Pubdate: Thu, 04 Nov 1999
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 1999 The Washington Post Company
Address: 1150 15th Street Northwest, Washington, DC 20071
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Author: Douglas Farah, Washington Post Foreign Service

COLOMBIAN REBELS TAP E. EUROPE FOR ARMS

Guerrillas' Firepower Superior to Army's

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Despite Colombian and U.S. efforts to stem the flow of
drugs and guns that have helped build Latin America's most powerful
guerrilla insurgency, the Marxist-led rebels are amassing a sophisticated
arsenal from new sources in the the former Soviet Bloc that is rapidly
changing the balance of power in Colombia's civil war, officials say.

The rebels' new firepower was first put on public display last fall, when
guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) emerged
from the jungle for the opening of peace talks. Colombian and U.S.
officials were stunned to see parading rebels carrying thousands of new
AK-47 assault rifles, Dragunov sniper rifles and other weapons from Eastern
Europe and the former Soviet Union.

"We thought the parade was a special group sent out to impress us, and it
did," said a U.S. official. "But it has become clear they have access to a
whole new supply of weapons, and it is a serious escalation. They are far
past what the army has."

Colombian, U.S. and Russian intelligence officials say that new weapons
from Eastern Europe are surging into Colombia. Largely out of fear that the
FARC is gaining the upper hand in the conflict, the United States is
rapidly escalating aid to the Colombian army. In addition to $289 million
in aid already committed for fiscal 1999, the Clinton administration is
seeking a $2 billion package over the next three years.

The rebels' arms purchases have increased in part because of growing
cocaine consumption in Europe, especially in former Soviet Bloc countries,
coupled with the widespread availability of weapons for sale across Eastern
Europe.

"What we are seeing is a heavy push of cocaine into Europe and at the same
time we are seeing Russian criminal groups seeking new alliances with
Colombian cartels," said Gen. Rosso Jose Serrano, Colombia's national
police chief. "We don't know how much is guns for drugs and how much is
just taking their vast wealth to the black market and buying weapons, but
it is a serious situation for us."

The result, according to U.S. and Colombian officials, is that the FARC and
paramilitary groups organized to combat the guerrillas have a secure arms
pipeline. The officials say the pipeline delivers vast quantities not only
of assault rifles but also of heavy machine guns, hundreds of thousands of
rounds of ammunition, small artillery, explosives, hand grenades and
rocket-propelled grenades, significantly altering the balance of power
against the government in Colombia's civil war.

Colombian and U.S. officials also cited consistent intelligence reports
that the FARC possesses SA-14 shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles,
although none has been captured. The use of such missiles, said one U.S.
official, "would change the threat envelope considerably" for the
U.S.-backed military and the estimated 200 U.S. trainers who routinely
rotate through Colombia and use helicopters to move around the country.

In addition to the Eastern European weapons, the FARC has significantly
upgraded its communications equipment, buying Japanese and European
encryption technology, voice scramblers and other technology that makes
interception of their communications almost impossible, Colombian and U.S.
intelligence analysts said. The group also has a fleet of single-engine
airplanes and several helicopters.

In recent months the Colombian anti-drug police found a shipment of 480 new
Ukrainian-made AK-47s near the Caribbean port of Turbo, an area controlled
by the right-wing paramilitary groups.

For most of its 35 years, the FARC was a ragtag, rural Marxist band relying
on outdated weapons bought on the black market and from disbanded Central
American insurgencies. But today the FARC is deeply involved in the drug
trade in Colombia, which produces 80 percent of the world's cocaine, and is
able to spend the profits on supplying its 15,000 fighters. The FARC makes
millions of dollars a year from taxing the production of cocaine, as well
as charging to protect clandestine laboratories, airstrips and
drug-trafficking routes.

Peace talks begun last year between the government of President Andres
Pastrana and the FARC were suspended in July. However, the talks were
reinitiated on Oct. 24 when the two sides were to discuss a 12-point agenda
on how to end the war, which has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of
people, mostly civilians. The paramilitary groups, about half the size of
the FARC, are more directly involved in drug trafficking, according to the
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). They operate cocaine
laboratories and are partners of important international drug-trafficking
organizations, according to DEA intelligence reports.

Barry R. McCaffrey, the Clinton administration's drug policy coordinator,
said Europe now consumes between 80 and 130 tons of cocaine a year, a sharp
increase in the past year. Colombian intelligence officials estimate that
at least 10 tons are shipped through Russia.

Some of the cocaine stays there to meet growing Russian demand. But most is
shipped into Europe from the east. Russian criminal groups reap enormous
profits either way by controlling the routes.

Drug traffickers pay cash or exchange cocaine for weapons and bring the
guns back in the same transport containers they use to bring the drugs over.

"The Russian military has been involved in gray market sales of weapons
since the fall of the Soviet Union," said Rens Lee, president of Global
Advisory Services and an expert on Russian arms sales. "They want to make
money and are not fastidious about whom they sell weapons to. Military
profiteering is very important."

The drug traffickers either auction off weapons to the highest bidder or
turn them over to a group that has paid in advance, intelligence officials
said.

Dimitri Belov, a spokesman for the Russian Embassy here, said Russia is
working closely with Colombian police.

"We are not satisfied with the current situation but in some ways it is
exaggerated, too," Belov said. "We feel the situation between Russia and
Colombia is under control."

Colombian intelligence reports show that most of the guerrillas' weapons
are delivered from Ecuador by river or small airdrops into the southern
Putumayo and Caqueta regions. Several large airdrops of several hundred
weapons each have been detected in the past three months, intelligence
officials said. The paramilitary groups are largely supplied by ships that
unload their cargo in small, uncontrolled ports in northern Colombia,
mostly in the Cordoba region.

Colombian intelligence reports say the arms network is an extension of
contacts between Colombian and Russian organized crime groups.

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