Pubdate: Sat, 21 Oct 2000
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2000 The New York Times Company
Contact:  229 West 43rd Street, New York, NY 10036
Fax: (212) 556-3622
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Forum: http://forums.nytimes.com/comment/
Author: Juan Forero

COLOMBIA SAYS REBELS HAVE KILLED 56 TROOPS

BOGOTA, Colombia, Oct. 20 - Fifty-four soldiers and two police officers 
have died in three days of fighting with leftist rebels in a small 
northwestern town, military officials said today. Among them, 22 died when 
their Black Hawk helicopter crashed as a ground battle raged.

The fighting, the heaviest between government troops and rebels in months, 
began on Wednesday when 500 troops from the largest guerrilla army began an 
attack on Dabeiba, a town along a strategic corridor through which guns and 
supplies arrive from Panama, 100 miles away.

Thirty-two soldiers and two police officers were killed on the ground when 
the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, attacked the town of 
50,000 people. On Thursday, in the midst of the fighting, the helicopter, 
transporting reinforcements, crashed, killing all 22 aboard. The government 
did not estimate how many guerrillas died.

The rear rotor of the copter "apparently touched the mountainside and 
produced the accident," Gen. Eduardo Herrera told El Tiempo, a newspaper 
here. The military acknowledged that the rebels had fired at the helicopter.

The heavy loss of life was seen as a blow to the military. But President 
Andres Pastrana said today to an audience at the University of the Rosario 
here, "My conviction is that the pursuit of peace has never faltered and 
that, in contrast, violence always fails."

Brig. Gen. Gabriel Eduardo Contreras, commander of the 1st Division of the 
Colombian military, called the 40-hour battle in Dabeiba a victory for his 
forces.

But as troops of the Fourth Brigade fought five rebel fronts in Dabeiba, 
another guerrilla force overran Bagado, a small river community in Choco 
Province. Seventeen police officers stationed at the barracks there when 
the assault began on Wednesday were missing on Thursday and were presumed 
to have been killed or taken hostage.

Hundreds of miles away, in southern Putumayo Province, a jungle region 
where nearly half of the coca plants in Colombia are grown, pitched 
fighting between rebels and right-wing paramilitary forces continued. More 
than 1,500 farmers caught in the struggle have fled into Ecuador, with 
hundreds of others seeking refuge in other parts of Colombia, said 
Francisco Segura, director of the Association of Municipalities of 
Putumayo, which represents mayors in Putumayo.

"People are taking their clothes, their children, a few belongings, and 
they're gone," Mr. Segura said. "The strategy is not massacres or killing. 
But it's pushing people out, getting everyone out of their homes."

The fighting is breaking out as the rebels brace for American-backed 
multibillion-dollar counternarcotics operations to begin in the 
coca-growing regions of Putumayo.

A political scientist in Bogota, Fernando Giraldo, said the rebels were 
trying to draw attention from Putumayo, where officials say the rebels 
profit handsomely from the cocaine trade. "The rebels understand that if 
they do these things near the frontiers," Mr. Giraldo said, "those 
countries will at least pressure the Colombian and American governments."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jo-D