996 and 2002 when the guerrillas seized an advantage. This
was disastrous for civilians because of the paramilitaries' dirty
fighting practices. But now that the government has regained the
initiative, civilians are benefiting from the paramilitaries' decline.

Plan Colombia is working

Our data also show that the FARC has long had the upper hand in its
clashes with the paramilitaries, raising an obvious question: Why
should the paramilitaries remain in the field when they are hardly
damaging the FARC and the government is? Indeed, the AUC is now in
demobilization negotiations with the government.

Plan Colombia has helped Colombia achieve these results. Coca
cultivation has been halved. This must be strangling the finances of
the illegal armed groups just as Plan Colombia is peaking in potency.
To let the illegal armed groups off the hook at this key stage would
be the height of irresponsibility.

The United States should continue funding the eradication and
interdiction programs that are already up and running. But it also
should throw its support behind Colombia's efforts to propagate state
presence nationwide, taking the ground away from the illegal armed
groups. This requires a major expansion of police, justice and human-
rights institutions.

When the state is present and takes responsibility for security, fewer
people are killed, kidnapped or displaced. The present Colombian
government is the most determined ever to rise to this challenge. The
population stands squarely behind its approach, and the United States
should, too.

Mike Spagat is a professor of economics at the University of London's
Royal Holloway College.