REBELS BLUR THE LINES IN DRUG WAR

As Colombia's FARC Guerrillas Delve Deeper Into The Cocaine Trade, The U.S.
Finds It Increasingly Difficult To Fight Narcotics While Staying Out Of The
Country's Civil Conflict.

BARRANCOMINAS, Colombia--From this island of bars and brothels gripped by
dark green jungle, you can see the nightmare rising in Colombia.

Here, in a remote corner of the rain forest, the army has broken up what
was once a cocaine paradise. There were no cops, no military, no
government. The drug labs ran day and night. Coke was currency, with a gram
buying a cold beer flown in from faraway Bogota.

It was a world where everything was controlled by one organization--the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The nation's largest
guerrilla force, these leftist insurgents have become nearly
indistinguishable from the narco-traffickers that the U.S. pledged $1.3
billion last year to help defeat.

The rebels "had total control over this area," Gen. Fernando Tapias, the
head of Colombia's armed forces, said in an interview after the military
moved in. "And they were totally dedicated to one thing: cocaine."

The FARC's involvement in the trade spells trouble for the bright line the
U.S. has tried to draw in Colombia, fighting drugs while avoiding
entanglement in the country's increasingly messy civil conflict.

In an indication of just how deeply involved Washington has become in the
battle against the insurgents, The Times has learned that U.S. intelligence
was crucial to the Colombian army's operation in Barrancominas to shatter
the FARC's drug ties.

U.S. intelligence officials provided information not only on the location
of cocaine laboratories and processing facilities but also on rebel
encampments, according to two high-ranking Colombian army officials. The
CIA also allegedly intercepted radio communications between the local FARC
commander and the rebel leadership concerning drug trades.

In fact, as a result of the evidence turned up here and elsewhere in
Colombia in recent months, a consensus has emerged in Washington and
Colombia that FARC rebels are involved in virtually every facet of drug
production, from seed to sale.

With the March arrest in Mexico of an alleged Tijuana cartel associate
trying to establish contact with the FARC, there are even suggestions that
the rebels have taken the final step toward becoming international traffickers.

And in April, after a two-month manhunt, Colombia arrested Brazil's top
drug dealer as he tried to flee the vicinity of Barrancominas. FARC leaders
had ordered guerrillas to protect Luiz Fernando da Costa, who, according to
military officials, supplied the rebels with guns in exchange for purified
cocaine.

"If you can make the equation 'guerrillas equal narco-traffickers,' then
you can use military might to fight the guerrillas," said Myles Frechette,
a former U.S. ambassador to Colombia who believes that the FARC is still
short of being a drug cartel.

"We should be very clear about the role of guerrillas in narcotics
trafficking. You can't make good policy based on incorrect assumptions," he
said. "If you reach the conclusion that they're a cartel like any other,
then you back yourself into supporting all-out war with the guerrillas."

In Washington and Colombia alike, debate continues about whether the
group's leadership has fully embraced the drug trade, whether the FARC
qualifies as a cartel and how many rebel fronts are actively involved in
the production and sale of cocaine. FARC officials maintain that they
merely tax the production of cocaine in areas under their control.

The official State Department position is that U.S. money is designated
strictly to fight narcotics. U.S. military officials train Colombian
soldiers, but only to create specially equipped counter-narcotics units.
The U.S. has bought Black Hawk transport helicopters for Colombia, but only
to move Colombian troops to drug zones.

Nevertheless, as the FARC has become more deeply involved in the drug
trade, so has the U.S. become more involved in Colombia's guerrilla war.

This is most clear in the area of intelligence. U.S. officials once
hesitated to share satellite or radio transmission interceptions that were
unrelated to narcotics activity.

U.S. Is Supplying More Intelligence

But in a little-noticed move two years ago, the U.S. began to supply top
Colombian military officers with intelligence on guerrilla troop movements
in drug zones--with little control over how that information is used.

During an interview, a Colombian army general displayed what appeared to be
satellite photographs of cocaine labs and rebel camps, alongside
photographs taken on the ground of the same areas after their capture by
Colombian troops.

