FIGHTING AGAINST THE ODDS

Three Years Ago, A Series Of Defeats At The Hands Of Rebels Left
Morale Within The Columbian Army As Low As Its Human Rights Record.

Now $1 Billion Of US Aid Looks Set To Turn The Tide.

Oscar Balalcazar is the door gunner on a US-made Blackhawk helicopter.
He prefers that you use his nickname Van Damme. He regularly pumps
thousands of bullets from his helicopter gunship into a
guerrilla-infested jungle.

"We are winning," he said. "And when more helicopters arrive from the
US we will be even stronger and the rebels will be beaten."

Strong words from a member of an army which has some 500 members
captured by guerrillas and suffered its worst-ever defeat at the hands
of the Marxist rebels only three years ago.

But things have been getting better for the army. Some argue that they
could only get better after the ambush of March 1998, when 150 elite
counter-insurgency troops were lured into an ambush by the FARC
(Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and cut to pieces.

For two days the men of the Third Mobile Brigade, among the best the
Colombian army had to offer, were trapped in the killing area of 400
FARC rebels. Bad weather and rebels cut off teams and ensured that
help did not arrive for over 48 hours. By the time the relief troops
hacked their way through the jungle to the battle site there were only
50 men left to rescue.

The national security adviser to the then President Ernesto Samper,
Alfredo Rangel, called the defeat "without question the military's
worst catastrophe", revealing "problems of inefficiency, of
vulnerability. This cannot be considered bad luck".

Army morale fell to a new low, where it joined the military's human
rights record.

Human Rights Watch have long alleged that the Colombian military
systematically abuses human rights and maintains strong links to
right-wing paramilitary death squads.

Early last year, 200 paramilitaries indulged in an orgy of murder in
the village of El Salado in the northern Bolivar province. For three
days, they tortured and murdered 28 villagers, among them a six-year
old girl, and raped a young woman repeatedly. The military never
explained why it took them so long to reach the community when there
was a military base a few hours away. A UN report published last month
revealed that the military had known about the paramilitary base that
carried out the massacres for some time.

But the tide is turning and the current Minister of Defence, Luis
Fernando Ramirez, has tried to break the links between the military
and the paramilitaries and professionalise the armed forces.

In the past two months the Colombian military has launched two
successful operations involving regular army units and the new Rapid
Deployment Force, a heliborne task force that has taken the military
on to the offensive. At the end of last year during "Operation
Berlin", the military intercepted a mobile FARC column of 240 fighters
and, over several weeks, relentlessly harassed the fleeing guerrillas,
killing 60 and capturing 120.

Last week saw the end of Operation Bolivar where troops occupied a
large paramilitary base and decommissioned an industrial-sized drug
processing operation run by the right-wing death squads.

In February this year a general and a colonel were jailed for links
with paramilitaries, the first conviction of its kind. Gen. Jaime
Uscategui and Col. Jorge Orozco were sentenced to over three years in
prison for turning a blind eye to the 1997 Mapiripan massacre in
southern province of Meta. They ignored repeated calls for help as the
paramilitaries decapitated 30 villagers with machetes.

In the past six months, some 450 members of the armed forces have been
sacked for incompetence, crime and working with paramilitaries. At
least 50 of those fired are known to have immediately joined the ranks
of the paramilitaries, according to the Ministry of Defence.

But human rights groups believe the reforms are just cosmetic and that
co-operation in paramilitary massacres and assassinations continues
uninterrupted.

By the end of the year the government has pledged that there will be
60,000 professional soldiers, replacing the ill-motivated and
ill-disciplined conscripts that once made up the vast majority of the
armed forces, bringing the number of troops close to 150,000.

But the factor that has most boosted the army's morale and created the
new atmosphere of optimism is the US weighing in with almost $1
billion of mainly military aid. Last year, President Clinton pledged
Colombia 60 helicopters and the creation of three elite anti-narcotics
battalions, trained by US Special Forces. Two of the battalions have
been trained and the third passes out in the coming months.

Fourteen of the helicopters have arrived and the offensive in the
southern province of Putumayo has been under way for many months, with
the resources being used to protect a massive aerial drug eradication
programme that has fumigated 30,000 hectares of crops to date.

As well as the military aid, the US is sharing intelligence with the
Colombian military, intelligence gathered from the five radar and
listening stations it has on Colombian soil and the spy planes that
continually fly overhead. The US has also helped to build an
intelligence centre in the southern military base of Tres Esquinas.

But the US aid has just created a two-tier army as the US-trained
troops and the Rapid Deployment Force get all the resources and the
remainder of the army continues as before: ill-led, ill-equipped and
ill-motivated.

"Just look at this crap," said Jorge Gonzalez of the 24 Brigade
manning a checkpoint outside Puerto Asis in Putumayo, indicating his
equipment. His webbing has been patched up innumerable times and his
battered Galil rifle looked little better than scrap.

"I reckon I will go and join the paras (paramilitaries)," he said
looking bored. "At least they have good kit, don't have to stand
around guarding stuff all day, and they get really well paid."

Many elements within the army are opposed to the current peace process
with the FARC, believing the grating of their massive 16,000 sq mile
safe haven was an act of weakness and has allowed the rebels to build
up their military strength. When in February the peace talks hit a
crisis, belligerent generals moved up to 11,000 troops to the borders
of the safe haven ready to invade.

"We are ready to take the zone by force when the safe haven expires,"
said General Javier Arias, whose 12th Brigade was lined up along the
southern border of the FARC safe haven, whilst the troops on the
ground chomped at the bit.

"We want to fight. We're sick of waiting," said a 20-year-old
non-commissioned officer as he sat on a roadblock astride the main
road into the FARC haven.

But diplomacy prevailed and President Andres Pastrana managed to get
the peace process back on track, and the troops were sent back to the
garrisons from which they had been hastily drawn.

A Western military source, who spoke on condition of anonymity was
clear about the army's capabilities and the prospects of a military
end to 37 years of civil conflict: "Yes, the Colombian army is
improving its offensive ability, but it was starting from a real low
point. Don't let anyone kid you that the armed forces can beat the
guerrillas and paramilitaries. There is no military solution to this
civil conflict."