Pubdate: Thu, 31 May 2001
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Copyright: 2001 The Seattle Times Company
Contact:  http://www.seattletimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/409
Author: Andrew Selsky

FROM U.S. TO COLOMBIA MILITIA: A BOMB'S SAGA

BOGOTA, Colombia - Made in the U.S.A. in the 1970s. Shipped to a 
Central American government fighting leftist rebels. Stolen in 1992 
as part of an assassination plot against a drug kingpin.

And planted last week by right-wing paramilitaries next to a 
communist newspaper's offices in Bogota - the journey of a U.S. Air 
Force bomb from an ammo depot in Oklahoma to Colombia serves as a 
cautionary tale about where sophisticated munitions can wind up if 
not guarded carefully.

The 500-pound bomb, discovered May 21 by a security guard, is not a 
medium-level explosive like the two that blew up in the capital 
Friday, killing four people and injuring 26.

This one, more than 6 feet long, is built for devastating effect. If 
it had gone off, police said, it would have blown two city blocks to 
bits - the worst terrorist attack in Colombia in more than a decade.

The bomb, known as an MK-82, is favored by many air forces in the 
world "where maximum blast and explosive effects are desired," 
according to literature on the device.

The bomb, made in April 1973, was delivered in January 1974 to what 
was then known as the U.S. Naval Ammunition Depot, now called the 
Army Ammunition Plant, in McAlester, Okla., said Capt. Almarah Belk, 
a U.S. Air Force spokeswoman at the Pentagon.

Belk said that because the bomb is so old, records are difficult to 
trace on where it was delivered next, and that it was more than 
likely part of an arms sale.

In fact, it appears to have been sent to El Salvador, part of a U.S. 
military-assistance package to the Central American country, which 
battled leftist rebels from the late 1970s until 1992.

In 1992, the Cali cocaine cartel - named after Colombia's 
third-largest city - bought four bombs from corrupt Salvadoran 
air-force officers. The purpose: to kill Pablo Escobar, the Cali 
cartel's rival who was imprisoned near Colombia's city of Medellin.

The plotters intended to kill Escobar - boss of the Medellin drug 
cartel - by dropping the four 500-pound bombs from helicopters onto 
the prison, according to El Salvador's top drug-fighting agency, the 
Executive Anti-Narcotics Unit.

Salvadoran agents busted up the plot, arrested nine people - 
including three Salvadoran air-force men - seized one of the bombs 
and confiscated almost $500,000.

But the agents acted too late to prevent three of the bombs from 
being loaded aboard a plane and flown out of El Salvador from a 
remote coastal airstrip.

The Cali cartel abandoned its assassination plot after Colombian 
authorities banned air traffic over Escobar's prison and installed 
anti-aircraft guns.

Months later, Escobar escaped from prison and was killed by police in 
a gunbattle in December 1993. The Cali-cartel chieftains wound up 
being arrested or slain in later years.

Meanwhile, no one knew where any of the three missing bombs were - 
until May 21.

The commander of Colombia's air force, Gen. Hector Fabio Velasco, 
confirmed last week that the bomb planted outside the communist 
newspaper, La Voz, is one of the bombs.

Carlos Castano, head of a right-wing paramilitary army which during 
the 1990s supported the Cali cartel's war against Escobar, 
acknowledged his outfit had buried the bomb under a load of bananas 
and oranges in the back of a pickup and parked it in front of La Voz.

After the bomb was discovered last week, police announced they had disarmed it.

But explosives experts later said the bomb posed no immediate threat 
- - that it could not have detonated without having been dropped from a 
great height.

Castano told Colombian media Friday that his United Self-Defense 
Forces of Colombia planted the bomb as a warning to La Voz publisher 
Carlos Lozano - recently named to a government peace commission - to 
tread carefully.

Of concern is that two missing MK-82 bombs may still be somewhere in 
Colombia, a violence-wracked nation where mass killings are common. 
But of equal concern is that the paramilitaries might now get their 
hands on weaponry from the United States in a more direct fashion.

Washington is delivering millions of dollars in military assistance 
to Colombia to fight leftist rebels and drug traffickers. The 
Colombian government is also cracking down on United Self Defense 
Forces of Colombia, but the paramilitary group maintains covert links 
with elements in the armed forces.

"We already know there's information-sharing, that there's 
communications between various Colombian army units and 
paramilitaries, and coordination in the field," said Robin Kirk of 
Human Rights Watch/Americas.

"It doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to imagine that weaponry 
the United States is sending would also make it into the hands of the 
paramilitaries."
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MAP posted-by: Josh Sutcliffe