"I'm fighting the guerrillas," the general said. "Politically, it's better
to say we're fighting narco-traffickers. But really, we're fighting our
war. The best is to say what people want to hear."

Operation Gato Negro--Black Cat--was launched the night of Feb. 11, when
about 3,500 soldiers helicoptered into the southeastern corner of Colombia,
where the vast eastern plains give way to the Amazon jungle.

The target was Barrancominas, a small town in the depths of the rain forest
dwarfed by a massive grass airstrip to one side.

Surrounded by jungle, the town has only one other means of access to the
outside world--the Guaviare River, which leads directly to a
Switzerland-size zone the government ceded to the FARC two years ago as a
location for peace talks.

The rebels have spent nearly 40 years battling the Colombian government
over issues such as land reform and wealth distribution. But they never
have been more powerful than they are today, thanks to the millions of
dollars they receive annually from drug activity and kidnappings.

Because of the region's geography and isolation, Colombian officials had
suspected that the area around Barrancominas was a center of criminal
activity. But after occupying it, the military was astonished to find more
than 60 cocaine labs, 22 airstrips and 16 rebel encampments scattered
across the jungle like craters on the moon.

The soldiers also discovered about 50,000 acres of previously unknown coca
plantations. Based on the size of the plants and their root structures,
military officials believe that the plantations had been operating for at
least five years.

Nearly three months into the military offensive, U.S. and Colombian
authorities believe that they have wiped out the single biggest source of
income for the FARC--perhaps as much as $100 million of the estimated $300
million to $500 million the group makes annually.

Authorities also think they have broken up the FARC's major source of arms
trading, because officials believe that many of the transactions conducted
here involved bartering purified cocaine for weapons.

"There were no police there, no army, no state authority of any kind," said
Brig. Gen. Arcesio Barrero, commander of the 4th Division, who oversaw the
assault.

Residents interviewed by The Times described a benevolent dictatorship led
by the local commander of the FARC, Tomas Medina, better known as Negro
Acacio. He remains at large.

The FARC gave long weekends to workers on the cocaine plantations, locals
said. Barrancominas, a town of no more than 600 people, had more than 20
bars, billiard halls and whorehouses. There was even a carpeted
cockfighting ring, surrounded by seven levels of wooden bleachers.

The rebels allegedly kept close track of their accounts. Among the
documents seized during the military operation were receipt books for the
barter and sale of cocaine, complete with a stamp for the local FARC unit.

The FARC's primary trading partner in the region was Brazil's top drug
dealer, Da Costa, better known by his nickname, Fernandinho Beira Mar, or
Freddy Seashore.

Da Costa was captured April 21 after the Colombian air force brought down
the plane in which he was trying to flee. During a news conference, he
denied any connection to the FARC and called himself a farmer.

Radio Evidence Links Group To Drug Lord

One of the strongest pieces of evidence connecting the FARC leadership to
drug dealing is a radio transmission in which Jorge Briceno--a member of
the FARC's leadership committee, better known by his nom de guerre, Mono
Jojoy--appears to instruct his followers to offer protection to the
Brazilian drug lord, Colombian military officials say.

Gen. Carlos Alberto Fracica was the field commander in the Barrancominas
operation. He now bivouacs in an outdoor wet bar covered by palm fronds
that was once owned by a drug dealer. Over a tray of meat and fried
plantains, he explained his conviction that the FARC leadership is involved
in every way with drugs.

"Mono Jojoy is the one in charge," Fracica said, waving one of the red,
yellow and blue FARC stickers that he said was attached to every packet of
cocaine sent out of the region. "No one moves in this region without
talking to him."

The Colombian army has been celebrating its victory. But in recent days, as
the focus shifts to other battles, many in Colombia's military and
political structure have begun to worry about this region's future.

"There is no food out there, there is no money there," said Gen. Tapias,
the head of the armed forces. "It is totally a cocaine economy."

