Giving 'em Helicopters.

Should Colombia get new U.S. military aid to fight drugs?

YES

More than a decade ago, the biggest threat to stability from within our hemisphere was Communism. Today, the Communists have been replaced by drug traffickers and the thugs they hire to protect their lucrative industry. To prevent the further escalation of this volatile situation in our own backyard, new legislation would authorize up to $1.6 billion to support alternative crop and economic development, programs to prevent drugs from entering the country, and counter-narcotics operations. I worked with human rights groups on 12 human rights provisions for this bill, including a cutoff of aid to the Colombian military if evidence is found linking it to paramilitary groups.

Of the total, some $540 million would go to aid Colombia's attack on illicit coca and opium poppy plants--partly by providing funds for helicopters. But the bill also recognizes that law-enforcement efforts must be complemented by programs to provide the desperate poor with other means for survival than drug-trafficking.

It is in our interest to support Colombia in its effort to restore peace and stability. Without a strong Colombia, narco-traffickers will flourish, an abundant and steady flow of illicit drugs will head for the United States, one of our largest export markets in the Western Hemisphere will continue to falter, and a neighboring democratic government will further erode.

--SENATOR MIKE DEWINE (R-Ohio)

NO

The proposed aid would further militarize Colombia and cause thousands of deaths.

This bill would provide hundreds of millions to the Colombian military for training and equipping new "counterdrug" battalions. It identifies drug traffickers with leftist guerrillas (using the name "narcoguerrillas") and almost totally overlooks the very extensive links between drug-trafficking paramilitaries and Colombian army units. That means the U.S. government would shower funds upon military officers and units that work in tandem with cutthroat, drug-trafficking paramilitaries.

Included among the equipment proposed to be sent to the Colombian armed forces are helicopters, radar systems, and patrol planes.

Senator DeWine refuses to acknowledge the fact that Colombian security forces collaborate heavily with paramilitaries who are responsible for over 70 percent of all human rights violations and are also big drug traffickers.

If the U.S. government truly wishes to eliminate drugs in the Western Hemisphere, a better effort should be made to provide Colombian peasants with alternatives to growing coca and opium. Such efforts aren't a panacea, but they sure beat arming the Colombian security forces in a "dirty war" that is slaughtering thousands of civilians.

--COLOMBIA SUPPORT NETWORK, a U.S. citizen group supporting human rights in Colombia