DATE=8/2/1999 TYPE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP TITLE=COLOMBIA UNDER THREAT NUMBER=6-11406 BYLINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE DATELINE=WASHINGTON EDITOR=ASSIGNMENTS TELEPHONE=619-3335 CONTENT= INTRO: Although it went almost unnoticed at the time, a plane crash that killed five U-S military men and two Colombian officers has again focused editorial comments on that nation's deadly struggle against narcotics producers. The plane, flying near the Ecuadoran border, was on a drug interdiction mission when it crashed into a mountain, a few days after John F.Kennedy Junior's plane crashed into the sea. The Colombian crash took a back seat in the media to the Kennedy crash story, but now, a series of editorials about the Colombian crash and what it symbolizes, are appearing. We get a sampling now from ____________ in today's U-S Opinion Roundup. TEXT: The plane crash took the lives of the first U-S troops to die in Colombia in about 35-years, and focused attention on the small, but growing U-S military presence in that Latin American nation. Colombia is home to some of the largest narcotics dealers in the hemisphere. In addition, it suffers the longest-running civil war in the Americas, with various guerilla factions controlling large areas of the country. Some of the guerrillas are connected to the drug dealers and provide protection for their operation. The crash evoked memories from "Dallas Morning News" editorial page associate editor Richard Estrada, of an earlier air crash in Colombia, that took the life of a U-S Army Green Beret officer. VOICE: The year was 1964. I was the young son of a U-S Army intelligence officer stationed .[in] the Panama Canal Zone. . my recent flashback about Major Mallory did not arise out of the blue. It was inevitable, given the news . that five American service personnel on active duty had perished in an airplane crash on a mountainside in Colombia. . Upon due reflection, it struck me that U-S policy in Latin America is going back to the future. The victims had been on an anti-narcotics mission. But today that fight is being made more difficult because some of the armed factions that had been operating in the 1960's still are under arms and cooperating with the drug traffickers. . what if prosecuting the drug war leads to fighting rebels in the field or helping Colombian troops fight rebels? . The need to address such questions is especially urgent because the peace initiative undertaken by Colombian President Andres Pastrana earlier this year is in shambles. . It is time for Americans to take the blinders off: The admixture of drug production and armed rebellion is yielding a giant Molotov cocktail with the potential to blow the lid off South America. TEXT: "The New York Times" says one problem with Colombia is that, with the collaboration of the drug traffickers with the guerrilla forces, the situation is much more confused than it was. VOICE: The issues have gotten confused because both sides in the political conflict benefit from drug trafficking in different ways. The largest guerrilla group controls much of the area where coca is grown and protects peasant growers. . On the other side, many top-ranking and mid-level army officials have close links to paramilitary groups, which also control drug- growing areas. Some paramilitaries are extensively involved in cocaine trafficking. Colombia's army, which has demonstrated more interest in fighting the rebels than fighting cocaine, has in the past misused American counter-narcotics aid, turning it against the guerrillas. That is why Washington must be careful about military aid . The United States has already been drawn too far into the conflict. Such new aid would widen the war. Instead, Washington should give all possible support to the peace effort. TEXT: Turning to "The Washington Times", we read, in a column by syndicated foreign affairs writer Georgie Anne Geyer, about an area of the country as large as Switzerland which has been ceded to the largest rebel group, F-A-R-C, or the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. VOICE: Behind this new reality are two developments crucial to Latin America and to the United States: One If F-A-R-C . takes power, Colombia could well become the first narco ruled state in the world; Two given such extraordinary possibilities, Colombia is already becoming the Latin American country for the next U-S involvement. . Despite the pleadings of the Colombian military for help, the United States has been unconscionably late in supporting the government forces. Washington allowed itself to be tied up in pious arguments about the military's human rights record and so, until now, essentially gave Colombia nothing -- and even decertified the country for aid until recently. Now, with every study showing clearly that there are virtually no human rights abuses by the military, and that 90 percent of the abuses are on the part of the guerrillas and the rightist paramilitaries, the United States finally is acting. TEXT: To get the view from the Midwest, we turn to the editorial pages of Ohio's [Akron] "Beacon Journal", which exclaims: VOICE: Colombia supplies 80-percent of the world's cocaine. Fighting that trade is one thing. Helping crush a rebel movement is quite another. The United States has been burned badly in such causes elsewhere over the years. Repackaging this as a good-guy government verses narco-guerillas does not exactly wash. It is more complex. In 30-years of strife, 31- thousand Colombians have died, many at the hands of military death squads. Colombia's police, judiciary and military have been as corrupt as any in Latin America. A foreign policy that inaccurately reflects what is happening .is doomed. It will fail to engender necessary popular support, here or among Colombians. Congress would better honor the five dead U-S airmen's memory by resisting any effort to draw the United States in Colombia's vicious rebel war. TEXT: On that note, we conclude this sampling of comment on the drug and rebel situation in Colombia, reflected by the recent crash of a drug interdiction flight, killing U-S and Colombian military crewmen. NEB/ANG/RAE 02-Aug-1999 16:15 PM LOC (02-Aug-1999 2015 UTC) NNNN Source: Voice of America .