Pubdate: Wed, 26 Sep 2001
Source: Houston Chronicle (TX)
Copyright: 2001 Houston Chronicle
Contact:  http://www.chron.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/198
Author: John Otis, South America Bureau

U.S. ANTI-TERROR CRACKDOWN MAY HIT COLOMBIA GROUPS

BOGOTA, Colombia - President Bush's call for a crackdown on terrorism has 
stirred concerns among Colombians, because their nation is home to three of 
the 31 groups blacklisted by Washington as foreign terrorist organizations.

Yet, analysts are divided on how the anti-terror campaign will affect Colombia.

The South American nation has been a top foreign policy priority for the 
Bush administration. Mired in a 37-year-old civil war, Colombia produces 
much of the cocaine and heroin sold on U.S. streets.

Now, however, many observers say the country's troubles could be overlooked 
amid the hunt for Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network, blamed for the 
Sept. 11 suicide attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Others believe that a worldwide dragnet for terrorists could have a 
profound impact here, because Colombia's two leftist guerrilla armies as 
well as its illegal right-wing paramilitary force could come under closer 
international scrutiny. All three groups are on the U.S. State Department's 
terrorist list.

Although Bush specified that only terrorist organizations with a "global 
reach" will be singled out in the forthcoming battle, Secretary of State 
Colin Powell said this week that any group on the Washington list could be 
targeted. He specifically mentioned Colombia's guerrillas and paramilitaries.

"We have to treat all of them as potentially having the capacity to affect 
us in a global way, or to affect our friends and interests in other parts 
of the world," Powell said Sunday on ABC's This Week.

In Colombia, Washington's biggest concern is the 17,000-member 
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, a guerrilla organization 
that has been battling the Bogota government since the mid-1960s.

Besides earning millions of dollars through the illegal drug trade, the 
FARC regularly kidnaps civilians for ransom despite its involvement in 
peace talks with the government. The guerrillas have carried out dozens of 
massacres and threatened the lives of U.S. military personnel training 
Colombian troops.

In 1999, the rebels killed three U.S. indigenous rights activists working 
in Colombia. This year, they bombed more than 100 times an oil pipeline 
jointly operated by the Bogota government and Occidental Petroleum of Los 
Angeles.

Some say the FARC may be less likely to target U.S. citizens and business 
interests in Colombia after this month's terrorist attacks.

Already there is speculation that the FARC's public relations offices in 
Mexico City and in several European countries may be forced to shut down. 
And it could become more difficult for the FARC to purchase weapons on the 
black market, said Carlos Eduardo Jaramillo, a former Colombian peace 
commissioner.

Jaramillo predicts that Colombia's next president, who will take office in 
August, will cancel a 16,200-square-mile rebel haven created by President 
Andres Pastrana in 1998 to launch peace talks with the FARC.

Gabriel Marcella, a specialist in Latin American security issues at the 
U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Penn., said the Colombian government 
should take advantage of the zero-tolerance attitude toward terrorism to 
press the FARC to respect human rights and make serious concessions at the 
peace table.

Marcella believes that the U.S. government ought to re-evaluate its aid 
programs to Colombia. Washington is providing Bogota with $1.3 billion in 
assistance to fight the war against drugs. Many U.S. politicians have 
feared getting sucked into Colombia's guerrilla war.

"The whole notion that we can separate counter-narcotics from 
counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency policies makes much less sense 
today than it did before the events of September 11," Marcella said.

The FARC initially ignored the terrorist attacks in the United States. Last 
week, however, the rebel organization issued a communique warning 
Washington against a "witch hunt" in Colombia that would target 
"progressive and revolutionary" movements.

The FARC also denounced "state-sponsored terrorism," a reference to the 
paramilitaries, who often have worked in cahoots with the Colombian army.

The 8,000-member group - the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, which 
is commonly known by its Spanish initials AUC - was placed on the State 
Department's list of terrorists two weeks ago due to its practice of 
killing civilians suspected of supporting guerrillas.

Paramilitary fighters are battling the FARC as well as the much smaller 
National Liberation Army, a Colombian rebel group also on Washington's list 
of terrorist organizations.

This month, the AUC announced the formation of a political movement to gain 
legitimacy and be included in the country's peace process. But the mood 
following the Sept. 11 attacks "weakens the AUC and removes even more 
support for their effort to gain political recognition," said the Bogota 
news weekly Semana.

At the present time, only the FARC is engaged in peace talks with the 
government. Little progress has been made at the negotiating table.

A number of experts point out that war has raged in Colombia for nearly 
four decades and it would be a mistake to expect the Sept. 11 attacks to 
suddenly alter Colombia's reality.

For one thing, neither the rebels nor the paramilitaries have gone after 
targets in the United States, which is why they are viewed in a different 
light than other groups deemed to be terrorists, said Michael Shifter, a 
Colombia analyst at the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank.

"We're preoccupied with al Qaeda, and no consideration has been given to 
anything other than this particular organization," said Rep. William 
Delahunt, D-Mass. "My sense is that most Americans are unaware of the 
existence of either the paramilitaries or the FARC."

Rafael Nieto, a Colombian national security consultant based in Washington, 
said the expected U.S. strikes against al Qaeda and Afghanistan have 
shifted attention away from Colombia.

He pointed out that Powell was scheduled to visit Colombia on the day of 
the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Powell, who had been expected to complain 
about FARC abuses, canceled the visit.

The FARC does not appear to have changed its ways since the attacks.

On Monday, the group kidnapped a former Colombian government minister the 
northern city of Valledupar.
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