FARC LINKED TO BRAZILIAN DRUG LORD

BARRANCO MINAS, Colombia: Troops making a late-night descent on an
airstrip in the Amazon didn't get the men they were looking for: a fugitive
Brazilian drug lord and the Colombian guerrilla commander who allegedly
sold him cocaine for arms.

But the military said the commando-style operation near the Brazilian
border helped to expose a cocaine-for-guns operation fueling the country's
37-year war and demonstrating the guerrillas' deepening involvement in the
international drug trade.

Eager to show their commitment to a U.S.-backed drug war, the armed forces
flew journalists and Gen. Peter Pace, the commander of U.S. military forces
in Latin America, into the area Monday.

The military gave the visitors a briefing and a tour of previously
uncharted coca fields and one of the cocaine-processing laboratories
discovered in recent days.

Also on display were Brazilian passports, confiscated cash, seized
satellite phones, and notebooks recording supposed cocaine-for-arms
transactions between Brazilian traffickers and the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

Six Brazilians are among the 29 people arrested so far in Operation Black
Cat, launched on Feb. 11. One is said to be the girlfriend of Luiz Fernando
da Costa, a fugitive Brazilian considered one of his country's top
narcotics traffickers.

As of Tuesday, the troops said they'd discovered airstrips, 12
laboratories, deserted rebel camps and 25,000 acres of uncharted coca. The
area was capable of producing 2 tons of cocaine weekly, officials said.

The FARC has admitted to "taxing" peasant farmers who grow coca crops, but
denies it smuggles cocaine or works directly with international drug
traffickers.

U.S. officials, however, have increasingly labeled the group a "cartel" and
Mexico's Attorney General has alleged the FARC supplied cocaine to a
Mexican syndicate in return for cash and weapons.

The charges are uncomfortable for President Andres Pastrana, who is trying
to negotiate peace with the guerrillas and refuses to characterize the FARC
as "narco-traffickers."

Barranco Minas, a tiny village in southern Guainia State, is only 115 miles
north of Brazil and about the same distance from Venezuela to the east. Its
proximity to sparsely-patrolled borders make the village an ideal
trafficking platform, officials said.

Nineteen illegal drug flights were intercepted in airspace near Barranco
Minas in the past year. Charred pieces of two small planes destroyed by air
force fighters litter the thick woods beside the village's ample grass
airstrip.

The region is a known stronghold of the FARC's 16th front, a unit believed
by the military to be dedicated almost exclusively to generating
drug-related revenues for the 16,000-strong guerrilla army.

According to the military, expert pilots working for Da Costa were flying
in guns, cash and sophisticated radios for the FARC and flying out cocaine.
Records seized here allegedly document at least seven cocaine flights this
year, and drop-offs of 2,800 weapons for the FARC, mainly 9-milimeter
pistols and AK-47 assault rifles purchased in international arms markets.

"This operation clearly demonstrates the ties between drug trafficking and
the FARC," said army special forces Col. Alejandro Navas.

In the assault launched Feb. 11, some 3,200 special forces troops were
helicoptered into Barranco de Minas and surrounding jungle. There rebels
were nowhere to be seen, and there have been no reported clashes.

U.S.-trained counternarcotics battalions based further to the west in
Putumayo province were not involved in the raid. But Gen. Pace's presence
underscored the growing U.S. role in Colombia under a $1.3 billion aid
package, and the murky line here between drug-fighting and counterinsurgency.

After receiving a classified military briefing inside the village's
one-room library, Pace said he believed "the FARC and narco-trafficking
were one and the same in this region."

While touting a successful operation, military officials admitted they had
hoped to snare Da Costa, known in Brazil by the nickname Fernando Beira
Mar, and the local FARC commander, a key figure in the rebel group.

A restaurant owner in Barranco Minas said the Brazilian, who has been on
the run since 1997 and was believed to be living in Paraguay, moved into
the village about a year ago and opened a dental clinic.