He spent much of his eight-hour visit arguing that, despite widespread public skepticism, the sharply escalated U.S. presence there does not mean U.S. military intervention.

"We have no military objective," Clinton insisted in a televised speech to Colombians the day before his trip to officially release the military aid.

"This is not Vietnam, nor is it Yankee imperialism," he declared in a press conference in the city of Cartagena, in response to criticism.

Surrounded by a massive deployment of riot police and other "security" forces, Clinton arrived with a bipartisan delegation of U.S. legislators who voted to back the funding plan, including Dennis Hastert, the Republican Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The $1.3 billion in U.S. funds are part of the $7.5 billion "Plan Colombia" of the government of President André s Pastrana, who declared, "Contrary to what people think--that it is a plan for war--it is a plan for peace." He said 75 percent of the funds would go toward "social investments" rather the military forces that are battling the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN).

The U.S. aid includes 60 helicopters and other military hardware and spying equipment. It also includes U.S. military "advisors" to train Colombian army batallions that supposedly will only target "antidrug" efforts. But both Washington and the Colombian regime blame the guerrillas for the drug business, making the "war on drugs" indistinguishable from the counterinsurgency war.

The army colludes with right-wing paramilitary death squads in waging terror against peasants and workers. Feigning human rights concern, U.S. Congress approved the military package to Colombia with amendments calling for "certification" that the regime met "human rights standards."

The Clinton administration disposed of that fig leaf by signing a waiver of the amendments based on "national security." As a New York Times article put it, "The decision was an acknowledgment that the United States must put up with rights offenses that might otherwise be considered intolerable." It added, "Human rights concerns are not likely to derail what promises to be a long-term involvement."

"Go home Clinton, human rights violator!" was how demonstrators greeted the U.S. president in Cartagena. In Bogotá, the capital, some 2,000 unionists and students marched from the National University to the U.S. embassy.

The U.S. military aid "violates our national sovereignty," declared a student leader, Pablo. It will be used against the guerrillas and to impose economic austerity policies, he said.

The U.S. intervention in Colombia has prompted expressions of concern even among other capitalist governments in Latin America. Plan Colombia became a major focus of a summit meeting of 12 South American presidents held at the end of August in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. Among the most concerned about the spillover effect of the conflict was the government of Brazil, which shares a border with Colombia. Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez warned of a "Vietnamization of the Amazon" region.

The social conflict in Colombia is fueled by an economic and social crisis of unprecedented proportions. Working people there face the highest unemployment in Latin America, officially at more than 20 percent. Hit by falling world market prices for coal, coffee, gold, and other export products, the economy shrank by 3.5 percent last year, while industrial production fell by 11.2 percent. Colombia's foreign debt to U.S. and other international banks stands today at more than $34 billion, nearly twice what it was a decade ago.