As my helicopter clattered into the jungle-covered mountains of Colombia, I could see below me four Blackhawk helicopters with rotors turning.

Beside them lines of troops were waiting to embark - each soldier clutching a rifle and rucksack.

A group of 360 heavily armed guerrillas had just been spotted moving west through the mountains towards Barrancabermeja on the Magdalena River, where the main oil refinery in Colombia is located. At the other end of the strip, another helicopter lay immobilised by ground fire having ventured too close to the guerrillas. The hydraulics had been hit and the pilot had only just made it back. Suddenly I was back in the middle of a war. But this time it was not a war belonging to someone else, as the war had been in Bosnia when I was commanding UN troops there in 1994. For the terrible war that is ravaging this remote and beautiful country is an evil that is being visited on Colombia by countries like my own.

[continues 1102 words]