"I was shocked with what I found - many infringements of human rights, people living in fear and a complex web of armed violence..."

- the Right Reverend Michael Turnbull, Bishop of Durham

THINK of Colombia and what comes to mind? Coffee? Middlesbrough footballer Hamilton Ricard? Newcastle's Faustino Asprilla? Or drugs?

Colombia exploded onto the world's consciousness a month ago with the horrific pictures of a woman about to be killed by a "necklace bomb". Guerillas clamped a three-inch tube filled with explosives around her neck and ordered her husband to pay a £5,000 ransom. The police were called and, as one of their technicians tried to defuse the device, it exploded, killing him and decapitating the woman.

This caused the suspension of the peace talks between Colombia's fragile government and the rebels who have been waging a civil war for 36 years. It has cost 36,000 lives.

Colombia is known as the "gateway to South America". More strategically, it is also in the US's backyard. And the Americans are getting anxious, very anxious.

So is the Bishop of Durham. "My interest in Colombia started after a visit there some years ago with an interchurch/non-governmental organisation delegation. I was shocked with what I found - many infringements of human rights, people living in fear and a complex web of armed violence stemming from the then Government, paramilitaries and highly organised gangsters," says the Rt Rev Michael Turnbull. "I visited the scene of a murder of several youths shortly after the crime and attended their funerals. I witnessed whole communities living in fear and poverty because of the control of drug rings."

Since his visit, the Bishop has followed the efforts of the British Government to assist in an aid plan to provide peace and order to Colombia. On Monday there was a meeting in London of European governments and institutions at the House of Commons, including Christian Aid, the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development (Cafod), Oxfam, Save the Children, Amnesty International and others, who made representations regarding the current Plan Colombiano. This has been devised by the Colombian government with US backing of $1.3bn. Most of this is in military aid to combat the Colombian drugs industry - the country is a major supplier of cocaine - which sounds fair enough. However, the Marxist Revolutionary Army Forces of Colombia (Farc) which is the main guerilla force with 17,000 members, relies on the drugs industry - and kidnapping - for its income. Therefore, the Americans have to break Farc to break the drugs industry.

But the biggest worry of the aid agencies is that this is largely a military plan. There is a lack of humanitarian conditions to the aid package.

As the Bishop of Durham says: "My concern arises lest the aid, which is desperately needed to alleviate poverty and safeguard human rights, is channelled into the provision of arms which could then escalate the military activity."

Of Colombia's 34 million people, 18 million live in direst poverty.

The military escalation worries senior US advisors who draw comparisons between Colombia and Vietnam as the Clinton administration becomes sucked deeper into the conflict.

The Washington Post recently reported that, ironically, the difference between Colombia and Vietnam is that Colombia matters strategically and immediately to the United States. It is the keystone in an arch of troubled countries in the Western hemisphere, from Venezuela at one end, through the Panama Canal, the fragile Central American States and Mexico at the other. Colombia is seen in the US as at the forefront of northern Latin America's plunge into institutional decay. Indeed, drugs that originate or pass through Colombia have done far more harm to Americans than war ever did. More importantly, oil from Venezuela and Columbia is crucial to the economic welfare of the US.

Wearing my Quaker hat and representing the Bishop and the Durham Diocese, I am to accompany a Christian Aid Parliamentary delegation to the jungle area of northern Colombia, to attend conferences and meet diplomatic personnel involved in the problem of internal refugees - whole populations who are returning home after uprooting their communities to escape massacres. Last year, 288,000 people were evicted from their homes by activists from both the right and the left of the political spectrum.

The UN High Commission for Human Rights in Bogota, the Colombian capital, stated that in 1999, 402 massacres occurred in the country and currently 12 people are being killed daily as a result of the political conflict.

The bloodied walls of the houses and huts are adorned with graffiti, hastily drawn murals of chainsaws indicating how the Colombian paramilitaries maim their victims and terrify them into submission and co-operation with their cause. As always in war, the civilian innocents suffer more than anyone.

In preparation for a meeting of European governments in Madrid in early July, the Bishop of Durham has given the Government notice that he will today ask in the House of Lords what it intends to do at the conference in Spain. The Bishop will also ask more detailed supplementary questions.

Nothing anyone can say could describe the human rights crisis that is taking place. The words of any agency or government have to be superseded by the implementation of aid packages. The drugs issue is not the cause of the upheaval - it is the result.

I am nervously looking forward to travelling down river, through mosquito infested areas, with the Conservative shadow spokesman for International Development Gary Streeter and his LibDem counterpart Jenny Tongue. The time constraints of Governmental office, alas, has prevented similar participation from anyone in New Labour.

However, this is no expenses-paid freebie for politicians. We are sleeping with the displaced communities that have struggled to survive, and who with incredible bravery are now standing up to the menace of violence that has shattered their lives. The women have buried too many husbands and loved ones. Too many children have been forced to carry weapons and have died for a cause they cannot understand.

Colombian journalist Constanza Ardila Galvis said recently: "It is easy to start a war, but so difficult to end it."

The international community has the opportunity to make a real difference to building a just and peaceful society in Columbia. The Diocese of Durham is encouraging that process.

l GLEN REYNOLDS is co-warden of the Friends Meeting House in Skinnergate, Darlington, and an advisor to the Bishop of Durham on development issues. A second article will appear on his return from Colombia.