Pubdate: Sun, 10 Dec 2000
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2000 The New York Times Company
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Author: Juan Forero

RATCHETING UP A JUNGLE WAR IN COCA FIELDS

LARANDIA ARMY BASE, Colombia, Dec. 8.  A giant cannon blast marked 
the start of the ceremony at this sprawling military base deep in the 
jungles of southern Colombia.

As 14 helicopters buzzed overhead, soldiers in camouflage face paint 
and black berets marched through a cloud of yellow, blue and red 
smoke, the colors of the Colombian flag toward the generals at the 
reviewing stand. A Catholic priest in a white smock then trudged 
across the water-logged field toward the formation, uttered a prayer 
and sprinkled holy water.

With that, Colombia graduated the second of three vaunted army 
battalions to be trained in the art of counternarcotics warfare by 
United States Army Special Forces instructors. The training, and 
hundreds of millions of dollars in American aid for troop helicopters 
and other military hardware, form the centerpiece of President Andres 
Pastrana's ambitious plan to root out the coca cultivation that has 
fueled Colombia's brutal civil conflict.

"A great responsibility rests on your shoulders," Colombian Defense 
Minister Luis Fernando Ramirez told the graduating soldiers as high- 
ranking American and Colombian military officials listened. "The hour 
has arrived, as we've predicted, for this brigade to become the 
principal headache for a small group of Colombians who have declared 
war on 40 million Colombians."

The battalion, numbering more than 600 soldiers, received training 
under a $1.3 billion American aid package designed to stem drug 
production in Colombia and, in the process, cut leftist rebels off 
from their main source of financing. When a third battalion completes 
training in April, Colombia will have a 3,000- man antinarcotics 
brigade to use at will in Colombia's coca heartland, the southern 
jungle provinces of Putumayo and Caqueta.

For the soldiers who form Battalion No. 2, all of whom were screened 
to make sure no one had committed human rights abuses, the graduation 
was a proud day. It was a much-anticipated finale after four rigorous 
months of all-purpose military and antinarcotics training, in 
addition to instructions on how to avoid entanglements involving 
noncombatants.

Sgt. Mauricio Garcia, an 11-year veteran who marveled at how much 
better a soldier he has become with American instruction, said he was 
eager to swing into action against coca laboratories and drug 
traffickers.

"We want to finish off the coca and hit them hard," Sergeant Garcia 
said. "It's so important because this problem is finishing off our 
society. Little by little they are doing away with us. So we are the 
ones who are going to defend the people."

The events at Larandia, a base built on a giant farm once owned by a 
rancher named Oliverio Lara, had a festive air. Proud relatives in 
spiffy clothes beamed as young soldiers received certificates and 
congratulatory handshakes from the military brass. The graduates then 
playfully posed for pictures with General Fernando Tapias, commander 
of the Colombian armed forces, and General Jorge Mora, chief of the 
army.

But both soldiers and high-ranking Colombian and American officials 
were under no illusions.

The soldiers of the counternarcotics brigade are expected to meet 
stiff resistance in the field, either from drug traffickers or rebels 
of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The rebel 
group, with an estimated 17,000 fighters nationwide, is accused of 
making millions of dollars by taxing traffickers and running the 
coca-processing labs scattered throughout the jungle.

"When you start operations there will be battles," said Gen. Peter 
Pace, commander of American forces in Latin America and a guest at 
the graduation ceremonies. "From a peace standpoint this is not good, 
but from a long-term perspective, you've got to do what the 
government of Colombia is trying to do."

Colombian and American officials have emphasized that the new 
battalions would only engage in counternarcotics operations, not 
counterinsurgency campaigns against the rebels. At one point today, 
General Mario Montoya, commander of Colombian forces in the country's 
south, spotted a group of new graduates speaking with reporters and 
promptly cautioned them about "a question they want to ask you."

The answer they should provide, the general advised, is that the 
brigade is "not attacking the guerrillas. We are attacking the 
narco-traffickers, or whatever they want to call themselves."

But military officials on both sides acknowledged that distinguishing 
between the two would not be easy, especially if rebel fighters opt 
to defend drug labs and coca fields.

"If a person, male or female, is trafficking in drugs, regardless of 
what ideology they have, they're drug traffickers," said General 
Pace. "It's clearly true that many of the guerrillas, if not all of 
them, traffic in drugs, and so trying to define that line is very 
difficult."

Indeed, the first battalion, made up of 900 men who graduated from 
training in late 1999, has lost three soldiers this year in two 
encounters, the last one on Nov. 18 with rebel fighters, according to 
a government history of the antinarcotics battalions. General Mora, 
the Colombian army chief, said the battalion's soldiers have faced 
rebel defenders in operations against coca labs in the area 
surrounding the isolated Tres Esquinas military base in Caqueta.

"They've had confrontations, at the entryway of the labs," said 
Colonel Roberto Trujillo, commander of the counternarcotics brigade. 
"For us, the enemy is the narco-traffickers, in whatever form they 
come."

The training of the second battalion came as chaos has reigned in 
Putumayo, where about half of Colombia's coca crops are cultivated. 
The rebel group, long established in the province, had been 
challenged by its nemesis, the United Self-Defense Forces of 
Colombia, a right-wing paramilitary group that human rights 
organizations say has had ties to the Colombian military. The rebels 
responded by blocking roads throughout Putumayo from late September 
until just this past week, when rebel leaders told a United Nations 
envoy they would lift their travel bans.

The recent events in the Vermont-sized province have worried experts 
and government officials, both in Colombia and the United States, who 
have questioned how effective the brigade will be.

"They could very well be engaged with paramilitary forces, as well as 
FARC forces," said Representative Bill Delahunt, a Massachusetts 
Democrat who is on the International Relations Committee. "So it 
further complicates the picture. It adds an additional burden to 
their mission, and I think it creates a more dangerous mission 
because of the increasing presence of the paramilitaries."

As it is, the first battalion has not become fully operational 
because not all the support helicopters in the American aid package 
have arrived in Colombia. So far, the Colombians are relying on 18 
UH-1N helicopters and are expecting 15 more by January. By the middle 
of next year, 16 Black Hawk helicopters will begin to arrive, two of 
them for the Colombian National Police. After that, several Super 
Hueys - fast, powerful and well-armed choppers  will be delivered.
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