Pubdate: Fri, 11 Apr 2003
Source: Wall Street Journal (US)
Copyright: 2003 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.wsj.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/487
Author: JOSE DE CORDOBA

TENSE BORDERS, AD HOC MILITIAS, U.S. SPECIAL FORCES: COLOMBIA

Washington's Involvement Down South Grows Deeper As Iraq Endgame Is
Played

SARAVENA, Colombia -- As the world focuses on the endgame in Iraq, the U.S. 
is stepping up its presence in another hot, oil-rich and violent corner of 
the world.

Here, hard by the Venezuelan border, about 30 U.S. soldiers are showing 
Colombian troops how to prevent a witch's brew of irregular armed groups 
from blowing up a key oil pipeline. The trainers do their work inside a 
small Colombian army base just outside the town.

On a recent day, visiting U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Remo Butler, who is in 
charge of all special operations forces for Latin America, watched intently 
as a squad of elite Colombian soldiers accompanied by a special forces 
sergeant practiced urban warfare, attacking a mock-up wooden house. In 
rapid-fire Spanish, Gen. Butler, a former professional boxer, gave a pep 
talk to a group of Colombian soldiers finishing a nine-week 
counterinsurgency course.

"This training needs to be tough," said Gen. Butler. "When you fight the 
ELN, the FARC and the AUC, you will fight to win."

The leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, whose roughly 
17,000 armed adherents make it Colombia's largest guerrilla group, and the 
Army of National Liberation, or ELN, the No. 2 force, often attack the Cano 
Limon pipeline, through which about 20% of Colombia's oil production flows. 
The United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, is a fast-growing 
right-wing paramilitary group notorious for massacring suspected guerrilla 
supporters.

All three groups have been designated terrorist organizations by 
Washington, and all three are vying for control of Saravena and surrounding 
Arauca state.

Gen. Butler's alphabet soup of acronyms spells out most of Colombia's 
troubles. For almost 40 years, Colombia has been fighting a confusing and 
seemingly endless civil war. The violence is fueled by hundreds of millions 
of dollars earned by guerrilla groups from drug proceeds, kidnapping and, 
in Arauca, shaking down oil company contractors and grabbing oil royalties 
from local government.

In 2002, some 3,500 Colombians were killed and an additional 2,000 
kidnapped by guerrilla forces. Since 1992, the country's guerrillas have 
kidnapped 54 U.S. citizens and killed 11. In February, three U.S. civilian 
Defense Department contractors were kidnapped, and a fourth shot to death 
along with a Colombian soldier, after their plane crashed in 
FARC-controlled territory. On Monday, a U.S. State Department plane used to 
fumigate drug crops went down in southwestern Colombia, killing the pilot, 
according to the U.S. Embassy, which said it wasn't clear whether the plane 
was shot down.

In Arauca, the task of the special forces is to train Colombian soldiers to 
protect the oil pipeline, which is of enormous economic importance to the 
government. In 2001, there were 179 attacks on the pipeline, no oil flowed 
for 220 days and Colombia lost some $500 million in revenue. Last year, 
attacks fell to 41; so far this year, to eight.

President Alvaro Uribe, elected last year on a platform of regaining 
authority over the country's territory, 40% of which is effectively ruled 
by guerrillas, has vowed he will win control of Saravena, which belongs to 
a recently declared special "rehabilitation and consolidation zone." Mr. 
Uribe's hopes depend, in part, on how well the Colombian troops apply what 
they learn from the special forces trainers stationed here.

Bombed-out Saravena, sometimes called Colombia's Sarajevo, has become the 
epicenter of the struggle. Last year, the town's airport, bank, city 
council building and mayor's office were all leveled by repeated guerrilla 
mortar attacks. Saravena has the misfortune of being close to the rich Cano 
Limon oil field and the oft-exploded pipeline, which are owned by 
Occidental Petroleum 
(http://online.wsj.com/mds/companyresearch-quote.cgi?route=BOEH&template 
=company-research&ambiguous-purchase-template=company-research-symbol-am 
biguity&profile-name=Portfolio1&profile-version=3.0&profile-type=Portfol 
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Co. and Colombia's state oil company, Ecopetrol. Constantly patrolled by 
army and police squads, Saravena is a no-man's-land of 48,000 terrified souls.

The Saravena area also has become a crossroads for the multimillion-dollar 
traffic in arms and cocaine. The December capture of a FARC commander known 
as El Indio, along with his ledgers, showed that the FARC had moved tons of 
cocaine through the Arauca region to Venezuela, according to Western 
diplomats and Colombian army officers.

Traditionally, the focus of U.S. policy in Colombia has been stopping the 
country's rich drug trade; Washington has been leery of getting involved in 
the nation's long-running civil war. But after the terror attacks of Sept. 
11, 2001, Congress, recognizing that Colombia's cocaine and heroin trade 
finances terrorism, granted a Bush administration request for U.S. military 
and intelligence agencies to help the Colombian military root out the three 
armed groups.

Last month, after the bombing of a Bogota social club that Colombia and the 
U.S. blamed on the FARC, the Bush administration upped the ante, offering 
$105 million in new military aid to Colombia, bringing the total this year 
to $600 million. Since 2000, the U.S. has provided Colombia with nearly 
$2.5 billion as part of its Plan Colombia drug-eradication and antiterror 
program.

Under Plan Colombia, the U.S. can have as many as 400 military personnel 
and another 400 private contractors, many of them former soldiers, 
stationed in the country. For its part, financially hard-pressed Colombia 
has raised taxes and boosted its defense spending to help pay its strapped 
military.

While pipeline protection might sound like a static affair, it isn't, as 
Maj. William White, in charge of special forces in Arauca, makes clear. 
"Our mission," says Maj. White, "is to train the Colombians to find, track 
down and kill the terrorists before they attack the pipeline."
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart