Pubdate: Mon, 27 Aug 2001
Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch (VA)
Copyright: 2001 Richmond Newspapers Inc.
Contact:  http://www.timesdispatch.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/365
Author: John Hall, Times-Dispatch Columnist

DRASTIC REVISION SEEN IN COLOMBIAN MISSION

WASHINGTON The administration appears to be edging closer to a decision to 
abandon the Clinton approach to Colombia, which was a typical half-fish, 
half-fowl policy confining the U.S. military effort there to the war on drugs.

What the Bush team has in U.S. commitment, hasn't become clear yet. But it 
isn't going to decrease.

Currently the sole mission of U.S.-trained troops there is to protect an 
aerial eradication program and to raid drug labs in the jungle.

But, increasingly, it is becoming impossible to separate that mission from 
another one - which is to prop up the weak democratic government of 
Colombian President Andres Pastrana and maybe give it a little spine.

Pastrana, rather than fight, has ceded vast stretches of territory to the 
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - known by its Spanish acronym FARC 
- - in a futile effort to buy peace.

The result is that, despite more than $1 billion in aid from the United 
States, the guerrillas are stronger and more brazen than ever, with 90,000 
civilians now under their control in a territory the size of Switzerland.

U.S. officials will try to convince Pastrana that his policy since 1998 of 
ceding control of this area by calling it a demilitarized zone is a failure.

But with a year left in office, Pastrana indicates he will renew the 
rebels' lease in the hope that they will come to terms. Pastrana probably 
will try to hold angry U.S. representatives at bay by extraditing a former 
leader of the Medellin cocaine cartel, Fabio Ochoa.

But Fabio isn't a threat anymore. The threat is the potential collapse of 
civil order in Colombia and the possible loss of an important democratic 
ally in the hemisphere.

The arrest of three suspected Irish Republican Army terrorists in Colombia 
Aug. 11 has heightened U.S. concern that a major center of narco-terrorism 
just a morning flight away from Miami is being trained in urban warfare. 
The State Department is sending a team of interagency specialists into 
Colombia this week to raise U.S. concerns and to try to stop the 
hemorrhaging of concessions from Pastrana to the guerrillas.

At the Defense Department, officials said Colombia has risen to one of the 
top priority regional concerns facing the new administration. The drift 
seems to be toward a drastic revision of the U.S. mission there to permit 
closer cooperation with the Colombian military in fighting the guerrillas. 
In Congress, as always, there is heavy concern about the quagmire potential 
of Colombia. Any escalation of U.S. involvement could run into trouble.

The IRA's links to the Colombian rebels - which the capture of the three 
suspected explosives experts certainly implies - is an indication that the 
guerrillas might be on the verge of spreading their war into Colombian 
cities, including Bogota, some security experts believe. There are even 
reports that a "super bomb" is being developed by the guerrillas. The trio 
- - Niall Connolly, said to be the Sinn Fein representative in Cuba, James 
Monaghan and Martin McCauley - had been in Colombia six weeks, moving 
around FARC training camps.

As if to emphasize the importance of its captives, the three were taken to 
the infamous La Modelo, Colombia's highest security and most dangerous 
jail. They were being held without bail despite their lawyers' claim that 
they are in danger of being killed in La Modelo to shut them up. The prison 
has already been the scene of a bloody battle between guerrillas and 
right-wing paramilitaries allied with drug traffickers, in which 10 inmates 
died in a hail of grenades and automatic weapons fire.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last week that he now has come to 
view the fight against narco-trafficking and the fight against the FARC 
guerrillas as one and the same cause. Since narcotics trafficking has 
resulted in areas of Colombia not under government control, it is "a threat 
to democracy and a problem."

"By going after the very powerful and very wealthy narco-traffickers' 
source of revenue, you can have an effect conceivably on restoring to 
governments the ability to govern their countries," he said.

It sounds like the beginning of a justification for more direct and heavier 
U.S. intervention to help a friendly government put down an insurrection. 
And that sounds to many in Washington like Vietnam.
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