=================================
The rest of Latin America's Marxist
insurgencies have been beaten or
negotiated peace treaties, but no
end to this war is in sight.
===================================
U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT <--- (conservative weekly newsmagazine) 

May 11, 1998

Is Colombia lost to rebels?
---------------------------

By Linda Robinson; Gordon Witkin; Richard J. Newman 


LOS ALPES, COLOMBIA -- In late March, Marxist guerrillas here in the 
mountains of southern Colombia kidnapped four American tourists on a bird-
watching trip. One of them, 63-year-old Louise Augustine, fell into a ravine 
and suffered eight broken ribs, a collapsed lung, and a cracked pelvis. But 
the guerrillas kept her marching, in great pain, for days. The rough 
treatment so appalled one rebel, Blas Rayas, 23, that he defected. "These 
[Americans] have nothing to do with the war and should not have been 
captured," Rayas explained in an interview. 

Americans have indeed had nothing to do with Colombia's guerrilla war--so 
far. But that could soon change. U.S. officials are alarmed by the growing 
strength and boldness of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, 
known by the Spanish initials FARC. A classified report by the Defense 
Intelligence Agency notes that the rebels have handed the Colombian 
military a series of defeats and warns that if the military continues to lose 
ground, the Colombian government may be forced within five years to make 
an unfavorable "accommodation" with the guerrillas. That could mean 
recognizing the FARC's control over the southern half of Colombia and 
effectively partitioning the country.

The guerrillas' impact already is being felt on the streets of Los Angeles, 
Detroit, and Chicago. For years the United States has been battling the flow 
of narcotics from this South American nation, the world's leading producer 
of cocaine and a major source of heroin. But the anti-drug effort is under 
increasing attack from the guerrillas, who guard coca and poppy fields and 
laboratories for Colombia's drug barons in return for a percentage of the 
profits. In the past three years, the FARC has attacked crop-spraying planes 
159 times, killed 44 anti-drug agents, and wounded 75 others. The success 
of the guerrillas helped coca growers to expand their fields by 50 percent in 
just the past two years. And the rebels have amassed a huge war chest in 
the process. According to Defense Minister Gilberto Echeverri, the FARC 
rakes in some $ 450 million a year, 65 percent of it from drugs. The rest 
comes mainly from kidnapping Colombians and foreigners for ransom.


*A rare success

When the American bird-watchers were seized on March 23, the Colombian 
military sent its best fighters after them. The young faces of Mobile 
Brigade 1 were sweating as their Blackhawk helicopter tilted down into the 
fog, gunners firing to clear a landing zone near Los Alpes, in the Andes 
Mountains just 50 miles east of the capital, Bogota. Before the elite 
counterinsurgency troops scrambled out of the helicopter, Col. Ismael Silva 
gave them a stern admonition: "The Army and the country are expecting a 
success from us. Let's do this right!" 

They did. Under heavy fire from the soldiers, the guerrillas released 
Augustine on April 24 and two other hostages a day later; the fourth had 
already escaped on his own. But such successes have been rare. Operating 
aggressively in units of 300 or more, the guerrillas now routinely sack 
police stations across the country.

In March, the Colombian military suffered its most humiliating defeat in 
years: Another elite unit, Mobile Brigade 3, stumbled into a guerrilla 
stronghold and was practically wiped out. It took days for the Army to 
retrieve the corpses of 73 soldiers. Forty-six others are still held prisoner 
by the FARC. That debacle followed the rout of an Army communications 
base in December, and last year's spectacle of 60 soldiers held hostage 
until the Army withdrew from a huge swath of territory. 

About 65 U.S. troops are helping to train the Colombian Army for counter- 
drug missions, but the Pentagon's assessment is bleak. "The performance of 
the Colombian military to date provides little cause for optimism that they 
will be able to reverse the erosion of government control," Gen. Charles 
Wilhelm, chief of the U.S. Southern Command, testified to Congress in 
March. Wilhelm also warned that the conflict was spilling over to Panama, 
Ecuador, and especially Venezuela--and could destabilize the entire region. 
Colombia already has more than 1 million refugees from the violence. 
Several thousand have crossed into Venezuela, and the prospect of violence 
along the border has forced the Venezuelan government to move 2,000 
troops there.

The Clinton administration has not yet decided what, if anything, the United 
States should do to help Colombia beat back the growing guerrilla threat. 
The White House says emphatically that there is no intention of committing 
U.S. troops. For the moment, the administration is seeking to increase aid to 
the Colombian government's anti-narcotics effort by $ 21 million, to about 
$100 million a year. Some Republicans in Congress also want to send three 
more UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters, at a cost of about $ 50 million. "The 
frightening possibilities of a narco-state just three hours by plane from 
Miami can no longer be dismissed," says Rep. Benjamin Gilman (R-N.Y.), 
chairman of the House International Relations Committee. 

But no one in Washington seriously thinks that such aid will be enough to 
stop the flow of cocaine or cripple the guerrillas. And a perpetual objection 
to increasing aid for the Colombian military is its record of human rights 
abuses and government corruption. Because of such concerns, all U.S. 
assistance now is restricted to counternarcotics missions. 


*Hitting where it hurts

The commander of Colombia's armed forces, Gen. Manuel Jose Bonett, admits 
that its military is inadequate. "[But] our problem is not ineptitude; our 
problem is that we don't have more combat troops," he says. Only 33,000 
troops are available for combat, since 22,000 are guarding key installations 
like an oil pipeline that guerrillas blew up 66 times last year. Oil is 
Colombia's top export, and the violence has forced British Petroleum to 
scale back operations. Bonett has asked his government for 20,000 more 
combat troops and double the 20 combat helicopters he has now. Only then, 
he says, can he hope to stop the rebels from cutting the country in half.

