Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, on a one-day visit to Colombia, told officials that the U.S. would support Colombia in resuming patrol flights where pilots can shoot down planes suspected of ferrying drugs. The program was shut down after a Peruvian jet shot down a private plane carrying U.S. missionaries.

Although a White House statement said that Colombia has "put in place appropriate procedures to protect against loss of innocent life," the announcement did not specify these safeguards.

It is possible that the surveillance planes will be observed by a bilingual American, orders to shoot down a plane will now only come from Colombia's air force commander, Gen. Hector Fabio Velasco, and planes will have to be within Colombian airspace. Some American officials, however, have been prodding Colombia to dismiss Gen. Velasco because of the air force's role in the 1998 bombing of the village of Santo Domingo, in which 18 civilians were killed. Washington has banned aid to the air force unit responsible for the bombing.

Human Rights Watch officials also say the Colombian patrol program violates U.S. law-enforcement principles on use of force - which are limited to imminent threats - and that the program is equivalent to extra-judicial executions.

The Colombian government has received $2.5 billion from Washington, largely in military aid, since 2000. Colombia is likely to get $700 million more this year. Yet the Colombian drug trade, which supplies most of the cocaine entering the United States, has not successfully been reduced. Human rights organizations across the world agree that the Colombian military collaborate with paramilitary forces. The paramilitary forces are said to be responsible for most of the human rights abuses against civilians, are on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations, and control a large proportion of the drug trade in Colombia.