U.S. CHARGES RAISE SUSPICIONS OF WIDENING ROLE IN COLOMBIA

Two Key Officials Say FARC Guerrillas Are Exporting Drugs

Critics See An Effort To Justify U.S. Involvement

BOGOTA, Colombia - Senior U.S. officials have begun to accuse
Colombia's largest guerrilla force of involvement in cocaine exports,
fueling suspicions by critics of U.S. policy of a campaign to pave the
way for deeper U.S. involvement in this country's conflicts.

U.S. and Colombian authorities have long alleged that the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC, collects
"taxes" and protects payments along every step of the domestic cocaine
industry, from coca farms to refineries and clandestine airstrips.

But recent statements by U.S. drug policy chief Barry McCaffrey and
Ambassador Anne Patterson go far beyond that, to allegations of a
direct FARC role in shipping cocaine to U.S. markets and a description
of the group as a "cartel."

The charges raised concern that they are designed to boost support for
the $1.3 billion U.S. aid package for Colombia - officially restricted
to bolstering the military's ability to crack down on the coca
industry and barred from use in Colombia's 35-year-old guerrilla war.

"They are using these new accusations to sell the American people on
the idea that U.S. aid to Colombia is good, even if it starts sliding
into the counterinsurgency side," said Adam Isacson, an analyst with
the Center for International Policy in Washington and critic of the
military-aid package.

"When two senior officials make the same comments a week apart, that
is a coordinated campaign and not just individual statements," Isacson
contended. FARC officials have denied the charges, and the respected
Semana newsweekly has reported that the absence of strong evidence to
support the allegations "would be seen as another stunt to justify
Plan Colombia."

McCaffrey told a news conference in Washington on Nov. 28 that while
the FARC "may not yet be distributing drugs on the streets of the
United States, we are surprised that they are involved in maritime
shipments."

A week later, Patterson told journalists that both the FARC and
right-wing paramilitary units had "control of the entire export
process and the routes for sending drugs abroad." They are, she added,
"like the big cartels."

U.S. Embassy officials in Bogota declined comment on the evidence
behind Patterson's statements, but McCaffrey aides said his comments
referred to two recent events:

The August arrest in Mexico of an alleged FARC envoy, Carlos Ariel
Charry, while he negotiated what Mexican prosecutors described as a
possible cocaine-for-guns deal with Mexico's Arellano Felix drug
cartel. Charry was reported to be carrying a videotape of himself
shaking hands with FARC commander Jorge Briceno, known as Mono Jojoy,
in the jungles of southern Colombia as proof that he was indeed a
guerrilla envoy.

The Colombian navy's Sept. 3 seizure of three tons of cocaine bound
for Mexico aboard the speedboat La Sirena, intercepted near the
Pacific port of Buenaventura, a FARC-dominated area 220 miles
southwest of Bogota. Adm. Carlos Pineda, the region's commander, told
reporters at the time that "thanks to the intelligence services and
the seizures we have conducted . . . it was determined the FARC was
involved in that particular shipment."

FARC officials have denied any role in shipping cocaine abroad but
admitted they levy "taxes" on the domestic industry, saying any source
of income was legitimate in their war against the "illegal regime."

John Mackey, investigative counsel for the House Committee on
International Relations, said the new evidence of possible FARC
involvement in cocaine exports "will increase the capacity of the
United States to justify aid to our neighbor Colombia."

The panel is chaired by Rep. Benjamin A. Gilman of New York, a senior
Republican congressman whose committee was instrumental in supplying
aid to Colombia.

Colombia produces an estimated 520 metric tons of cocaine a year,
about 90 percent of the cocaine and 65 percent of the heroin reaching
the U.S. market.

McCaffrey aides said his statements did not represent any significant
change in the U.S. perception of the FARC's involvement in drug
trafficking. "They are involved in all aspects of the cocaine
industry, from forcing farmers to grow coca . . . to international
trafficking," said McCaffrey spokesman Bob Weiner. "But I believe this
has been the situation all along."

However, a report last winter to Congress by the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration said there was "no information that any FARC . . .
units have established international transportation, wholesale
distribution, or drug money laundering networks in the United States."

Half a dozen State Department and congressional officials who follow
Colombia's drug industry said the McCaffrey and Patterson comments
represented a substantial upgrading of U.S. allegations against the
FARC.

"The FARC's role historically was to exercise local control rather
than transnational control," said Jonathan M. Winer, who retired last
year as deputy chief of the State Department's International Narcotics
and Law Enforcement Bureau. The allegations of a FARC role in exports,
he added, "are the first time I've heard of that."

A senior congressional aide who follows the issue said that when the
Colombian military made similar accusations against the FARC over the
last two years, "our government jumped through hoops to say the FARC
was not a cartel."