Colombia is ideally made for guerrillas. Three steep Andean ranges run its 
length, and impenetrable jungle covers the south. Most of the FARC's 15,000 
fighters are concentrated here. The government didn't lose control of this 
half of Colombia; it never had it. No one colonized this region, the size of 
France, until guerrillas and coca growers came here a decade ago.

Founded as an armed wing of the Colombian Communist Party, the FARC has 
been roaming Colombia for 32 years. Its founder, Manuel Marulanda 
(nicknamed Sure Shot), is nearing 70. He is still the leader, although 
younger men like Fabian Ramirez--sometimes touted as Marulanda's 
potential successor--form a 60-member secretariat that issues 
communiques, including recent ones threatening to strike at Americans if 
the United States attacks the guerrillas. In practice, the leaders of the 
FARC's 73 "fronts" operate as autonomous warlords. For example, the 53rd 
Front's leader, whose nom de guerre is Romana, reportedly decided on his 
own to grab the American bird-watchers and demand a $ 5 million ransom. 

In addition to the FARC, Colombia also faces a second guerrilla group, just 
as old, the National Liberation Army, or ELN. Its 5,000 fighters specialize in 
attacking the oil industry and kidnapping businessmen. The founder, a 
former Spanish priest inspired by Cuba's revolution and leftist Catholic 
liberation theology, died in February, but his replacement is a hard-liner 
who officials fear may decide to coordinate attacks with the FARC. On the 
other hand, the ELN offered to talk with the government at one point this 
year. The more virulent threat in terms of territory, firepower, and 
manpower clearly comes from the FARC. 


*Vaccinations

The FARC dominates southern Colombia economically as well as militarily. 
In Puerto Asis, a ramshackle city deep in the Amazon jungle, the guerrillas 
charge businessmen and landowners a tax called a vacuna or "vaccination": 
It prevents getting kidnapped or killed. Poor folks ante up what's called the 
"family quota," a son or daughter to join the guerrilla ranks. The rebels also 
levy taxes on the coca farms and labs, on each drug plane that lands, and on 
chemicals shipped down the rivers--the only highways in the south. Flush 
with cash, they are armed with satellite phones as well as automatic rifles. 
They even have their own Web site. 

When the FARC demanded a boycott of local elections last October, 1,267 
mayoral candidates around the country withdrew. One of the few who had 
the temerity to refuse was Puerto Asis's mayor, Nestor Hernandez, and it 
seems he will be lucky to survive his term. Ten of the city's 15 council 
members were intimidated into resigning, and the rebels kidnapped 
Hernandez to force him to quit. Hernandez's home has been bombed twice, 
and he now spends just two days a week here, moving from house to house. 
"No one wants to be my neighbor," he says wryly. 

But in fact the townspeople applaud him for standing up not just to the 
guerrillas but also to a new menace: In lieu of the Army, right-wing 
paramilitary groups have descended on towns like Puerto Asis, vowing to 
push out the guerrillas. Men in black ski masks established roadblocks 
around town in February and checked residents' names against a list of 200 
alleged guerrilla supporters. They dragged one man from a store, doused him 
with gasoline, and set him afire. At the Billares 25 pool hall they came for 
the owner, Jorge Acosta, whom they accused of lending a car to the rebels. 
He was not there, so they shot his son Carlos, according to a relative.

The government's human-rights ombudsman, German Martinez, counts 45 
dead in February and nine more in March. Yet the commander of the local 
Army base, Col. Diego Gantiva, flatly denies the militia's presence. "The 
guerrillas, together with the mayor, staged the killings to look like the 
paramilitaries did it," he insists.

While some Army officers allegedly help the vigilantes and others merely 
look away, the paramilitary bands are simultaneously fighting the FARC and 
muscling in on its cocaine-protection racket. 

The rest of Latin America's Marxist insurgencies have been beaten or 
negotiated peace treaties, but no end to this war is in sight. One reason is 
the rebels' wealth. Another is Colombia's economic inequalities--the second 
worst in South America, after Brazil's--which fuel support for the 
guerrillas. A scary precedent also may keep guerrillas from ever laying 
down their arms: After some Marxist rebels were persuaded to form a 
political party in 1985, over 2,000 of its members were gunned down by 
right-wing assassins.

On May 31, Colombia is scheduled to elect a new president. An upsurge in 
political violence has already begun; two campaign offices were bombed and 
two prominent leftists were shot to death last month. Polls show 
Conservative Party candidate Andres Pastrana leading Horacio Serpa, a 
minister in the current Liberal government, which has been widely 
discredited by drug corruption allegations. Both candidates pledge to seek a 
peace accord with the FARC, but negotiating from weakness will not be 
easy. Among the FARC's pre-conditions are a withdrawal of the armed 
forces from a four-county area east of the capital and dismantling of the 
paramilitary groups.

U.S. officials believe that the central government is unlikely to collapse. 
The 120,000-member armed forces appear able to hold the urban centers. 
The guerrillas' popular base is in the countryside among 75,000 coca-
growing peasants.

In Sevilla, population 6,000, in the heart of Colombia's banana-growing 
country, the FARC also has support among fruit pickers, who earn just $ 25 
to $ 50 a week. On a hearts-and-mind campaign here last month, General 
Bonett implored poor Sevillans not to bequeath violence to another 
generation. But he also acknowledged that, "No matter what we do, until the 
socioeconomic problems are addressed, the guerrillas will continue to 
attract recruits."

While the Clinton administration hopes that the Colombian military will 
somehow get the upper hand, the Colombian Army has a hard time even 
protecting its own. On his last visit to Sevilla, Bonett was nearly 
assassinated. His armored BMW, blackened by a 200-pound dynamite blast, 
drove away on its wheel rims.

Copyright 1998 U.S. News & World Report