Source: Reuters
Pubdate: Wed, 9 Sept 1998

COLOMBIAN MILITARY CHAFES AT PLANNED TROOP PULLOUT

BOGOTA -- Colombia's military has voiced strong objections to
government plans to order a troop pullout from a vast swath of
national territory to promote peace talks with the country's leading
Marxist guerrilla group.

The army's opposition to the pullout, which President Andres Pastrana
has said he will order by the end of this year, was made clear on
Wednesday in excerpts from a document published in Bogota's El Tiempo
newspaper.

Military sources confirmed the authenticity of the document, entitled
``Expectations for Peace,'' and called it a white paper or
``analysis'' drafted by the armed forces high command at the request
of Pastrana himself.

But Defence Minister Rodrigo Lloreda told a news conference the
document was drawn up before Pastrana's Aug. 7 inauguration,
apparently on orders from then armed forces commander Gen. Manuel Jose
Bonnet.

In the document, the military stressed that any troop pullout was
likely to be riddled with hidden costs and concessions to the the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Among other objections, the document said Colombia's U.S.-backed drug
crop eradication programme would suffer as a result, since much of the
area earmarked for demilitarization is dedicated to the cultivation
and processing of opium poppy crops and coca, the raw material for
cocaine.

It said the troop pullout would also mean the loss of army control
over ``strategic areas'' and allow the FARC to strengthen its presence
in the region, which encompasses vast tracts of jungle and savanna in
the country's south and east.

Under the planned troop pullout, the government would effectively cede
control over five sprawling municipalities --an area the size of
Switzerland-- to the FARC.

Pastrana agreed to the demilitarization in secretive face-to-face
talks in July with legendary FARC commander Manuel ``Sureshot''
Marulanda, the head of Latin America's largest and most powerful
guerrilla army.

The military conceded that the demilitarization would probably help
boost the government's image abroad, since it would be perceived as a
move for peace and the greater good.

But it advised against turning over any urban areas in the five
municipalities to the FARC, and said a strict time limit should be set
on any pullout, with no scope for extensions after the government's
initial offer of 90 days.

Furthermore, the military advised against any troop withdrawal from
San Vicente del Caguan, the biggest of the five municipalities
earmarked for demilitarization.

San Vicente should be excluded, it said, because it was the effective
command centre of the FARC and of extreme importance strategically,
since it was a well-known corridor for the movement of rebels into
three surrounding provinces.

By relinquishing its control over San Vicente, the military warned
that the government would also be giving the FARC dominance over the
Caguan River, a key transport route through the country's southern
jungle and the Llanos del Yari, a nerve centre of the booming drug
trade in southern Caqueta province.

The document in El Tiempo was made public during an official visit to
Colombia by Gen. Charles Wilhelm, chief of the Miami-based U.S.
Southern Command.

Pastrana has pledged to make ending Colombia's decades-old internal
conflict a top priority of his administration.

Lloreda, who was flanked at the news conference by Bonnet's successor
Gen. Fernando Tapias, added that the document had been leaked to El
Tiempo by people clearly seeking to ``frustrate the peace process.''

Tapias, who took over as military chief last month, said ``the armed
forces are committed to the peace process.''
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Checked-by: Patrick Henry