Its forces are still growing. Having eliminated the democratic state, it has introduced its own government. Mr Pastrana, like his predecessor, Ernesto Samper, is now deeply unpopular. During Mr Clinton's visit, a score of Colombians died in rebel attacks, and several thousand protestors demonstrated. But other Colombians greeted him warmly.
Polls suggest that most welcome American aid.
Yet turning the Colombian armed forces into the kind of effective modern force required to defeat the FARC would require support on a much greater scale. Fear in the neighbourhood Even so, the aid is controversial. Several of Colombia's neighbours fear that the aid will prompt an escalation in the war, and that fighting, refugees and the drug trade will spill across the country's borders. Many Americans fear that they are getting dragged into a civil war. Those conditions are aimed at breaking links between the armed forces and the right-wing paramilitaries, and at ensuring that those accused of atrocities are tried in civilian, rather than military, courts.