GEORGE W. URIBE

The people of Colombia voted Sunday to elect a president committed to
fighting some of the world's most ferocious terrorists. The question now is
whether the U.S. Congress will side with average Colombians, or with the
terrorists.

Fed up after three years of failed "peace talks" with the leftist FARC
guerrillas, Colombians voted overwhelmingly for the candidate who promised
the toughest anti-terror line. Alvaro Uribe Velez, a former governor and
mayor of Medellin, won 53% of the vote in a multi-candidate field. He had
vowed to double the size of Colombia's army to 100,000 and its National
Police to 200,000.

A day after his victory, Mr. Uribe held out an olive branch, promising to
talk if the FARC first agreed to a cease-fire. Yesterday the FARC sent its
response, in the form of a car bomb that exploded outside a market in
Bogota, injuring five. The FARC, which controls huge chunks of the country
of 40 million, has made a lucrative business of kidnapping, assassination
and cocaine production.

The U.S. interest here lies in promoting democracy but especially in
preventing FARC-held parts of Colombia from becoming the world's next
narco-terror sanctuary. The Irish Republican Army has been known to operate
from the country, and sooner or later al Qaeda could get there too. In that
sense Mr. Uribe is Colombia's George W. Bush, promising to end appeasement
and take the terror war to the terrorists. After Sunday no one can doubt
Mr. Uribe will have democratic legitimacy.

Maybe not even John Conyers, Maxine Waters and other FARC sympathizers in
Congress. The U.S. has been helping Colombia with Blackhawk helicopters and
other military aid, but because of a Clinton-era restriction they can be
used only to fight drugs , not terror. The Bush Administration wants to
lift that nonsensical ban, but liberals on Capitol Hill have resisted on
grounds that the Colombian government is no better than the FARC.

Just as they did in voting against Communists in El Salvador and Nicaragua
in the 1980s, the campesinos have once again shown themselves to be smarter
than the American left.