Army offensive seeks to destroy FARC column

 BY JUAN O. TAMAYO

 RINCON DEL INDIO, Colombia -- The FARC guerrillas had fled their jungle camp in a hurry when the Kfir jets bombed it, judging from the bowl of lentil soup still on a table and the other gear they abandoned.

 The Colombian army soldiers hot on their trail found a clinic with a surgical table and three portable dentist's chairs; four computers; a foot-high stack of communications code books; an open-air classroom with seating for 100; a TV satellite dish; and tons of food.

 Not a bad haul for the biggest military offensive in recent memory against the FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. But the ultimate prize -- the main guerrilla force -- has so far eluded the army's soldiers, illustrating the difficulties of the counter-insurgency war being waged in Colombia's vast wilderness.

 For more than two weeks, 6,000 troops and 30 warplanes and helicopters have been chasing 2,400 FARC rebels through a huge region of savannas, jungle and coca fields in southeastern Colombia nearly one-third the size of Florida, hoping to drive the rebels into waiting army units in classic counter-insurgency "hammer-and-anvil'' operations.

 Israeli-made Kfirs and U.S. Black Hawk helicopter gunships daily pound suspected FARC positions before helicopter-borne troops land nearby.

 Their key mission is to destroy a 1,200-member rebel column that left the FARC's government-approved sanctuary July 14 with orders to hook up with another 1,200 fighters already here and launch a four-month string of attacks on towns and military bases.

 Results so far have been favorable for the army -- the deaths of the commander of the column that left the FARC zone, Octavio Salamanca, the highest rebel comandante killed in five years, and five other top FARC leaders, said Gen. Carlos Fracica, head of the army's Rapid Reaction Force.

 Some 10 deserters say the demoralized column has split into units of 50 to 200 fighters, spread around the states of Meta, Guaviare, Guainía and Vichada, trying to
 dodge combat and return to the FARC sanctuary to the southwest.

 Fracica said his troops have recovered the bodies of 25 guerrillas and suffered three casualties plus several dozen cases of malaria, but said the rebels' death toll must be higher because of nighttime air attacks on isolated guerrilla units.

 But the terrain and the familiarity of the guerrillas with the local area have hindered the military.

 "In this kind of jungle, three bandits can hide behind a single tree,'' Fracica said in an interview in his headquarters in San José del Guaviare, a drowsy town of 43,000 people 80 miles southeast of Bogotá.

 According to the army, the timing of the operation was dictated by the sudden guerrilla thrust out of the sanctuary, but it happens to coincide with an upcoming visit from a top-level Bush administration delegation due Wednesday.

 The U.S. visitors are expected to study all aspects of U.S. policy on Colombia, including whether Washington should broaden its aid to Colombia, now focused on
 counter-drug efforts, to include counter-insurgency -- a taboo for Congress members who hear echoes of Vietnam wafting out of the Colombian quagmire.

 Most of the $700 million in U.S. military aid approved by Congress last summer was earmarked for helicopters, weapons and other equipment for 3,000 troops trained by U.S. Special Forces in counter-narcotics operations.

 But those troops and helicopters are restricted to the southern states of Putumayo and Caquetá, home to half the nation's coca fields but a small part of the FARC's
 operational area.

 Colombian military officers find it hard to hide their pique with the U.S. focus on those troops, while the rest of the 146,000-member armed forces struggle against a FARC rich and powerful from protecting the cocaine trade.

 Created two years ago, the 5,000-strong Rapid Reaction Force under Fracica is Colombia's most elite counter-insurgency unit but receives neither significant U.S. training as a unit nor weapons.

 It uses helicopters bought with Colombian government dollars.

 It has been repeatedly thrown into a succession of major operations, from foot-slogging sweeps of 10,000-foot high Andean mountains to air assaults on FARC jungle redoubts, without suffering any major defeats.

 ``These are top-notch troops, the elite of the elite, and they deserve better from the United States,'' said Tom Marks, a retired U.S. Army colonel who visits Colombia often and writes for military magazines.

 Army commander Gen. Jorge Mora called the current operation ``unprecedented'' in terms of the number of troops involved, the area and its offensive nature.

 Some 4,000 Rapid Reaction troops, plus a 1,000-man counter-guerrilla brigade and 1,000 soldiers regularly stationed in the region are using a fleet of 20 U.S. and
 Russian-made transport helicopters to hopscotch across the region.

 But even army officials admit that it is difficult to find and engage guerrillas who have maintained a presence for years in this region, the capital of Colombia's coca trade until an intensive campaign with chemical herbicides pushed many growers to Putumayo.

 A FARC defector who led army troops to the rebel camp in Rincón del Indio, just north of Puerto Siare, said that the city-block sized complex of some 20 open-sided huts had been there at least two years.

 A FARC map found in the camp's bomb-shattered command hut showed a network of footpaths and dirt landing strips and left Rapid Reaction officers open-mouthed because their own up-to-date maps showed none of those features.

 In the interview, Fracica pronounced himself satisfied that his troops have broken up the FARC column and put them on the run, and downplayed reports in the Colombian media that his forces have the rebels "surrounded.''

                                    © 2001