========================================
> Such training is central to a gradually
> intensifying U.S. military involvement
> in Colombia encouraged by the
government
> of President Andres Pastrana, who took
> office in August.
>_________________________
========================================
>AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN
>
>Sunday, 6 December 1998
>
> U.S. trains Colombian military to resist rebels
> -----------------------------------------------
>
> By Frank Bajak
>
>TUMACO, Colombia -- Chided by his Green Beret instructor, a Colombian
>corporal returns to the firing range after putting a Band-Aid on a
thumb
>worn raw by clicking the safety of his M-16 rifle on and off.
>
>"Are we OK ?" Staff Sgt. Juan Estay asks with mock concern.
>
>Estay, a 34-year old from Miami, is one of eight U.S. Army Special
Forces
>soldiers running a six-week training course in this Pacific jungle
port.
>Such exercises are key instruments of U.S. policy to bolster Colombia's
>armed forces in their uphill struggle against highly effective,
>well-disciplined rebels.
>
>The U.S. trainers are highly esteemed by their 30 Colombian pupils
--six
>marine officers and 24 senior enlisted marines. After a run-and-shoot
>competition that culminates marksmanship practice, the Colombian
>contingent's chief, Capt. Eduardo Chavez, shows his appreciation by
>hugging Master Sgt. Mike Wood, 34, of St. Louis.
>
>Such training is central to a gradually intensifying U.S. military
>involvement in Colombia encouraged by the government of President
Andres
>Pastrana, who took office in August.
>
>During a recent visit to Colombia, U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen
>signed an accord pledging to increase intelligence support and provide
>more training.
>
>Officially, Washington classifies the military instructor missions as
>counternarcotics training, one ingredient in a decade-old U.S. effort
to
>combat drug trafficking in Colombia.
>
>In practice, the Green Berets from the 7th Special Forces group at Fort
>Bragg, N.C., are teaching skills the Colombian military needs to fight
its
>main foe: the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. The rebel
movement,
>the hemisphere's oldest and largest leftist insurgency, has for the
past
>three years been pummeling an army composed largely of ill-prepared
>conscripts.
>
>The six-week course in Tumaco focuses on basic light-infantry skills,
>including helicopter-borne operations, riverine infiltration,
explosives
>use and ambush techniques. U.S. trainers provided 60,000 rounds of
>ammunition, three Zodiac inflatable boats and, for one week, two
Blackhawk
>helicopters.
>
>"It's counterguerrilla training," said Col. Juan Diego Rendon, deputy
>commander of the Colombian army's 12th Brigade, whose counterinsurgency
>battalion now has 150 soldiers being trained by a second team of Green
>Berets in the rebel-dominated southern state of Caqueta.
>
>Nowadays in Colombia, it's hard to fight narcotics without taking on
the
>rebels, who finance themselves largely by taxing the drug trade and
>protecting cocaine laboratories and airstrips.
>
>The Pentagon put on a dozen Special Forces training courses in Colombia
>this year and officials say 14 are scheduled for 1999, roughly half the
>overall U.S. "counterdrug" training missions in the country.
>
>Over the past two years, U.S. assistance to the Colombian military has
>included hundreds of M-16 rifles and M-60 machine guns, flak jackets,
>ammunition, night-vision goggles and trucks.
>
>The United States is also working on establishing a high-tech joint
>intelligence center in southern Colombia, where U.S. specialists would
>provide the Colombian military almost immediately with information from
>satellites and spy planes, officials say.
>
>In addition, Washington has offered to help train and equip an
>anti-narcotics battalion, expected to be formed by mid-1999 and
composed
>of 1,000 soldiers and police officers. Currently, no Colombian military
>unit is devoted exclusively, or even primarily, to drug enforcement.
>
>"Our assistance is provided to combat narcotics production and
trafficking
>and may be used to counter all those who are actively involved in the
drug
>trade," State Department spokesman James Rubin said Tuesday.
>
>The American involvement remains a far cry from its multibillion-dollar
>help for Central American nations fighting insurgencies during the
1980s,
>and it operates within strict limits.
>
>"We have neither the money nor the appetite to do any great ramp-up,"
said
>Brian Sheridan, a U.S. Defense Department official involved in special
>operations and low-intensity conflict.
>
>The number of American military personnel in Colombia never exceeds
200,
>U.S. officials say, and American soldiers are not permitted to
accompany
>Colombian troops into combat.
>
>The Colombian government knows, to be successful in peace talks with
the
>rebels, that it needs a few battlefield victories. Increased U.S.
military
>aid could be a decisive factor.
>
>"We are hoping for more help. We need it. Definitely, we do need it,"
>Defense Minister Rodrigo Lloreda said in an interview.
>
>A bigger U.S. role faces considerable obstacles, however.
>
>Colombia's military has a poor human rights record, and two U.S. laws
>sponsored by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and enacted since 1996 allow
U.S.
>military aid and training only for Colombian units whose human rights
>records are clean. So far, only three units of the army, the service
most
>engaged in fighting rebels, have cleared the screening process.
>
>Senior army officers have been accused of promoting right-wing
>paramilitary groups who kill civilians suspected of supporting the
>guerrillas. The military's main intelligence brigade, dissolved in May,
>was implicated in a series of death-squad killings, and its former
>commander, now a fugitive, is wanted for allegedly organizing the 1995
>assassination of Colombia's main opposition leader.
>
>Largely because of human rights concerns, Colombia's military annually
>receives less than one-tenth of the more than $100 million in
>anti-narcotics assistance provided by Washington. The bulk goes to
>Colombia's police, which the U.S. Congress just voted to give an
>additional $200 million over the next three years.
>
>The constraints are not discouraging Marine Gen. Charles Wilhelm, chief
of
>the U.S. Southern Command responsible for Latin America, who has
visited
>what he calls the hemisphere's "most threatened country" just about
every
>other month this year.
>
>"Frustration is not a course of action for the military," the veteran
of
>two Vietnam tours said of the restrictions in an interview, adding that
he
>believes the Colombian military deserves credit for making "very
>significant strides on human rights."
>
>At a U.S. congressional hearing last March, Wilhelm listed the
>deficiencies of Colombia's military as primarily in "mobility, direct
>attack capabilities, night operations, communications systems,
>intelligence systems, the ability to operate in rivers and coastal
regions
>and the ability to sustain their forces once committed."
>
>With the guerrillas exploiting those weaknesses in one devastating
attack
>after another, the temptations for U.S. personnel to get more involved
>become harder to resist.
>
> Copyright 1998 The Austin American-Statesman
>_______________________________________________________________________
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