HELPING COLOMBIA

Our position: The U.S. has no choice but to support Colombia in its
fight with rebels.

It's tragic that Colombian President Andres Pastrana has ended his
government's three-year peace overture to leftist guerillas. It's also
long overdue.

Mr. Pastrana broke off negotiations Wednesday with the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, a Marxist guerrilla group. They
left him no choice.

Hours earlier, FARC rebels hijacked a Colombian plane and kidnapped a
senator on board -- not just any lawmaker, but the president of the
Colombian Senate's peace commission. His kidnapping speaks volumes
about the rebels' contempt for the peace process. It was just the
latest in a series of attacks they carried out in the past month
despite the ongoing talks. Those attacks left 20 civilians dead.

Mr. Pastrana had staked his political reputation on ending Colombia's
38-year conflict with the rebels, which has claimed some 40,000 lives
and displaced more than a million people from their homes. In 1998, he
ceded an area the size of Switzerland to the FARC to coax it to the
bargaining table. Proving that no good deed goes unpunished, the
rebels used the haven to store arms, mount attacks and cultivate drugs.

Now Colombia faces a lengthy, bloody conflict with a widely dispersed
and well-funded army of 17,000 guerrillas -- a group the United States
has correctly branded a terrorist organization. Colombia should not be
left to wage this battle without international help.

The United States has provided more than $1 billion in military aid to
Colombia in recent years, but limited the assistance to drug-fighting
operations. The country is the source of 80 percent of the world's
cocaine and the leading supplier of heroin to the United States. With
the demise of Mr. Pastrana's peace initiative and Colombia on the
verge of a full-blown civil war, that limitation is no longer
practical. The FARC's heavy involvement in the drug trade also makes
the distinction almost pointless.

Congress and the president should lift the limitation, but condition
U.S. military assistance on respect for human rights. That aid should
continue to be restricted to weapons, training and intelligence,
rather than U.S. troops. The United States also should encourage Mr.
Pastrana to rein in right-wing paramilitaries that have terrorized
many parts of the country, and incited FARC counterattacks.

But military assistance is only part of the long-term solution in
Colombia. Mr. Pastrana also has recognized the need for social,
economic and political reform. President George W. Bush, to his
credit, would provide U.S. aid to support those goals. Florida Sen.
Bob Graham has been a leader on Capitol Hill in urging his colleagues
to fund fully the president's commitment.

The world has much at stake in Colombia. Chaos in the country would
allow more drugs to come pouring across its borders. It could
destabilize other fragile regimes in Latin America.

The United States has no choice but to stand by Colombia in its hour
of need, and encourage other countries to stand with us.