COLOMBIAN TROOPS TRAINED BY GREEN BERETS PREPARE TO ENTER COCAINE HEARTLAND

Larandia Army Base, Colombia - The last of three Colombian army anti-drug
battalions to be trained by Green Berets has graduated at a ceremony
attended by top U.S. military commanders and the American ambassador.

The battalion will soon be prowling the jungles and coca fields of southern
Colombia's Putumayo and Caqueta states, which together produce 60 percent
of Colombia's cocaine and are teeming with leftist rebels and rival
paramilitary forces who both earn huge profits by "taxing" cocaine producers.

Green Berets have been training the battalions as part of a U.S. aid
package aimed at bolstering Colombia's efforts to wipe out drug crops and
illicit laboratories. U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson watched the graduation
ceremony Thursday at of this army base near southern Colombia's war zone.

U.S.-donated Huey helicopters buzzed past as Patterson, Gen. Peter Pace,
commander of the Miami-based Southern Command - which oversees U.S.
military operations in Latin America - and Gen. Charles Holland, chief of
the elite Special Operations Command, observed the ceremony in a grassy field.

The U.S. trainers instructed the battalion how to aggressively react to
ambushes and other combat techniques while trying to instill "target
discrimination" in the hope the soldiers will not accidentally kill
civilians in drug raids.

The newly trained troops will join the other two anti-drug battalions for a
total of about 3,000 soldiers.

The U.S. Embassy said that because Colombian security forces have a poor
human rights record, it investigated each of the prospective soldiers to
make sure they were cleared of any accusations of rights abuses or drug
trafficking.

The troops seek and destroy drug labs and provide protection for low-flying
fumigation planes. The two battalions already in the field have destroyed
86,000 acres of coca - the raw material for cocaine - since December,
according to Colombian army Gen. Mario Montoya.

Under a $1.3 billion U.S. aid package, 16 Blackhawk and 25 Super Huey
helicopters are to begin arriving in July for the three anti-drug
battalions. U.S. officials say they will give the troops far greater
mobility and support.

Most of the Green Berets have reportedly returned to their home base, at
Fort Bragg, N.C.