BOGOTA'S DARK SIDE

Re: U.S. policy on the so-called "drug war" in Colombia ("U.S. military
involvement in Colombia may change," March 18, Tod Robberson.

The guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia certainly are
what you might call "involved" in drug trafficking. However, their
involvement is quite minimal and primarily only in certain isolated regions
of Colombia. Former Ambassador Myles Frechette has recognized as much many
times.

It is also very interesting to hear Gen. Barry McCaffrey's spokesperson
say, "We are certainly not going to intervene in the way the Colombian
military handles their affairs." Yet almost 10,000 Colombian soldiers have
been trained at the School of the Americas, hundreds of others at other
military bases, hundreds of "advisers" sent to Colombia to teach
counterinsurgency (beginning with "Plan Lazo" in the early '60s) and over
$1 billion in military aid sent to Colombia in the last 10 years.

A much more serious problem in Colombia is the total lack of respect for
the most basic human rights. Colombia has averaged about 3,000 political
murders per year for the last 11 years. Seventy percent of those murders
find responsibility with the Colombian military, police and the
paramilitary death squads it created and with whom it openly cooperates.
The left political opposition in Colombia has been decimated. Since 1985
when it was founded, over 4,000 members of the tiny political party
Patriotic Union have been murdered.

Unfortunately, as was the case in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and the
contras, the U.S. military has steadfastly supported, trained and armed the
forces responsible for this bloodbath. If the guerrillas in Colombia can be
termed "narco-guerrillas," then, quite easily, the Colombian military and
policy can as well. To the extent that these institutions have not profited
greatly from the traffic in drugs, I must point out that the two biggest
leaders of the paramilitary armies, Carlos Castano and Victor Carranza, are
heavily involved in drug trafficking to fund their counterinsurgency
operations, involvement much greater than guarding airstrips and
blackmailing traffickers.

The State Department and the Pentagon have long known these facts. Their
continued silence about it with repetitious insistence on the
"narco-guerrilla theory" raises serious questions about the real intentions
of U.S. intervention in Colombia.

MICHAEL LOPEZ, Editor, Colombia Bulletin: A Human Rights Quarterly,
Buffalo, N.Y.

THE PLANO EFFECT

I read with interest The Dallas Morning News' various excellent stories
regarding the civil war in Colombia and its increasingly widespread effects
within Colombia as well as the increase of U.S. advisers.

Colombia is confronting one of the best financed armies in the world. This
army of terrorists and mercenaries do the bidding of drug lords in exchange
for huge sums of drug money. It is difficult to imagine a more horrific
scenario than one in which the drug lords are able to displace Latin
America's oldest democracy and set up a true narco-government.

If the war in Colombia does not represent a situation in which the vital
interests of the United States are at stake, then it is difficult to
imagine when such interests are ever at risk. When Colombian President
Ernesto Samper leaves office this year, it will provide an opportunity for
the United States to expand its cooperation with the Colombian army and
counternarcotics police units. The consequences of the drug lords being
victorious justify making the war against them a truly joint one. The
potential repercussions of such joint action between Colombia and the
United States and the possible necessity of future escalation are both
alarming and obvious. However, what are the consequences of failing to
assist Colombia? The reality is our children are already dying because of
the war in the jungles of Colombia. One has only to look to Plano for a
stark and brutal confirmation of that fact.

Let us join hands with the Colombians and together stand against the forces
who poison our children and steal their childhood.

CHARLES E. WATERBURY, Arlington