TERRORISM FIGHT COULD MEAN MORE U.S. SUPPORT FOR FIGHTING GUERRILLAS
IN COLOMBIA

WASHINGTON -- Even as they provided military helicopters and training
to Colombia, U.S. officials have insisted they were fighting drugs,
not getting involved in the country's decades-old guerrilla war.

But staying out of that war could be trickier now that the United
States is considering anti-terrorism aid for Colombia and its Andean
neighbors. The State Department's top counterterrorism official,
Francis X. Taylor, told reporters Monday that the United States would
fight terrorism in the hemisphere using "all the elements of our
national power as well as the elements of the national power of all
the countries in our region."

Of the 28 groups that the State Department considers terrorist
organizations, only four are based in the Western Hemisphere. And
three of those are in Colombia: the country's two largest guerrilla
armies and the right-wing paramilitary umbrella group.

Those three will "get the same treatment as any other terrorist group
in terms of our interest in going after them and ceasing their
terrorist activities," Taylor told reporters at the Organization of
American States, after attending a closed-door meeting on terrorism.

Taylor declined to discuss details of anti-terrorism aid because the
package hasn't been completed. He told lawmakers last week that it
was designed to complement last year's $1.3 billion Colombian aid
package and an $882 million follow-up Andean aid plan that Congress
is considering.

Much of the U.S. aid has been for helicopter and training to help
Colombia's military fight guerrillas and, to a lesser degree,
paramilitaries. Both partly finance their operations by protecting
drug crops and traffickers.

To counter critics who warned that the United States was headed to a
Vietnam-style quagmire in Colombia, U.S. officials have stressed that
the aid was to fight drugs, not to help Colombia defeat the
guerrillas.

Both critics and supporters of the Colombian aid have been skeptical,
though, that such a distinction could be made.

"It's very difficult to separate the counter drug effort when the
rebels or the insurgents are the ones that are living off the income
from the drugs. How do you separate the two?" said Rep. Cass
Ballenger, R-N.C., who chairs the House International Relations
Western Hemisphere subcommittee.

With greater concern about terrorism since the Sept. 11 attacks,
lawmakers aren't as likely to be concerned about the difference
between fighting terrorists or fighting guerrillas. "I don't think
they'll be that much differentiation," he said.

Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., said he didn't know what the State
Department was planning for Colombia, but separating counterterrorism
from counterinsurgency "would be a very difficult and delicate
distinction to make."

Taylor last week said Colombia's largest guerrilla group, the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, was "the most
dangerous international terrorist group based in this hemisphere."
Both the FARC and the National Liberation Army have been involved in
bombings, kidnappings, extortion and hijackings.

Also on the terrorist list the right-wing paramilitary United
Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, which has been involved in
assassinations, kidnappings and massacres. The State Department and
human rights groups say that Colombian security forces have
collaborated with paramilitaries.

For all three groups, the terrorist activities have occurred
primarily within Colombian borders -- a distinction from the
Afghanistan-based al-Qaida organization blamed in the Sept. 11
attacks.

The top Democrat on the Western Hemisphere subcommittee, Rep. Bob
Menendez of New Jersey, said a key question in shaping U.S. policy
toward Colombian groups is whether they have been involved in attacks
in the United States.

"If the answer is no, does the president's standard of this fight on
global terrorism include those who may be terrorists, but not
committed acts on the United States?"

If President Bush wants to go beyond pursuing terrorists responsible
for the U.S. attacks, he will need to define the mission and go back
to Congress for support.

"I think we're going to have to figure out how much we can absorb at
one time," he said.

Links related to this article: State Department counterterrorism
office: www.state.gov/s/ct/ Organization of American States:
www.oas.org/