Pubdate: Sat, 23 Feb 2002
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2002 The New York Times Company
Section: International
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Christopher Marquis

U.S. TO GIVE COLOMBIANS DATA TO HELP FIGHT REBELS

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22 - The Bush administration plans to provide military 
intelligence to the Colombian government for its campaign against Marxist 
rebels and is rushing spare parts to the country's armed forces, officials 
said today.

Administration lawyers were assembling legal arguments to justify the 
intelligence-sharing without running afoul of laws limiting American 
involvement in Colombia to fighting the narcotics trade, not guerrillas.

"There are ways that we can support the government of Colombia in this 
matter very specifically within the current law," said Richard Boucher, the 
State Department spokesman.

The action comes two days after President Andres Pastrana abandoned a 
three-year effort to reach a peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed 
Forces of Colombia, or FARC, as rebels intensified their attacks. Colombian 
forces continued to sweep into a demilitarized zone that Mr. Pastrana had 
ceded to rebel control in 1998.

The State Department announced the new help after Secretary of State Colin 
L. Powell, who was traveling in China, spoke by telephone with Mr. Pastrana.

Secretary Powell praised Mr. Pastrana for showing "enormous patience over a 
long period of time" in trying negotiate a deal with the FARC.

"He finally felt he could go no further and he had a responsibility to the 
people of Colombia to protect them," Secretary Powell added. "We understand 
the decision he made. We support him."

The Colombian government has been clamoring for months for the United 
States to provide information about rebel movements from such sources as 
telephone intercepts, aerial surveillance and satellite photos.

Luis Alberto Moreno, Colombia's ambassador to Washington, voiced 
satisfaction at the administration's move. The Pastrana government is also 
seeking to win permission from the United States to use American- provided 
combat helicopters and other equipment in the counter-insurgency struggle, 
he said.

"We have been requesting this for some time," Mr. Moreno said. "This was at 
the heart of providing more security for Colombians."

The United States has provided Colombia with military aid and training 
under a $1.3 billion package called Plan Colombia. In its new budget, the 
administration is seeking more than $500 million more for Colombia.

Troubled by the prospect of being drawn into a 38-year war that shows no 
sign of abating, Congress has restricted the use of the American aid to the 
counter-narcotics fight and a directive signed by President Clinton in 2000 
bars the use of American intelligence to combat rebels.

Secretary Powell has repeatedly said that the United States has no 
intention of getting involved in combat. Some lawmakers, moreover, express 
doubts about aiding a military with a poor human rights record and 
alliances to right-wing paramilitary forces.

Administration officials insist that the line between counter-insurgency 
and counter-narcotics is blurred, since the 16,000-member FARC derives much 
of its income from trafficking in drugs.

A senior administration official today said lawyers are studying how to 
circumvent the Clinton restriction and provide intelligence to help 
Colombian troops rout the FARC from the former demilitarized zone, which 
covers 16,200 square miles.

"What Pastrana would like is more information in the former zone," the 
official said. "Right now we give him information that is strictly limited 
to counter-narcotics."

The lawyers may be aided by directives on intelligence-sharing issued by 
President Bush in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, officials said. The 
United States designated the FARC a terrorist organization in 1997.

International perceptions of the FARC are hardening, which may provide the 
administration with backing for a more aggressive counter-insurgency role.

After Latin American and European diplomats helped salvage peace talks last 
month, the rebels unleashed 117 attacks, exploding four car bombs, 
destroying 33 energy towers and, most spectacularly this week, hijacking a 
plane and kidnapping a prominent senator, according to the Colombian 
government.

Cesar Gaviria, a former Colombian president who is secretary general of the 
34-nation Organization of American States, said the rebels have proved 
themselves to be "terrorists." He urged governments in Europe and Latin 
America to abandon notions of the FARC as a legitimate political movement 
and sever all ties.

"There are a lot of countries that have given them sanctuary, support and 
good treatment," Mr. Gaviria said in an interview. "I think it's going to 
stop."

Josep Pique, the foreign minister of Spain, whose country holds the 
rotating presidency of the European Union, said the E.U. should stiffen its 
policies toward armed groups. Mr. Pique also expressed firm backing for 
Plan Colombia, which many European governments had criticized for relying 
too heavily on a military solution.

The senior administration official, who asked not to be named, acknowledged 
that international opinion has still not coalesced on the best way to deal 
with the FARC. But from Britain to Mexico, he said, the authorities 
increasingly favor a stronger stance.

"I think 9-11 has really crystallized in Europeans' thinking the danger of 
the FARC," the official said. People have abandoned the notion that the 
rebels are "misguided agrarian reformers," he said. "They're narcoterrorists."
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