Drug-Dealing Rebels Take Toll on Army

                  By Douglas Farah
                  Washington Post Foreign Service
 
                  Washington's fears that the corruption-ridden Colombian military may be
                  losing a war to Marxist rebels who receive much of their income from drug
                  traffickers has caused the United States to step up its involvement with the
                  Colombian armed forces, despite their history of human rights abuses.

                  The U.S. aid package will provide training and partial funding for a
                  1,000-man army counter-narcotics brigade as well as a CIA-sponsored
                  intelligence center and listening post deep in Colombia's Amazon jungle,
                  according to U.S. and Colombian officials.

                  The aid comes on top of training that has been provided to the Colombian
                  military on a smaller scale by U.S. Special Forces for several years under a
                  program of joint exercises by the U.S. military and its counterparts around
                  the world.

                  The decision to "cautiously reengage" the Colombian military, in the words
                  of one senior U.S. official, marks a significant shift in U.S. policy toward
                  the violence-wracked Andean nation of 37 million that supplies roughly 80
                  percent of the cocaine and 60 percent of the heroin sold in the United
                  States. Drug-related corruption has long reached into the highest ranks of
                  the Colombian officer corps.

                  After working closely with the Colombian military in the late 1980s and
                  early '90s, the United States largely cut off direct aid, citing human rights
                  abuses. While the Special Forces training has continued, the bulk of U.S.
                  money to fight drug trafficking has been steered to the country's national
                  police force.

                  Human rights organizations charge that the United States, in returning to a
                  posture of greater cooperation with the Colombian military, is rewarding an
                  army with one of the worst human rights records in Latin America while
                  risking entanglement in the country's long-running civil war.

                  But U.S. officials say they have little choice given the growing involvement
                  in drug trafficking of Colombia's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary
                  Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). In seeking to establish a Marxist
                  state, FARC relies on drug revenues to finance its increasingly
                  sophisticated arsenal of weapons and its intelligence-gathering and
                  communications gear.

                  "We are committed to maintaining the line between counterinsurgency and
                  counter-drugs, because we are not in the counterinsurgency business," said
                  one U.S. official. "But to the degree counter-drug efforts bring us into
                  conflict with the guerrillas, so be it. . . . That is the price we pay for [giving
                  this aid] and the price the guerrillas pay for being involved with drug
                  trafficking."

                  Adding urgency to the U.S. effort is a startling series of defeats suffered by
                  the Colombian army. In one battle last summer, FARC rebels killed or
                  captured 125 of the 152 members of an elite counterinsurgency unit and
                  made off with hundreds of automatic rifles, night-vision gear and tens of
                  thousands of rounds of ammunition, according to U.S. and Colombian
                  sources.

                  Of the trickle of aid that the United States has provided to the Colombian
                  military in recent years, almost all has gone to the air force and navy, rather
                  than the army, which has been linked to right-wing paramilitary death
                  squads. The United States has channeled most of its counter-drug
                  assistance to the National Police, which, under the leadership of Gen.
                  Rosso Jose Serrano, has improved its human rights record and is now
                  considered one of the world's premier counter-narcotics forces.

                  In fiscal 1998 the United States gave the police $289 million, up from
                  $180 million the year before, making Colombia one of the largest
                  recipients of U.S. aid. In contrast, the military received $40 million, of
                  which $30 million was used to maintain two radar bases to monitor
                  suspicious flights from Peru and Bolivia.

                  Under current rules governing U.S. aid to the Colombian military, only two
                  small army units whose rosters have been screened for human rights
                  abusers are permitted to use American-supplied equipment -- and they are
                  restricted to an area known as "the box," which includes the prime
                  coca-producing areas of the southern half of the country.

                  Under the new plan, which was formulated by U.S. Defense Secretary
                  William Cohen and his Colombian counterpart, Rodrigo Lloreda, during a
                  meeting in Cartagena, Colombia, earlier this month, the new
                  counter-narcotics brigade will be able to operate throughout the country.
                  The brigade is expected to be ready for action by mid-1999.

                  To pay for the brigade, the Colombian military has asked the United States
                  for $1.3 billion over five years. U.S. officials say they are unlikely to
                  provide the full amount requested but are committed to training the unit and
                  providing some equipment.

                  The evolving relationship between the U.S. and Colombian armed forces
                  has alarmed human rights spokesmen. "This is a very dangerous signal that
                  the United States is willing to engage a military without measures being
                  taken to improve human rights performance," said Winifred Tate of the
                  Washington Office on Latin America. "It is very troubling."

                  Tate and others cited a recent incident in which air force helicopters
                  rocketed a remote village in Arauca province while pursuing guerrillas,
                  killing at least 17 civilians, including four children. The government has
                  promised to investigate and the U.S. State Department is following the
                  situation.

                  Congressional critics, meanwhile, express concern that the Pentagon is
                  driving the new policy without the adequate engagement of Congress, the
                  State Department or the White House.

                  A White House official acknowledged the criticism, saying, "Colombia
                  poses a greater immediate threat to us than Bosnia did, yet it receives
                  almost no attention. So policy is set by default."

