Pubdate: Sat, 15 Feb 2003 Source: New York Times (NY) Copyright: 2003 The New York Times Company Contact: http://www.nytimes.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298 Author: Juan Forero AMERICANS AMONG 2 KILLED AND 3 MISSING IN COLOMBIA BOGOTA, Colombia, Feb. 14 - An American working for the United States government and a Colombian soldier were shot dead after their small plane crash landed on Thursday in a region of southern Colombia dominated by guerrillas, Colombian and American officials said tonight. The rebels are believed to have then made off with three other Americans who had also been aboard the United States government plane when engine failure forced it down. Colombian military helicopters, reconnaissance aircraft, counterinsurgency troops and American rescue specialists immediately undertook a large-scale search operation across a swath of jungle in isolated, lawless Caqueta Province in southern Colombia. But by early this evening, little was known about the fate of the three Americans who were believed to have been taken prisoner. At least four soldiers searching the area for survivors were wounded by land mines, and Colombian television reported skirmishes between troops and rebel fighters. American officials declined either to reveal the identities of the four Americans on board the plane or to discuss what agency they were working for. But officials in Washington familiar with the circumstances of the crash said they were not working for the Drug Enforcement Administration or the Central Intelligence Agency, nor were they employees of the embassy. The kidnappings of the Americans, if confirmed, would be the first of Americans working for the United States government in Colombia, which is engaged in a 39-year-old civil conflict with leftist rebels. In recent years, the rebels have declared American forces to be legitimate military targets but had yet to carry out their threats. "We anticipated this," said a senior Congressional aide in Washington involved in shaping policy on Colombia. "We've increased our presence and this is something you envision when you go down there to help this democracy." Colombian military officials said the Americans, flying aboard a plane used in counter-drug operations, were probably taken away by the battle-hardened Teofilo Forero unit of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, Colombia's largest and most belligerent rebel group. The single-engine Cessna 208 crashed after suffering engine trouble, but officials here and in Washington said the rebels probably took quick advantage, surrounding the aircraft and taking the occupants hostage. The rebels did not take immediate responsibility for the kidnappings, but in radio communications intercepted after the crash the guerrillas were heard to say, "We have them, we have them." Meanwhile, the rebels were accused of detonating a house full of explosives during a police raid today in the southern city of Neiva, just north of where the American plane crashed. At least 15 people were killed by the explosives, which the police said the rebels were planning to use in an assassination attempt on Saturday during a visit to Neiva by President alvaro Uribe. On Feb. 7, the rebel group set off a 330-pound bomb in an exclusive Bogota club, killing 33 people. Colombian military officials said the Americans were on an intelligence mission in the remote region, which consists of jungles interspersed with cattle pastures. "These are planes that help us to identify information that is useful for the Colombian government," Colombia's defense minister, Martha Lucia Ramirez, said. "They are helping in intelligence work that for the government is very important." The plane and its occupants - a pilot, a co-pilot and three passengers - had left Bogota about 7:20 a.m. on Thursday. Shortly before 9 a.m., it experienced engine trouble a few miles west of the town of Puerto Rico, American officials said. The pilot veered south, presumably in an effort to land in the provincial capital of Florencia, according to American officials. The plane, however, crash landed in a region long dominated by the the rebels. Indeed, the crash site is on the edge of a huge swath that Colombia's previous president, Andres Pastrana, ceded to the the rebels in 1998 for peace talks that fell apart last year. Colombian search-and-rescue teams immediately lifted off in Black Hawk helicopters from the Larandia military base nearby and quickly found the charred wreckage, along with two bodies, Colombian and American officials said. Colombian military officials said the two men appeared to have been shot execution-style, but American officials said they might have been killed in a gunfight. Early this evening, the State Department said the bodies of the American and Colombian were recovered and transferred to the Larandia military base for identification and to determine the cause of death. In comments to reporters, President Uribe lamented what he called the deaths of two people "whose assassinations have been confirmed in the south of the country." Analysts here said they believed that the rebels, if they decided to hold the Americans, might use them as leverage to prod the government of President Uribe into a broader prisoner exchange. The rebels are holding dozens of Colombian soldiers and several politicians, among them a former presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt. She was kidnapped on a road in the same general area as yesterday's plane crash. "Before, when they held Americans they were civilians, with no ties to the government," said Alfredo Rangel, a military analyst who has advised the Colombian Defense Ministry. "Now there could be a different purpose, which would be the prisoner exchange, which is political, and that could further involve the United States government." Washington has in recent years made Caqueta and an adjacent province, Putumayo, the epicenter of the war on drugs, funneling $2 billion since 1997 to mostly pay for helicopters, aircraft and other equipment used to fumigate vast swaths of coca fields. The efforts have destroyed tens of thousands of hectares of coca, depriving the FARC of millions of dollars it draws from taxing the coca trade. In defense, rebels and drug traffickers often fire automatic weapons at crop dusters, in isolated cases killing Colombian or other foreign pilots. Three Americans have been killed -- one in 1997 and two in 1998 -- when they lost control of their aircraft. The United States military lost five servicemen in July of 1999 when a De Havilland RC-7 reconnaissance aircraft crashed into a mountain during a counter-narcotics mission. They are considered the first American military personnel killed in Colombia's drug war. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D