Senate panel told of expansion

BY TIM JOHNSON

  WASHINGTON - The largest rebel group in Colombia is extending its reach around South America, establishing links with radicals in Peru and Bolivia and setting up a presence in a lawless area of Paraguay, a Senate panel was told on Tuesday.

  The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia insurgents also maintain strong ties with drug traffickers in Suriname and Brazil, a senior Bush administration official
  testified.

  ''The tentacles of the FARC extend well beyond the boundaries of Colombia,'' Army Brig. Gen. Galen Jackman told the Senate caucus on international drug trafficking.

  Jackman's remarks, and testimony from a senior State Department official and the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, appeared designed to persuade
  legislators that thriving outlaw groups enmeshed in the drug trade in Colombia have become a regional menace. The officials also suggested that U.S. citizens may be under increasing peril.

  ''It is the case that we saw some evidence that the FARC was intent on actually harming some Americans in Venezuela,'' Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told senators at the hearing. Armitage did not say when the threat occurred.

  SPREADING REACH

  Gen. Jackman, who is director of operations for the U.S. Southern Command, the South Florida-based headquarters for U.S. military operations in Latin America,
  outlined what he said was the Colombian rebels' spreading reach. ''There is intelligence that they have worked with Sendero Luminoso in Peru, with illegal armed groups in Bolivia, and have some presence in the tri-border area in Paraguay,'' he said.

  Sendero Luminoso, a Maoist insurgency, created havoc in Peru in the 1980s. In the past year, the group has appeared to be reviving, fueled by proceeds from drug trafficking.

  LAWLESS HAVEN

  The region of Paraguay that abuts Argentina and Brazil is a lawless smugglers' haven where Middle East terrorist organizations are known to have a foothold.

  ''It's clear, based on the intelligence that we have, that they [the FARC] are involved with other terrorist organizations in Latin America to facilitate those things that they need, primarily arms, ammunition, medical supplies, those types of things,'' Jackman said.

  In a sign of FARC involvement in drug processing, Colombian authorities in March found seven tons of semi-processed and refined cocaine at three hidden laboratories in a demilitarized area that guerrillas were forced to give up a month earlier, DEA Administrator Asa Hutchinson said.

  So far, he said, FARC rebels rely on Brazilians and other foreign traffickers to move cocaine out of Colombia.

  ''That's something we have to watch very carefully [to see] if they move into taking over transportation routes for trafficking organizations to a larger extent,''
  Hutchinson said.

  In a separate written statement submitted to senators, Hutchinson cited ''significant ties'' between the FARC and major drug traffickers in Brazil and Suriname.

  One alleged member of the insurgency, Eugenio Vargas Perdomo, was arrested in Suriname June 18 and extradited to the United States on drug trafficking charges. Vargas, who is in jail in Washington awaiting trial, is the first alleged FARC rebel to face U.S. justice. Federal prosecutors in his case say he was caught with several handguns, a satellite telephone, a global positioning system device and $370,000 in cash.

  VIOLENCE SPILLOVER

  Armitage, in a written statement, told the senators that the FARC and two other outlaw groups in Colombia are not terrorist organizations with a global reach.

  ''This is not al Qaeda or Hezbollah,'' the statement said, referring to Middle East terrorist groups. ``But the reach of their drugs is certainly global.''

  Concerns about the spillover of Colombia's violence is particularly acute in Ecuador, which shares a 400-mile border with Colombia. Ecuador's national police chief, Jorge Molina, said Tuesday that authorities have detected at least eight cells with links to the FARC or right-wing paramilitary groups.

  Molina blamed an Aug. 28 explosion outside of a McDonald's restaurant in Guayaquil to a group with links to Colombia. The blast injured three people.