                  One thing U.S. officials agree on is that the rebels are increasingly
                  important in protecting the drug trade. According to U.S. and Colombian
                  intelligence officials, the FARC earns about $500 million per year by
                  protecting the cocaine and heroin trade.

                  While the government and military have a long history of corruption by
                  drug traffickers in exchange for political favors and impunity, the FARC
                  derives a significant portion of its income by protecting cocaine
                  laboratories and clandestine airstrips used by drug traffickers and from
                  collecting taxes on coca and opium crops, the raw material for cocaine and
                  heroin.

                  Colombia's two main rebel groups are the oldest of their kind in Latin
                  America, having battled the Bogota government for four decades. In the
                  last few years, the organizations have grown in strength and numbers, with
                  about 20,000 fighters between them, and now wield significant influence in
                  roughly half the country. The smaller of the two groups, the National
                  Liberation Army, does not play as significant a role as the FARC in drug
                  trafficking.

                  On the other side of the conflict, the paramilitary organizations, which often
                  are protected by the military, also finance their activities through
                  drug-related activities, U.S. and Colombian officials said.

                  The Clinton administration's willingness to engage the military is driven in
                  part by improved relations with President Andres Pastrana, who took
                  office in August. His predecessor, Ernesto Samper, was suspected of ties
                  to the Cali drug cartel and treated as a pariah.

                  While the situation on the ground has been deteriorating in recent months,
                  the United States and Colombia have tried to come up with a strategy to
                  help the Colombian army with its training and intelligence gathering.

                  "It is a mystery to us how you can fight a war for 40 years yet do just
                  about everything wrong on the battlefield," said one U.S. official with
                  experience in Colombia. "There is no national strategy, the intelligence is
                  terrible, morale is low and leadership almost nonexistent."

                  Administration officials acknowledge that their ability to influence the
                  conflict's outcome is limited because there is no political backing for
                  sending U.S. advisers to help the military conduct operations against the
                  guerrillas.

                  "Currently there is a consensus in the United States to support a
                  counter-drug strategy in Colombia," said a senior U.S. official. "But that
                  consensus risks being broken if we push policy in the counterinsurgency
                  direction, although we may go in that direction in the future."

                  Some argue the distinction between drug traffickers and the insurgents has
                  become so murky that it should be abandoned altogether.

                  David Passage, who recently retired as the State Department's director of
                  Andean Affairs and who served in both El Salvador and Vietnam, argues
                  that the Colombian military needs U.S. aid to regain control of the
                  countryside -- a goal he said could be achieved with a few dozen military
                  advisers "and a small investment."

                  "We are handcuffing ourselves," Passage said. "If the United States
                  believes what it says it believes [about the FARC], instead of walking
                  away because the [army] is unclean we should roll up our sleeves and try
                  to make a difference."

                  Andy Messing, a retired Special Forces major who advises several
                  conservative members of Congress on Colombia, goes further, arguing that
                  a much broader U.S. engagement with the Colombian military is the only
                  way to stave off a rebel victory.

                  Messing, who heads the National Defense Council Foundation and in
                  1996 began warning Congress and the Pentagon of the FARC's rapidly
                  growing strength, said that unless Washington commits military advisers to
                  the conflict, as it did in El Salvador, the FARC could topple the
                  government within a year.

                  As the government's losses mounted in recent fighting, Pastrana initiated
                  peace talks with the FARC. Last month, he sought to build confidence
                  among guerrilla leaders by pulling most police and soldiers out of the
                  Switzerland-size area of southeastern Colombia where the rebels are most
                  active.

                  At the same time, he moved to restructure the military, naming Gen.
                  Fernando Tapias, one of the few senior leaders to condemn paramilitary
                  organizations, as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.

                  At their Dec. 2 meeting in Cartagena, Cohen and Lloreda announced a
                  bilateral military task force to promote "the modernization of the
                  Colombian military to restructure it [and] . . . to focus on its mobility, its
                  sustainability, its intelligence capabilities, its command and control."

                  Lloreda said the two armies "will develop a project . . . to create a special
                  army unit which will support the police in Colombia in counter-narcotics
                  operations." The Colombian defense minister was in Washington recently
                  to seek money and equipment -- including Blackhawk helicopters -- for
                  the new counter-drug brigade.

                  "They came with a shopping list of about $1.3 billion over five years, and
                  we had to tell them to return to planet Earth," said a Pentagon official. "But
                  we can train the unit, we are glad to and we told them that clearly."

                  U.S. officials said they emphasized to the Colombians that the aid could
                  only be given to the unit after U.S. and Colombian officials had screened it
                  for officers with a history of corruption and human rights abuse. The
                  officials said the two sides also would train and equip a joint police-army
                  intelligence center at the counter-narcotics base of Tres Esquinas in
                  Colombia's remote Caqueta region. Although the base is considered so
                  vulnerable to attack that U.S. officials are not permitted to spend spend the
                  night, the CIA will supply the center with equipment to monitor rebel
                  communications and movements, according to knowledgeable sources.