Pubdate: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 Source: Reuters Copyright: 1999 Reuters Limited. PANAMA POLICE DEFY COLOMBIAN PARAMILITARY THREAT PANAMA CITY, Panama -- The head of Panama's security forces promised on Monday to maintain security on the border with Colombia despite threats by Colombian paramilitary groups to attack Panamanian police. Right-wing paramilitaries and leftist guerrillas from Colombia's civil war have spilled across the border in recent months into Panama's Darien Gap, an isolated forest region linking Central and South America. ``The government's highest priority ... is to maintain peace on the frontier,'' Police Chief Carlos Bares told reporters. ``But this is a Colombian problem which they should resolve.'' On Sunday, the right-wing Colombian Defence Forces (AUC) told international news agencies in Bogota that Panamanian police were a military objective because they had collaborated with the left-wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) inside the Panamanian border. Bares dismissed AUC charges that Panamanian security forces were involved in running arms and drugs with the FARC, saying that the national police had ``no relations with any Colombian paramilitary or guerrilla groups.'' Panamanian police would continue to guarantee the security of Panamanians living in the Darien Gap, Bares said, adding that he hoped the Colombian authorities would take steps to ensure the AUC would not pose a greater threat. The possibility that Colombia's civil war might spill over into Panama has worried some U.S. politicians, concerned with Panama Canal security after the strategic waterway is handed back to Panamanian control at year's end. In June, the head of U.S. Southern Command, Gen. Charles Wilhelm, told a U.S. Senate hearing that Panamanian forces were insufficiently staffed, trained or armed to contend with Colombian guerrilla incursions into Panama after the withdrawal of U.S. bases. Panama's standing army, the Panamanian Defence Force, was scrapped by the civilian government in the wake of the 1989 U.S. invasion to overthrow military strongman Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, leaving frontier security in the hands of the national police. Interior Minister Winston Spadafora told Reuters last week that Panama would like to close the frontier with Colombia, but was limited by the ``meager forces deployed in Darien.'' - --- MAP posted-by: Derek Rea