New York Times
Things may get a lot worse before they get any better in Colombia, the site of the bloodiest and longest-running conflict in the Americas. Last month President Andrés Pastrana abandoned a failed three-year-old peace process with the country's largest leftist guerrilla movement, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, and ordered the army to reoccupy an enormous and desolate southern area that he had ceded to the insurgents.
It was a justified move. Exploiting its safe haven to engage in drug trafficking and profitable kidnappings, the guerrilla group, known by the acronym FARC, had shown little inclination to engage in meaningful peace talks. ...
The Colombian government must show a determination to crack down on right-wing paramilitary forces that also engage in the drug trade to finance their terror with the same fervor it fights the 17,000-member FARC. The Bush administration and Congress must resist the temptation to use America's war on terror elsewhere as an excuse to more deeply involve the United States in this decades- long conflict. The United States can best help the Colombian people by conditioning any further military aid on an improvement in the army's human rights record.
Colombia holds legislative elections tomorrow and will elect a new president in May. The frustration with the stalled peace process has made public opinion more hawkish, but ultimately the only lasting solution to the country's epidemic of violence is a political settlement. The short-term hope is that increased military pressure will drive the guerrillas to a more conciliatory position, and that in waging the fight, Colombia's army can finally gain the respect of the very people it purports to defend.
Washington Times
Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe, has done everything in his power to dictate this weekend's election results. He has gotten rid of the pesky election observers from the European Union, members of the 45,000-strong army have been commanded to vote for Mr. Mugabe's ZANU-PF party, and laws have been changed to make criticism of him, or giving voice to opposition, a crime. This weekend's presidential "election" is a grand charade that Mr. Mugabe has been working months to produce -- in which he stars as candidate and voting monitor simultaneously.
Morgan Tsvangarai, the leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has posed the biggest threat to Mr. Mugabe since he came to power when Zimbabwe gained its independence from Britain in 1980. So it's no wonder that just days before the election, Mr. Tsvangarai was charged with treason for plotting to assassinate Mr. Mugabe -- a charge the opposition leader denies. Despite the fact that Mr. Mugabe's supporters have killed numerous MDC members and burned one of its offices and the building that produces its campaign material, Mr. Tsvangarai maintains a positive outlook, vowing to defeat the president despite Mr. Mugabe's use of violence against his own citizens. Though Mr. Mugabe will not likely allow anyone to replace him, even if he is voted out, we wish Mr. Tsvangarai godspeed. ...
While Mr. Mugabe's campaign of violence and vote-rigging will rob many of his countrymen of their voice this weekend, he cannot take away their desire for freedom. Mr. Mugabe's desperation is a testament to the momentum being gained by the Zimbabwean people, who are determined to change their country for the better. He hurts all of Zimbabwe by silencing them.
Boston Globe
Wittingly or unwittingly, the Bush administration has given a false label to its decision to send 200 US military advisers to the Republic of Georgia to train a Georgian ''antiterrorist'' force for operations in the lawless area of the Pankisi Gorge bordering Chechnya.
Even officials in the government of President Eduard Shevardnadze, who wants the American military trainers there, acknowledge that there may be only a couple of dozen Arab fighters among the 5,000 to 7,000 Chechen refugees in the the Pankisi Gorge. And it is not known whether any of those foreigners are members of al Qaeda. So the U.S. mission to Georgia cannot be justified as a necessary component of the global war against terrorism.
Nevertheless, the gesture of sending 200 US military trainers to Georgia is justified as a clever means of protecting that weak Caucasian country from its Russian neighbor. ...
By pretending to take at face value Putin's allegations about terrorists in the Pankisi Gorge and helping Georgia address the problem without Russian intervention, Washington is able to enhance the stability of Georgia - a country in the Caucasus that offers a safe air corridor to new U.S. military bases in Central Asia. However, the administration will have to be extremely careful not to allow the United States to become complicit in any way in the atrocities and war crimes that Russia has been committing against the Chechens.
Chicago Tribune
With strike and counterstrike escalating into almost constant bloody warfare between Israelis and Palestinians, the peace deal offered by Saudi Arabia for ending the Mideast conflict looks better by the day.
Given the intransigence and hatred on both sides, the plan is a longshot. If both sides could tame their rage for a moment, though, they might see it has potential for a breakthrough.
It offers Israel normalization of relations and commercial ties with Arab states in return for Israel's withdrawal from Arab lands it occupied in the 1967 Six-Day War.
That is a fair and appropriate basis for talks. To make this plan workable, however, it will take serious efforts by the Bush administration and the international community to address major questions about its feasibility. It's an opportunity for President Bush. It will be a major topic for Vice President Dick Cheney as he leaves this weekend for a trip to the region. And it will be a priority for Bush's special envoy, Anthony Zinni, when he returns to the Middle East next week.
The first problem is painfully obvious. After some 1,300 deaths in 17 months of fighting, how will anyone persuade Israelis and Palestinians to stop killing each other and talk peace again? ...
After so many years of bloodshed and hatred, it may well be a fool's errand to invest too much hope in this Saudi proposal. But the alternative is to invest in guns and tanks and explosives, the currency of despair.
(Compiled by United Press International)
