DON'T LET COLOMBIA'S PARAMILITARIES SKATE

Human-Rights Abusers Should Pay For Their Crimes

Colombia shouldn't let AUC paramilitaries or anyone else involved in
large-scale human-rights violations, terrorist acts or narco-
trafficking buy their way out of punishment for such vicious crimes.

We staunchly support Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's strong
military campaign against illegal armies and continued U.S. military
aid for his efforts to secure the nation. He shouldn't go soft now,
when that campaign is showing results and guerrillas and the AUC are
being pressed as never before. Nor should the United States permit a
policy that would offer de facto immunity for the leaders of groups on
the State Department's terrorist list.

It's one thing to offer amnesty to players -- mostly the foot soldiers
of illegal armies, many of them recruited as children -- as an
incentive to defect when there is no evidence that they participated
in atrocities. That's common worldwide and already available to
insurgents in Colombia today. Offering de facto immunity to the worst
offenders is quite another story. That may seem like a short cut to
peace in Colombia, which has been riven by uncivil violence for four
decades. But in the long run the country has to strengthen its rule of
law and democratic institutions, not weaken them by giving notorious
killers an easy out-of-jail card.

Colombian society will also have to face the truth of its ugly past if
it hopes to one day reconcile its war wounds. As Latin American
countries such as Peru, Chile and Argentina are realizing now,
sweeping atrocities under the rug doesn't make them go away. Decades
later, countries remain torn as victims continue to call for justice.

Under Mr. Uribe's proposed legislation, however, notorious
human-rights abusers could avoid prison by serving parole or house
arrest, doing community service, paying reparations to victims'
families or advocacy groups or turning over their land. First in line
to benefit would be the 13,000 AUC paramilitaries who have been
negotiating their gradual demobilization by 2005 -- even though
notoriously brutal AUC forces have been implicated in many massacres
in remote villages and the killing of two presidential candidates,
among other atrocities.

Mr. Uribe didn't help matters, either, when he recently accused human-
rights groups of being allied with terrorists.

The real terrorists are the AUC and FARC and ELN leftist guerrilla
groups, all on the U.S. terrorist-group list. This troika of practiced
human-rights abusers finances their violence by narco trafficking.
Indicted by the United States last year, Carlos Casta=F1o and two
other AUC leaders stand accused of running an enterprise that smuggled
17 tons of cocaine in five years, and U.S. extradition efforts
shouldn't wane. Other drug dealers reportedly have bought memberships
in the AUC, hoping to keep their illicit profits and avoid prison via
the legislation.

The United States has been a good ally to Colombia, but the U.S.
position also has been clear: Indicted drug traffickers and gross
human-rights violators shouldn't be let off the hook. Let's hope
President Uribe heeds the message.