The New York Times

Tuesday, July 22, 1997

Tracking American Anti-Drug Aid

This week House Republicans will try to strike from next year's foreign aid bill a useful law intended to keep American weapons from falling into the wrong hands. Last year Senator Patrick Leahy sponsored a one-year law that prohibited the State Department's counter-narcotics funds from buying weapons for foreign military and police units whose personnel are credibly accused of serious human rights violations, unless those men are being prosecuted. At the direction of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, the Clinton Administration has wisely decided to apply these provisions to all American counter-narcotics aid.

The Colombian Army has declined to accept the law's conditions, and Republicans in the House, led by Representatives Benjamin Gilman and Dennis Hastert, are leading a move to keep the Leahy law from being renewed. This would essentially give in to Colombian Army pressure.

Colombia's Army has the worst human rights record in the hemisphere and poses a menace to what is left of Colombia's democracy. American aid in the past has often gone to units with particularly brutal records. Blind support for abusive units is not a good way to persuade, Colombians to get out of the cocaine business. Tough application of the Leahy law could also help encourage the military to curb its abuses and begin prosecutions of human rights violators.

Opponents of the law are using it to tar Democrats as soft on drugs. They blame it for blocking aid to Colombia's police, a valuable counter-narcotics ally with a much better human rights record than the military. The Administration argues convincingly that no aid to the police has been held up for anything to do with the Leahy law. It is blocking aid to the military - as it should.

If the Leahy law expires, the Administration ought to continue to apply its conditions on counter-narcotics aid. It should also beef up its efforts to track aid. Current efforts depend too much on the word of the recipient generals. There are other, more credible sources of information about abusive soldiers who receive weaponry. In Colombia, the United States could work more closely with the United Nations human rights office there and some respected human rights groups. Aggressive monitoring is necessary to prevent the Leahy law from providing a false sense of security about the uses of American aid.