Pubdate: Fri, 22 Feb 2002
Source: New York Times (NY)
Section: International
Copyright: 2002 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Juan Forero

COLOMBIA ATTACKS REBEL ZONE AS LEADER'S PATIENCE SNAPS

BOGOTA, Colombia, Feb. 21 -- Colombian Air Force planes bombed rebel camps 
and clandestine airstrips today as thousands of troops prepared to retake a 
huge rebel-held zone in an offensive that may well mark the end of a 
tortuous three-year peace effort.

The operation began just hours after President Andres Pastrana, in an 
emotional nationwide address on Wednesday night, angrily broke off talks 
while accusing the rebels of hijacking a domestic airliner in order to 
kidnap a senior senator who was on board. The president said the Marxist 
guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, was guilty of 
"extreme wickedness and cruelty," demonstrating that his legendary patience 
with the rebels had been spent.

Shortly after midnight, the government said, aircraft began bombing rebel 
camps, storage facilities, cocaine-processing laboratories and hidden 
airstrips inside a swath of jungle that Mr. Pastrana ceded in 1998 as a 
safe haven for peace talks.

The rebels abandoned the five towns in the demilitaried zone, melting into 
the thick jungles of a sparsely populated region known as El Caguan.

But through its de facto news agency in Europe, the New Colombia News 
Agency, the rebel group blamed Mr. Pastrana and "the intolerance of the 
oligarchy" for the rupture in the talks. The group, however, has not denied 
responsibility for the hijacking of an Aires airlines flight on Wednesday 
morning. Four armed rebels, the government said, took over the plane in 
midflight and forced it to land on a remote road. Armed men in 
four-wheel-drive vehicles then whisked Senator Jorge Eduardo Gechem Turbay 
off toward the rebel zone.

As Colombians braced for an escalation of violence in the country's 38- 
year-old war, many said they supported Mr. Pastrana.

"It is impossible to keep negotiating with a group that says it is fighting 
for the people but the only thing they do is hurt civilians," said Carolina 
Cuatros, 35, a lawyer's assistant.

Most Colombians had overwhelmingly supported peace negotiations in the 
past, voting Mr. Pastrana into office in 1998 after he promised to bring 
peace. But polls have shown that Colombians have become increasingly 
repulsed by the guerrilla group's tactics: attacks on villages, the use of 
car bombs and a reliance on kidnappings for financing.

Indeed, Colombian society in the last three years has shifted sharply to 
the right.

In a recent poll, 53 percent of respondents said they would vote for a 
hard-line candidate for president in May's general election, Alvaro Uribe. 
Mr. Uribe, a former governor and mayor of Medellin, has harshly criticized 
the rebel zone and promised that under his leadership the army would pursue 
the rebels relentlessly unless guerrilla commanders agreed to an immediate 
end to all hostilities.

"Uribe is no longer seen as a fringe candidate," said Russell Crandall, a 
professor at Davidson College in North Carolina who recently completed a 
book about American policy toward Colombia. "Rather, his tough rhetoric of 
a year ago is now standard copy for just about all of the candidates."

Today, speaking with a small group of foreign reporters, Mr. Pastrana, who 
cannot run for re-election, left open the possibility of resuming 
negotiations. But with the demilitarized zone expected to be in government 
hands soon, any talks would have to be held in a third country, something 
the rebels have long rejected.

"I still believe in a political solution," the president said. "We are open 
to continue the process when the FARC have made the decision to make 
peace," he added, referring to the rebels by their Spanish acronym.

Today, officials from the United Nations to the European Commission 
condemned the rebel group and expressed support for Mr. Pastrana, though 
they also stressed that Colombia's war would be resolved only through a 
peaceful settlement.

At the United Nations, Secretary General Kofi Annan said, in a statement 
read by his spokesman, that the guerrilla organization's activities were 
"clear violations" of human rights laws and "have undermined the peace talks."

In Brussels, the European Commission said it "understands the decision 
taken by President Pastrana." To be sure, the rupture in the talks was a 
blow to European and Latin American countries, whose diplomats helped 
resolve a serious crisis just last month that nearly derailed negotiations.

"We have to analyze this, whether the FARC has deliberately broken off," 
said a Western diplomat involved in the negotiations. "Our credibility is 
on the line with this as well, and a lot of people have accused us of 
saving a process that wasn't worth saving."

In Washington, a State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, said the 
United States supported Mr. Pastrana's government. The United States has 
already provided hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to 
Colombia, with the stipulation that it be used only in counter- drug 
operations.

The Bush administration, however, is requesting Congressional approval of 
$98 million to pay for training and helicopters for Colombian troops to 
guard an oil pipeline, a sharp departure from past policy. Increasingly, 
lawmakers on Capitol Hill, as well as Pentagon policy-makers, are also 
seeking Congressional approval so American equipment can be used for 
counterinsurgency operations.

"There has no doubt been a shift in thinking in Washington," said Michael 
Shifter, who follows Colombia for the Inter-American Dialogue, a policy 
analysis group in Washington. "Congress will be favorably disposed to help 
Colombia, but will want to know how the Bush administration plans to avoid 
going down a slippery slope."

In Colombia, high-level military officials said they were prepared to 
retake the demilitarized zone, which is about twice the size of El 
Salvador. "We will surely suffer casualties, but we have a moral obligation 
to win this war," Gen. Euclides Sanchez, the army's second in command, told 
Colombian radio.

Colombia's 125,000-man army has been restructured in recent years. Training 
has been improved and 30,000 enlistees have been added since 1998 to 
replace conscripts. The purchase of American transport helicopters has also 
vastly improved mobility, which is crucial in a large, rugged country where 
battlefields are constantly shifting.

But the military still faces what most analysts agree is the richest and 
most powerful rebel group in Latin American history, a force of at least 
17,000 well-armed fighters dispersed across virtually every province in the 
country.

"To say that the guerrillas will be defeated is a little optimistic."said 
Fernando Giraldo, a political scientist at Javeriana University in Bogota 
who studies the conflict.

The latest developments come five weeks after the peace process in Colombia 
was brought back from the brink of collapse.

Mr. Pastrana broke off talks on Jan. 9 after accusing the rebels of 
intransigence. With soldiers positioned just outside the zone, guerrilla 
commanders at the last minute agreed to embark on the cease-fire talks that 
Mr. Pastrana had long sought.

But in the last 30 days, the president charged, the rebels have set off 
four car bombs, killed 20 civilians and blown up 30 power pylons.

"The mask is off and the guerrillas have shown their true face, the face of 
violence without reason, before the world," Mr. Pastrana said in Wednesday 
night's address.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager