Source: Washington Post
Author:  Dana Priest, Washington Post Staff Writer
Contact: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/edit/letters/letterform.htm
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Pubdate: Sat, 28 Mar 1998

U.S. MAY BOOST MILITARY AID TO COLOMBIA'S ANTI-DRUG EFFORT

Alarmed by recent setbacks to the Colombian military in its decades-old war
against rebel armies, Clinton administration officials are considering
increasing U.S. military assistance to the government within the framework
of cooperation between the two countries to fight drug trafficking.

The administration is debating whether to supply sophisticated
communications equipment, intelligence support and training to the military
in the southern half of Colombia, where thousands of guerrillas are
protecting drug traffickers and may be engaged in production themselves,
according to officials from the National Security Council and State and
Defense departments.

Officials are also weighing a Colombian request to buy 12 Cobra attack
helicopters, which would make Colombia the first South American country to
receive sophisticated U.S. weapons since President Clinton lifted a ban on
such sales last year. Regional U.S. military commanders support the request
"because they need it," said one officer.

U.S. officials say that military aid would be aimed at helping Colombian
forces fight drug traffickers who have made the country the world's largest
producer of coca leaves and cocaine, accounting for an estimated 80 percent
of cocaine sold in the United States. But as ties between the Colombian
guerrillas and drug traffickers have grown tighter in the last year,
national security officials acknowledge that the line between fighting drug
traffickers and fighting rebels has become blurry.

"We continue to have a counternarcotics focus but are sensitive to the fact
there's a connection" between drug traffickers and insurgents, a senior
national security official said. "But we are still not ready to join the
military side . . . in a way that is unconnected to counternarcotics."

Nevertheless, 726 Colombian troops received training -- most of it not
designated as counternarcotics courses -- from the Defense Department's
Special Operations Command in fiscal 1996, according to Pentagon documents.
The instruction -- including small unit river and coastal operations and
light infantry techniques -- was conducted by Army special operations
forces and Navy SEALS, according to the documents. The training, which
continues this year, was exempted from restrictions at the time of U.S.
military aid to Colombia.

The efforts to help the Colombian armed forces reflect changing U.S.
attitudes about the gravity of the threat to the government posed by
drug-financed rebels. U.S. aid to Colombia's military has been virtually
nonexistent since the late 1980s because the Colombian army, as well as the
right-wing paramilitary groups that operate with its support, has been
implicated in scores of civilian massacres, disappearances and cases of
torture.

Aid to the military was formally cut off in 1996 because U.S. officials
believe President Ernesto Samper took $6.1 million from the Cali cocaine
cartel for his 1994 presidential campaign. The government was also
"decertified" by the Clinton administration after U.S. officials concluded
that it was not cooperating fully in fighting drug traffickers.

Last summer, a deal was struck between the two countries that would allow
military aid to resume if Colombian army units would participate in
screening to identify and remove human rights violators. Although the
administration declined to certify Colombia again this year, Clinton
decided to waive economic and aid sanctions on national security grounds.

Colombia is the largest recipient of U.S. counternarcotics aid in South
America, including 200 U.S. troops stationed mostly at radar sites that
monitor suspected drug-carrying aircraft.

U.S. assistance to the military and to the Colombian National Police --
which, unlike the military, was not barred from receiving aid -- tripled
from $28.5 million in 1995 to nearly $100 million in 1997, much of it
transfers, repairs or upgrades of helicopters needed in the jungle as well
as field gear and counternarcotics training, according to State Department
figures.

The Defense Department also is sending Colombia $30 million worth of
equipment, including three Boston Whaler-type boats, 20 UH-1H helicopter
hulks for spare parts, 15 utility vehicles and 1.1 million rounds of
ammunition for weapons recently mounted on helicopters. Starting next year,
up to $20 million a year is earmarked for riverine training by Navy SEALS.

The Defense Department also is set to send the Colombian military $2.5
million in used radio equipment, 1,000 M-16A1 rifles and 500 M-60 machine
guns. This and other equipment, however, have been held up because Colombia
has failed to move quickly to screen members of its army brigades for human
rights abuses, the stipulation the Clinton administration attached to
military aid last summer.

While this conditional aid has gone to the Colombian navy and air force,
only one brigade-size unit of the 125,000-troop Colombian army has been
cleared to receive help, U.S. officials said. U.S. officials are waiting
for transfers of two alleged human rights violators before authorizing
equipment for a second brigade.

Some U.S. officials say they feel a sense of urgency to assist the military
after a startling defeat of government troops this month in the southern
province of Caqueta. On March 1 a company of troops from the 52nd Battalion
encountered dozens of guerrillas while looking for drug labs and attempted
to pursue them. As a second army company moved in to support the troops,
400 to 600 rebels surrounded both companies, killing 62 soldiers and taking
30 prisoners.

The rebels were from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the
largest of Colombia's insurgent groups, with about 11,000 members. Along
with the National Liberation Army (ELN), which has 7,000 adherents, the
rebel armies control an estimated 40 percent of the country. Army-backed
paramilitaries, who are often aligned with drug traffickers, are believed
to control up to 15 percent. With drug profits, the guerrillas are
self-sustaining and do not receive outside assistance, U.S. defense
analysts said.

But officials at the State Department, which has been more cautious about
increasing U.S. involvement in one of the world's most violent countries,
are more skeptical and recently opposed the transfer of three Black Hawk
helicopters to the Colombian National Police. "We are really not interested
in getting sucked into this," said State Department official.

Human rights activists here and in Colombia are fighting the transfer of
more helicopters and equipment because of reports that troops have strafed
towns in areas after guerrilla advances, said Colletta Youngers, senior
associate at the Washington Office on Latin America. They also are
concerned that the United States will become embroiled in a
counterinsurgency reminiscent of the divisive U.S. support of the
government of El Salvador in the 1980s.

But defense officials and some Republicans in Congress say those concerns
are overblown and that Colombia is on the verge of losing the war
altogether, which they say could result in a narcotics-dominanted state.

"Is anyone interested in an El Salvador, Vietnam-style ramp-up? No," said
one defense official involved in the discussions. "But we are dissatisfied
with the shackles we're putting on ourselves . . . the training is so
little it borders on irrelevant." 

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