Colombia is home to a civil con- flict which doesn't get the international attention it deserves. Last year, 23,000 people were killed. Three million have been forced to leave their homes by guerrillas or paramilitaries. Thousands of civilians are the victims of landmines. On a visit this month, I met a middle-aged man who'd had his leg blown off after the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) buried a mine in his backyard. His 14-year-old son, who had tried to help him, was killed when he trod on another landmine nearby. Yet in all the letters I receive about Colombia, I find hardly a word written against Farc.

Whatever the ideological origins of the conflict, I have no doubt that the driving force is the drugs trade.

Farc guerrillas and other paramilitary groups dominate coca cultivation in many parts of Colombia. It is now these groups, mainly Farc, that control cocaine production, not the trafficking organisations. And 80 per cent of the cocaine in Britain comes from Colombia.

The government of Alvaro Uribe is trying to bring a state presence to parts of the country where the only providers of policing or justice were previously the guerrillas or paramilitaries. The result for Uribe, in the oldest democracy in Latin America, is a 70 per cent approval rating. Observers say he is heading for an unprecedented second term in office. Yet left-wing critics in Britain say he is at the centre of a conspiracy to undermine human rights.

So what should Britain do? After my visit, I am more convinced than ever that we should continue to support the Colombian government in tackling the drugs trade, but that we should also press Uribe to do more to tackle the paramilitaries' immunity from prosecution and to implement 22 UN human rights recommendations. We should also continue to train Colombian troops in the disposal of landmines and in human rights, and to train and equip law-enforcement agencies to tackle the drugs trade. We should use every possible means to ensure our support is not diverted to undermine human rights.

I am at a loss to understand what our critics object to in all this. If we walked away from Colombia, we would undermine both our own interests and the lives of ordinary Colombians.

Bill Rammell is a Foreign Office minister