Pubdate: Tue, 29 Aug 2000
Source: Charlotte Observer (NC)
Copyright: 2000 The Charlotte Observer
Contact:  http://www.charlotte.com/observer/
Author: Andres Oppenheimer
Note: Andres Oppenheimer is a Latin America correspondent for the Miami Herald

PUT HUMAN RIGHTS ON AGENDA IN COLOMBIA

During his one-day visit, Clinton has an unusual opportunity to send a 
message to Colombia and its nervous neighbors.

President Clinton's one-day visit to Colombia may be just a photo 
opportunity to help the Democratic Party look tough on drugs in the 
November U.S. elections, but the trip also has the potential to produce a 
dangerous backlash in Latin America.

By visiting Colombia only days after releasing $1.3 billion in military aid 
to help President Andres Pastrana of Colombia fight drug traffickers and 
their Marxist guerrilla allies, Clinton will draw international attention 
to what critics are prematurely calling a "new Vietnam."

The trip on Wednesday to the coastal city of Cartagena has unleashed a 
barrage of criticism from U.S., Colombian and other Latin American human 
rights groups.

They say the U.S. military aid package will worsen human rights abuses by 
the Colombian military and the paramilitary groups they often protect. 
That, in turn, will trigger an even more violent reaction from the more 
than 15,000 Marxist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, 
they say.

In addition, Colombia's neighbors such as Ecuador, Peru and Brazil fear 
that the U.S-backed military offensive will push drug traffickers and 
guerrillas to cross into their own territories. And President Hugo Chavez 
of Venezuela, a former army officer who sees the world through military 
lenses, fears U.S. aid will turn the Colombian army into a formidable force 
that could become a threat to Venezuela, with which Colombia has an 
unresolved border dispute.

 From what I heard in Washington this week, the White House is confident 
that U.S. television images of a triumphant Clinton embracing Pastrana as a 
hero in the war on drugs will far overshadow the three-second sound bites 
that human rights activists may get to voice their concerns.

Clinton is expected to highlight the non-military portion of the U.S. aid 
package, about $240 million that will go to fund human rights monitors, 
judicial reform and economic development projects. And he will reassure the 
world that, under U.S. law, no more than 500 U.S. military trainers and 300 
contract employees will be allowed to be in Colombia at any time, and that 
they will be barred from going into combat.

Will the world believe him? I'm not so sure. While there is a consensus 
that Colombia's war is a humanitarian catastrophe - it has already produced 
up to 1.8 million internal refugees over the past decade, according to 
human rights groups, more than Kosovo and East Timor together - many 
countries fear an escalation of the conflict.

If Clinton is looking beyond U.S. domestic politics and wants to help end 
the Colombian war, he should stress two key points during this trip:

First, he should state that as a condition for releasing the future 
disbursements of the U.S. aid package, Colombia will have to take very 
concrete human rights steps laid out by the U.S. Congress. Among them, 
suspending military commanders known to have committed human rights 
violations, and prosecuting leaders of paramilitary groups.

Second, he should make a call to encourage other Latin American nations to 
take a more active diplomatic role in the Colombian conflict.

"Latin American countries should become more engaged," says Peter Hakim, 
head of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank. "Nobody is 
asking them to send troops or money, but to make it clear to European donor 
countries that Latin Americans support the peace plan."

Clinton will have an unusual opportunity to send a message to Colombia's 
neighbors: a day later, Brazil will host a summit of all South American 
presidents. And Brazilian Foreign Minister Luiz Felipe Lampreia told me in 
a telephone interview that Brazil and other South American countries would 
"be receptive" to serving as mediators in Colombia's civil war, should 
Colombia request it.

Unless Clinton uses his visit to Colombia to speak bluntly about human 
rights and regional cooperation, his presence there will only draw new 
attention on the crisis, and make Colombia's neighbors more nervous.
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