STOP COLOMBIAN TERRORISM BEFORE IT COMES HERE

A top figure in a terrorist group has told his armed fighters to target
American interests and to extort, kidnap and murder American citizens.

"The United States has declared war," he said in a radio message to armed
followers. "Your obligation is to fight them."

Instructions from a bin Laden deputy holed up in a cave somewhere? Maybe a
radical Islamic band in Pakistan? Or extremists in the land of our "ally"
Saudi Arabia?

None of the above. Wrong region.

The threat comes from our very own hemisphere, and was issued by Jorge
Briceno, military chief of the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia, known as the FARC. The communication was intercepted by Colombian
police and reported by a television station in Bogota.

So far, indications are that the FARC plans to attack American citizens in
Colombia itself. So far, no one is saying FARC plans to bring terrorism to
American soil.

And the best way to assure that that horror does not happen is for the
United States to fully support the efforts of Colombia's new president,
Alvaro Uribe, to defeat the terrorists who have brought his nation 38 years
of war in which more than 100,000 people have died.

There might be doubts about the real motives of Middle Eastern governments
that are supposedly part of the struggle against terrorism, but there can
be no doubt about Uribe. Aside from his very personal motivation - Uribe's
father was killed by terrorists two decades ago - the new president of this
Andean nation was elected by a landslide after promising voters a hard line
against terrorism.

His predecessor, Andres Pastrana, had made the mistake of believing FARC
would be open to a reasonable dialogue and would negotiate in good faith.
Pastrana turned over to the rebels a Switzerland-sized chunk of Colombia,
which FARC used as a base to conduct terrorist attacks in the rest of the
nation. Pastrana came to his senses when he called off talks this past
February. Violence has intensified since.

In fact, earlier this month FARC attacked the Colombian Congress while
Uribe's inauguration ceremony was being held, killing 21 people in a shower
of mortars. It was FARC's way of showing off, of telling the nation that
even an event as supposedly secure as the swearing-in of a president was
within reach of their violence.

Although the attack sowed fear among the long-suffering people of Colombia,
it also showed FARC's own fears. Its leaders know that Uribe is no
Pastrana, not someone about to be hoodwinked into thinking Colombia's
terror groups will settle for anything short of the imposition of a Marxist
dictatorship.

That Uribe means business is clear from the measures he has taken barely a
month in office. He wants to double the size of the professional army to
100,000 and add $1 billion to annual defense spending of $3.1 billion. He
has imposed a special war tax on people and businesses with assets of more
than $60,000 and has promised to train a network of 100,000 civilians to
act as police auxiliaries.

The government is fighting not only the left-wing FARC and the smaller
National Liberation Army, but also right-wing paramilitaries and drug
traffickers who shift allegiances from left to right depending on political
expedience.

The United States can play a helpful role. In August, Congress approved a
White House recommendation that allows the Colombian armed forces to use
American military aid directly against the left- and right-wing terrorists,
ending an absurd requirement that it only be used in anti-drug operations.

The mess in Colombia was made by Colombians and can only be cleaned up by
Colombians. And unlike the Middle East, there is no question about whose
side the vast majority of Colombians are really on. But they cannot do it
without American political and military support. It's the only way to clean
the mess in Colombia, before it becomes the Colombian mess in the United States.