Stop the War on Colombia.

When the U.S. government goes on record opposing cease-fire zones and demilitarized zones, it becomes clear that Washington prefers war to peace.

Colombia is the next El Salvador. Torn by civil war, it is quickly becoming another chapter in the ignominious tome of U.S. meddling in Latin America. Today, U.S. policy toward Colombia is almost exactly at the same spot where U.S. policy toward El Salvador was in 1980: U.S. military aid to a brutal government is increasing dramatically; U.S. "advisers" are on the ground, "professionalizing" the armed forces; U.S. officials are sharing "intelligence" with a military that has one of the worst human rights records in the hemisphere.

"More than 1,000 civilians were killed [in 1998] by the security forces or paramilitary groups operating with their support or acquiescence," Amnesty International says in its 1999 annual report. "Many were tortured before being killed. At least 150 people `disappeared.' Human rights activists were threatened and attacked; at least six were killed. `Death squad'-style killings continued in urban areas. Several army officers were charged in connection with human rights violations; many others continued to evade accountability."

The State Department itself acknowledged in February that Colombian "government forces continued to commit numerous, serious abuses, including extrajudicial killings." Yet the United States is boosting its military aid to just these forces.

"You are unwittingly complicitous in some of the worst mass murders in the hemisphere today," says Carlos Salinas, Amnesty International's advocacy director for Latin America and the Caribbean. "If you liked El Salvador, you're going to love Colombia. It's the same death squads, the same military aid, and the same whitewash from Washington."

The only difference between El Salvador in 1980 and Colombia in 1999 is the pretext. Since the Cold War is over and fighting communism is passe. Washington needed a new excuse for helping a brutal Latin American security apparatus. That excuse is the war on drugs.

Technically, all of the military aid that the United States is sending to Colombia goes for counternarcotics efforts. And the amount of that aid is huge. Colombia is the leading recipient of U.S. military aid in Latin America, and the third largest in the world, behind only Israel and Egypt. Between 1990 and 1998, Colombia's police and military received $625 million in counternarcotics aid. This year, Colombia is receiving $289 million from Washington.

And now, the Administration--egged on by Republicans and by drug czar Barry McCaffrey (who, by the way, used to head up the U.S. Southern Command, the Latin American outpost of the Pentagon)--is considering an additional $1 billion in emergency aid primarily for Colombia.

But the Colombian police and military are not fighting a drug war. They are fighting an old-fashioned civil war against leftwing rebels who are gaining strength. This is the emergency the Pentagon worries about--not drugs. Colombia is strategically located, bordering both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. And it has vast oil and mineral reserves that multinational corporations have been exploiting for years, often under the armed guard of the Colombian military...