Eager to demonstrate solidarity with Colombia's fragile government, Clinton also comes bearing gifts, $1.3 billion in aid, ostensibly to expand the war against drugs.

To receive these funds, the Colombian government was supposed to meet seven human rights conditions imposed by Congress. It met only one. Undeterred, President Clinton signed a waiver that released the aid to the Colombian government.

That decision drew angry responses from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Washington Office on Latin America. Together, they issued an unprecedented joint report that criticizes Clinton's decision and condemns Colombian government and paramilitary forces for committing major human rights abuses and violations in a continuing 36-year civil war.

With the prospect of American aid pouring into Colombia, peace talks have stalled and the violence on all sides has increased. To ensure President Clinton's safety, the Colombian government has deployed a fleet of patrol ships, a squadron of choppers, and encircled the meeting place in the coastal city of Cartagena with 5,000 army troops. Meanwhile, the Secret Service, unwilling to permit the president to sleep even one night in Colombia, has flown in a phalanx of protectors.

Few people in Colombia believe that U.S. military helicopters will be used to fight the growth and traffic in coca leaves. Leftist rebel forces argue that the United States is entering a civil war on the side of the government. When American soldiers fly above the rebels, assisting government troops, they will become military targets, subject to antiaircraft fire.

Some Colombian intellectuals and journalists, moreover, suspect that America's real ``natural security interest'' is the protection of multinational corporations' access to huge oil reserves, inconveniently located on peasant lands in rebel-controlled areas of the north.

As America's involvement in Colombia's civil war deepens, a growing number of political leaders -- as well as ordinary citizens -- are questioning the wisdom of Clinton's foreign policy.

In California, Sen. Barbara Boxer originally voted for the aid package. But she also vigorously supported two amendments that would have reduced funds used for military intervention. Now she has publicly criticized Clinton for signing the human rights waiver and releasing military aid to Colombia.

Tom Campbell, a Republican candidate for the Senate, has been a leading voice of dissent. His rival, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, supported the aid package, which originally had greater provisions to protect human rights. At the time, she said that the ''ongoing narco-crisis in Colombia and the overall crisis of drugs in America represent an important threat to our nation's security and stability.'' Since then, she has voiced no public protest against plans for military intervention.

And so, America's entry into the Colombian war begins. In the past, Americans have harshly judged those elected officials who failed to speak up before American soldiers died. The time for dissent is now.

©2000 San Francisco Chronicle

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