U.S. OFFICIALS TIE COLOMBIAN GUERRILLAS TO DRUG EXPORTS

Group Likened To 'Cartel'

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 claimed 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 czar 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 counter-insurgency 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 added. FARC officials have denied the
charges, and the respected Semana news weekly reported Sunday that the
absence of strong evidence to support the allegations ``would be seen
as another stunt to justify Plan Colombia.''

`Maritime Shipments'

McCaffrey told a news conference in Washington 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 have ``control of the entire
export process and the routes for sending drugs abroad.'' They are,
she added, ``like the big cartels.''

Two Recent Events

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 arrest in Mexico in August 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.''

`Plenty Of Evidence'

``We have plenty of evidence that the FARC has been shipping drugs to
Central America and Mexico for transfer to the United States,'' said
Gen. Gustavo Socha, head of the National Police's counter-narcotics
division.

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

No congressional reaction was immediately available on the statements
by McCaffrey and Patterson, but John Mackey, investigative counsel for
the House Committee on International Relations, said that 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 Gilman of New York, a senior
Republican congressman whose committee was instrumental in supplying
aid to Colombia.

Colombia now 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, a hugely profitable industry that has aided the rapid
growth by the FARC and paramilitary units in the past decade.

No Major Change

McCaffrey aides said his statements do 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,''
spokesman Bob Weiner said. ``But I believe this has been the situation
all along.''

However, a Feb. 15 Drug Enforcement Administration report to Congress
said there was ``no information that any FARC . . . units have
established international transportation, wholesale distribution, or
drug money laundering networks in the United States.''

An Upgrading

Half a dozen State Department and congressional officials who follow
Colombia's narcotics industry said the McCaffrey and Patterson
comments indeed represent 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 added that when the
Colombian military made similar accusations against the FARC over the
past two years, ``our government jumped through hoops to say the FARC
was not a cartel.''