U.S. CERTIFIES COLOMBIAN 'PROGRESS' ON RIGHTS

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell certified yesterday that the Colombian
armed forces have met the congressionally mandated requirements to suspend
and prosecute alleged human rights violators and to sever their ties with
right-wing paramilitary forces accused of civilian massacres and other
rights abuses.

Certification was required before the Bush administration could spend any
of the $104 million approved for the Colombian military in the 2002 budget.
U.S. and Colombian officials had warned in recent weeks that they were
curtailing counter-narcotics activities in the southern part of the country
because no money was available.

A State Department statement said that "both we and the Government of
Colombia recognize that the protection of human rights in Colombia needs
improvement." Certification had been held up since early this year,
officials said, while U.S. officials worked with civilian judicial
authorities in Colombia and pressured the government to take more
substantive action.

The statement yesterday said that "real progress" has been made. But human
rights groups -- including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and
the Washington Office on Latin America -- criticized the decision, saying
that the Colombian government has failed "to take even minimal steps to
meet" the congressional conditions.

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who wrote the restrictions, commended the
State Department for urging the Colombian government to do more. "But the
proof is in the results," he said, "and the results are disappointing. . .
. This certification has more to do with the fact that U.S. aid was running
out than with sufficient progress on human rights."

Congress required Powell to certify progress in three areas: suspension of
armed forces members credibly alleged to have committed gross violations of
human rights, or to have aided or abetted paramilitary groups; armed forces
cooperation with civilian judicial authorities in prosecuting and punishing
such members in civilian courts; effective measures taken to sever military
links with paramilitary forces.

Leahy and others have long been concerned that the zeal of the U.S. and
Colombian military in combating the 16,000-troop-strong leftist
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, has led them to turn a
blind eye or, in the case of the Colombian military, to collaborate with
the paramilitary United Self Defense Forces, or AUC. Pentagon assessments
have concluded that the AUC poses a greater long-term threat to Colombian
stability than does the FARC.

Formed and funded in the 1980s by landowners who charged that the military
was incapable of defending them against guerrilla attacks and extortion,
paramilitary groups were declared illegal by the Colombian government in
1989. Since then, the AUC and the FARC have become involved in the
production and export of cocaine and heroin and have been designated
"foreign terrorist organizations" by the State Department. The AUC is held
responsible by the State Department and by Colombian and U.S. human rights
groups for the majority of the thousands of civilian killings each year in
Colombia. The State Department estimates that the AUC has more than 10,000
combatants.

As evidence of progress against the paramilitary forces, a senior
administration official told reporters that the second highest ranking
officer in the Colombian Navy, Gen. Rodrigo Quinones, has been transferred
to administrative duties because of allegations of complicity in two of the
largest AUC massacres in recent years. But human rights organizations noted
that, despite the credibility of the allegations, Quinones has not been
suspended from the military nor turned over to civilian jurisdiction. Last
month, he was appointed military attache to the Colombian Embassy in Israel.