Guerrillas Stepped In After Cartels Fell

The U.S. must share some of the blame for the rebels' involvement in
drugs--ironically, because of previous successes in the narcotics war.

The destruction of Colombia's Cali and Medellin cartels in the 1990s
shattered the drug trade, creating hundreds of mini-cartels without the
benefit of the massive private armies run by cartel leaders such as the
late Pablo Escobar of the Medellin group.

Into the resulting vacuum stepped the country's guerrillas, who had long
been involved in the taxation of cocaine.

"In many ways, we're victims of our own success," one senior Drug
Enforcement Administration intelligence official said.

Indeed, as far back as 1992, the CIA predicted the rise of FARC involvement
in the drug trade, according to recently declassified documents obtained
from the National Security Archives at Georgetown University.

The rebels, whose leadership approved the taxation of cocaine in 1982,
moved slowly from extorting drug dealers in their areas to protecting
landing strips used for smuggling to processing coca leaf into coca paste,
one of the steps in the refining of cocaine.

Moreover, evidence has emerged in recent months to support suspicions that
the FARC has sought to move into trafficking--right to the U.S. border.

In November, Mexican authorities accused Carlos Ariel Charry Guzman, a
Colombian, of setting up a cocaine-for-arms deal with the notorious Tijuana
cartel. Charry Guzman had been arrested in Mexico City in August. Mariano
Herran Salvatti, then Mexico's top drug prosecutor, said at the time that
Charry Guzman was working for senior FARC leader Briceno and was "the link,
the coordinator of shipments of drugs and receiver of payment in money or
arms" between the FARC and the cartel led by the Arellano Felix brothers in
Tijuana.

Then, in March, Mexican officials arrested Rigoberto Yannez, alias El
Primo, allegedly a senior lieutenant in the Tijuana cartel who served as a
go-between in the FARC deal. Earlier, Mexican police had arrested another
purported capo in the Arellano Felix cartel, Ismael Higuera, or El Mayel,
who was allegedly the first Mexican link for the FARC.

CIA Predicted Nations Would Seek More Aid

The 1992 CIA report warned that Colombia and other Andean governments would
try to capitalize on whatever ties were discovered between the FARC and the
drug trade to obtain more military assistance from the United States.

In that way, the report said, Washington could be drawn into a proxy war
that would provide little benefit in attempts to slow the export of drugs
to the U.S.

"Andean governments are likely to continue to stress the links between
local insurgencies and the drug trade in hopes of convincing the U.S. that
funding counterinsurgency operations with counter-narcotics aid would lead
to major gains against traffickers," the report said.

Top officials in the State, Defense and Justice departments acknowledged in
recent interviews that individual FARC units are connected to the drug
trade. But they hedged on the role of the group's leadership and whether
the FARC could be called a cartel.

"Clearly, members of the FARC are involved in the drug trade. They are not
the crucial glue that holds it together, however," one DEA official said.

And while Colombian military and police authorities are strongly convinced
of the links, President Andres Pastrana maintains that the FARC is a
political body distinct from drug traffickers. To say otherwise would doom
the peace talks now underway.

Within his office, many see a split in the FARC's ruling committee, with
some of its members believing that narcotics are the best way to finance
their struggle against the state and others concerned about the drugs'
corrupting influence.

As a result, it is unclear just what effect the FARC's deepening
involvement in drugs will have on U.S. policy.

A $900-million aid package being discussed in Washington, for instance, is
more regional and less martial than the $1.3-billion package passed last
year. The money would be distributed to several countries in the Andes, and
a greater percentage of the aid would go to social development programs.

There seems little appetite in either the Bush administration or Congress
for further military involvement in Colombia.

But the more that links develop between the FARC and drug trafficking, the
greater the possibility that the U.S. will find itself battling Colombia's
insurgents.

"It could mean the U.S. does away with the gray line between
counter-narcotics and insurgency and starts treating the FARC like the
Medellin and Cali cartels," said Adam Isacson, a senior associate at the
Center for International Policy in Washington. "We could start helping the
fight against the FARC."