The $1.3 billion Colombian aid package, which was approved by the House and Senate and signed into law by President Clinton on July 13, provides Colombian troops with arms and training to fight its ongoing war against drugs and leftist guerrillas. This funding is a portion of President Clinton's calls for $3.5 billion in assistance from the international community over the next three years for economic stability and narcotics control in Colombia. President Clinton released the funds in late August, just prior to his visit to Colombia, despite the fact that Colombia does not meet five out of the six human rights conditions required by Congress to qualify for aid. Justifying his action as a matter of national security, Clinton argued that the aid was necessary to help President Andrés Pastrana's government improve human rights conditions. This U.S. aid package provides new counter-narcotics equipment including radar, aircraft and airfield upgrades, as well as new Black Hawk and Huey helicopters. This will more than double U.S. government help for Colombia, which is already the third largest recipient of U.S. aid.

Colombia's 36 year civil war has been funded in large part by drug barons, who have developed extensive networks for the manufacture and export of drugs. Colombia is now the world's largest leading supplier of cocaine and supplies four-fifths of the cocaine sold in the U.S. In 1989, President George Bush met with the presidents of Colombia, Bolivia and Peru in Cartagena, Colombia to devise strategies for assisting the Andean countries in their war on drugs. The aid packages produced at this summit included money for aerial spraying and drug interdiction.

In 1996 and 1997, after determining that the Colombian government of President Ernesto Samper was not taking adequate steps to halt the drug trade, President Clinton "decertified" Colombia and cut U.S. military aid in half for those years. Decertification ended within a year as steps were taken to reduce corruption and human rights violations in the military. Since 1997, and following the election of pro-business President Andres Pastrana, U.S. aid to Colombian anti-narcotics efforts has increased steadily.

But statistics show that the new agreements and aid packages have done little to halt drug cultivation and trafficking. In fact, coca leaf production in Colombia rose to 81,400 tons in 1998 compared with 33,900 tons in 1989. Opponents to Clinton's aid plan question whether U.S.-supported fumigation measures are effective. Guerilla insurgency groups now dominate 40 percent of the national territory of Colombia, and spraying crops leads peasants to find new tracts of land deeper in the Amazon region.

On One Hand...

U.S. support is essential to Colombia's war on drugs. President Pastrana's poorly equipped military has its hands full combating the leftist guerillas and the drug-funded "paramilitary" groups. His good-faith efforts at controlling the drug trade and negotiating peace need strong U.S. backing if this debilitating war is going to end.

Steps have been taken to prevent the U.S. from involving itself directly in the Colombian civil war. U.S. military personnel are only there for counter-narcotic training. Under President Pastrana's leadership, Colombia has adhered to U.S. provisions for aid. We must reward our embattled neighbor with any assistance we can provide.

On the Other Hand...

Clinton's massive and sustained plan for Colombia will only make a bad situation worse. As we expend $1.3 billion on counter-narcotics efforts, our stake in the region will rise enormously. We will find ourselves in the crossfire of an explosive conflict, which is a dangerous prospect for any third party. Over the last 36 years, the leftist insurgents have made the Amazon their home, and American troops would be fighting a fruitless anti-guerilla battle similar to the one they fought in Vietnam. President Pastrana's efforts should be rewarded but not with an enormous military effort that would risk an increasing amount of U.S. lives.

• Colombia produces 80 percent of the cocaine sold in the United States.

• Legislation containing the Colombian aid package passed in the Senate by a vote of 95 to 4.

• A U.S. government report released in August 1999 showed 10 percent of American teen-agers use marijuana or other illegal drugs - down from 1997 but still nearly double what it was in 1992.

• The administration's proposal calls for $145 million to be used over the next two years providing economic alternatives for Colombian farmers who now grow coca and poppy plants.

• Guerilla forces control roughly 40 percent of the Colombian countryside. In the past 10 years, the rebel conflict has claimed 35,000 lives.

• For the third year in a row, coca cultivation has increased, making Colombia the world's leading cultivator of coca, the plant from which cocaine is derived.

Human Rights Watch, Center for International Policy, U.S. Department of State, Dallas Morning News, AP