Fw: The FARC - A threat to U.S. Security.....

["Nello Margiotta" <animarg@tin.it>]

Analysis: U.S. policy morphing in Columbia
 
 Tuesday, 11 September 2001 0:35 (ET)
 
 
 Analysis: U.S. policy morphing in Columbia
 By RICHARD SALE, UPI Terrorism Correspondent
 
 The United States is deepening its military
 involvement with Columbia's Andres Pastrana even as
 his country slides toward civil war, U.S.
 administration officials said.
 
 The new, tougher policy means the Bush Administration
 is departing from the narrow, counter-narcotics
 program described during the Clinton era. Instead, it
 will embark on improving Colombia's military
 capacities via expanded aid that will create more
 U.S-advised Colombia military units and accelerate
 broadened bilateral intelligence exchanges in order to
 curb mounting levels of Marxist guerilla activity
 including kidnapping and terrorism, these sources
 said.
 
 "We no longer view the FARC and ELN guerillas as an
 internal threat to the security of Colombia, but as a
 threat to the security of the United States," a senior
 Pentagon official told United Press International.
 
 Another administration official said: "It's time to
 drop the fiction of anti-narcotics aid only. Americans
 are targets in Colombia."
 
 A State Dept. official added, "We want the Colombian
 army to be able to go and get the bad guys wherever
 they are." A high-level, 50-person U.S. security
 delegation arrived in Colombia last Wednesday to urge
 Pastrana take a more vigorous approach in combating
 the
 17,000-member Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
 group known by its Spanish initials as FARC.
 
 The delegation was led by Marc Grossman,
 undersecretary of state for political affairs and
 State's No. 3 ranking diplomat. Members included
 senior officials from the Justice Dept., the National
 Security Council, the Pentagon, and the White House
 drug czar's office, according to State Department
 spokesman Phil Reeker.
 
 Secretary of State Colin Powell is due to visit
 Colombia Sept. 11 to 12 on his way back from a trip to
 Peru. The new American policy would mean a greater
 role for the U.S. Southern Command than the current
 one of supplying 40 Black Hawk and Huey 2
 helicopters as escorts for Columbian police crop
 dusters that spray defoliants on FARC's coca crops to
 undermine its drug trading.
 
 Under the new policy, "we are talking about more
 direct
 military-to-military support," a State Department
 official said. Last April Pentagon officials told
 Congress that the U.S. military mission would end with
 the delivery of the helicopters. Although official
 U.S. policy in Colombia has been to support democracy,
 combat narcotics trafficking, and aid social and
 economic development, the Bush administration has been
 increasingly concerned over activities in five
 southern districts declared a FARC safe haven in 1998
 as part of attempts by Pastrana and FARC to achieve
 some sort of peace process. An area the size of the
 country of Switzerland, the demilitarized zone is
 being used to traffic in drugs, run mobile prison
 camps and train terrorists, a State Dept. official
 said.
 
 John Moore, a former Defense Dept. counter-terrorism
 analyst, told UPI that Cubans, militant Palestinians,
 Hizb'allah, and even advisors from the leftist
 government of Venezuela are all active in the area,
 questioning the official State Department line that
 the guerillas receive no outside help.
 
 "Security conditions are going from bad to worse,"
 another Defense Dept. official agreed. Larry Johnson,
a former CIA anti-terrorist expert, doubts the wisdom
 of creating the safe haven as a concession to the
 rebels, describing it as "a Club Med for terrorists."
 
 Not everyone is eager to see any expansion of a U.S.
 military role. Jina Amatangelo, fellow for Colombia at
 the Washington Office on Latin America, an Andean
 affairs think tank, said: "We're already very
 concerned about U.S. military assistance because of
 the human rights implications." She said
 well-documented evidence shows persistent links
 between the Columbian Army and such right-wing
 paramilitary groups as the United Self-Defense
 Forces/Group of Colombia. She added the Columbia
 Commission of Jurists estimates that 70 percent of
 killings (of civilians) are carried out "by
 paramilitary groups associated with the army."
 
 Indeed , the U.S. government Monday designated the
 militant group, abbreviated by its Spanish initials
 AUC, as a foreign terrorist organization. The
 decision, which makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to
 raise money for the group, marks the first time
 Washington has listed a right-wing paramilitary group
 as a foreign terrorist organization. FARC and
 the other main Columbia terrorist group, ELN, both
 left wing, are already on the list.
 
 The paramilitary groups also have links to the drug
 trade, making a farce out of U.S. efforts to stamp it
 out, Amatangelo said. U.S. intelligence officials
 confirmed that the paramilitary groups do have such
 links.
 
 Some think that the new Bush policy isn't all that
 new, however. Adam Isacson, senior associate of the
 Center for International Policy's Colombia Project,
 said the line between anti-narcotic and
 anti-insurgency policy "blurred a long time ago" with
 the United States quietly feeding Colombia
 counterinsurgency intelligence.
 
 U.S. intelligence sources confirmed that although
 there are strict guidelines that restrict any U.S.
 intelligence-sharing to a counter-narcotics role, the
 Clinton administration gave Colombia anti-insurgency
 intelligence as early as 1999. Bush officials have
 continued the trend. The intelligence is mainly
 signals intelligence collected from airborne or space
 platforms, these sources said.
 
 Isacson commented: "It's never been what the
 Colombians wanted," but a U.S. official said that such
 exchanges have already been "stepped up and
 broadened in scope." He did not elaborate.
 
 Isacson speculated that the improved intelligence has
 played a role in recent battlefield successes of the
 Colombian Army. In a recent "August 7th Operation,"
 the FARC had barely emerged with 2,000 men from a
 stronghold in the south when "the Colombian Army was
 all over them," Isacson said.
 
 Last year, as part of Pastrana's Plan Colombia, the
 Congress passed a $1.5 billion counter-drug package
 for the country, making it one of the biggest
 recipients of U.S. aid. Current restrictions limit the
 U.S.  military presence to 500 active-duty troops and
 300 private contracts.
 
 U.S. aid has helped fund and train three
 anti-narcotics battalions or about 2,800 men. If the
 new plan is approved, the U.S. would create additional
 battalions to operate in different areas. "From the
 military perspective, the  new policy means more
 involvement by the Southern Command," a Pentagon
 official said.
 
 But Mike Schifter, vice president for policy for the
 Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington based think
 tank, said flatly that the "military dimension is not
 enough." A tougher Colombian military could force the
 FARC and ELN to the peace table but Schifter cited the
 example of El Salvador where peace negotiations only
 began after fighting had ceased. Schifter told UPI he
 looks to the coming visit of Powell as a hopeful sign
 of a higher level of political engagement by the
 United States, which till now, has been lacking, he
 said.
 
 "We don't want a policy formulated by DEA or the
 Southern Command," he explained. Instead, there must
 be "a broader, more strategic vision, a comprehensive
 political strategy."