THE 'VIETNAMISATION' OF LATIN AMERICA

"This is not Vietnam", US president Bill Clinton announced during a one-day
trip to the northern Colombian city of Cartagena in late August.

Clinton was launching "Plan Colombia", the goal of which is to tame the
country's guerrilla movements under the guise of destroying cocaine
production in Colombia.

Eighty per cent of the plan's initial US contribution of US$1.3 billion was
devoted to military spending.

"We do not, under any circumstances, intend to become involved militarily in
Colombia", US defence secretary William Cohen told a gathering of Latin
American counterparts in mid-October.

Latin American governments have been expressing rising concern at the
possible "spill over" effect of the Colombian conflict. Venezuelan president
Hugo Chavez has referred to the threat of "Vietnamisation" of northern Latin
America.

Over the last two months, as the first onslaughts under Plan Colombia have
taken place, it is easy to see why Chavez is worried.

Clashes between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the
Colombian army have intensified in the Panama border region and in the
FARC's main base of support, the southern departments of Putumayo and
Caqueta, bordering on Ecuador.

The ultra-right death squads ("paramilitaries") known as the Self-Defence
Units of Colombia (AUC) are spreading their terror campaign against civilian
supporters of the National Liberation Army (ELN) from the central Colombian
department of Bolivar to FARC-controlled areas in the south and west,
bordering Venezuela.

Their tactic, known as "draining the swamp", is to give villagers and
farmers a deadline for abandoning their towns and land, then slaughter them
if they don't comply.

Aerial spraying of coca plantations (coca is the plant from which cocaine is
refined) has begun in the south using Glyphosate, a product made by
Montsanto (the company that made the Agent Orange defoliant that devastated
Vietnam).

Already, the spraying has killed staple crops like bananas, rubber, cocoa
and yuca, as well as damaging the health of peasant families.

Thousands of refugees are fleeing to Ecuador, Venezuela and Panama.
According to local FARC commander Ruben Zamora full implementation of Plan
Colombia could see 60,000 refugees cross the Colombian-Venezuelan border.

US Southern Command top official, Vietnam veteran Peter Pace, recently
conducted several visits to the Colombian capital Bogota.

The Pentagon is considering boosting its "in-country" supervision of the
Colombian army's counterinsurgency offensive.

The conservative Colombian government of President Andres Pastrana continues
to proclaim that it is opposed to terrorism. However, the AUC, which are
staffed army personnel in civilian dress, remain a vital element in the
government's strategy to tame the FARC and ELN.

Coordinated strategy

Plan Colombia is a coordinated strategy against the rebel insurgency and its
civilian supporters.

The AUC move into an area and terrorise the population, then the FARC or ELN
respond and the army is sent in (including its special US-trained
"drug-eradication" regiments) to "restore order".

When aerial spraying starts in earnest in early December, it will also be
used against those who support the insurgency.

Through these tactics, the government hopes to reduce the area under
guerrilla control.

Increasing AUC attacks forced the FARC to declare an "armed strike" in
Putumayo in October.

Roadblocks were set up and the passage of goods prevented.

While the army has succeeded in forcing a passage through a number of FARC
checkpoints, the armed strike continues in most of the department.

On November 12, the FARC decided to freeze negotiations with the government
"for as long as the president and his government does not clarify their
position on paramilitary terrorism and develop policies to erradicate it".

Pastrana retaliated by threatening not to renew the demilitarised zone the
government has conceded to the FARC when this comes up for renewal on
December 7.

Plan Colombia's problems

Plan Colombia will need to yield rapid results if it is to have any chance
of success in the longer term.

This is because the alliances on which it is based are full of tensions, and
it carries the potential to provoke a broad anti-US alliance across Latin
America.

Within Colombia, Pastrana's Conservative Party has been weakened by its
unprecedented thrashing at the October 29 municipal and regional elections.

Most worrying for the ruling Colombian oligarchy was the fact that voters
did not swing to its other political tool, the Liberal Party, but instead
supported a wide range of independent candidates.

The only relief the oligarchy could have drawn from the result was the
failure of the old urban left to win back support and the inability of the
new left, represented by the Social and Political Front, to get its act
together in time for the poll.

The result, including the usual 50% abstention rate, was worrying enough for
Liberal Party leader Horacio Serpa to offer Pastrana an unprecedented
"alliance for peace".

Within the US, worries about Plan Colombia are also beginning to surface.

The Philadelphia Enquirer in early November revealed the involvement of US
secret agencies in the hunting down and murder of Colombian drug lord Pablo
Escobar in the early 1990s.

The Enquirer articles disclosed that US agencies had worked hand in glove
with Fidel Castano, the brother of AUC boss Carlos Castano, and that the
terror techniques being used against the Colombian insurgency were refined
and developed during the hunt against Escobar.

Partially as a result of the revelations, the leader of the US House of
Representatives international relations committee Benjamin Gilman withdrew
his support from Plan Colombia, and called for the Colombian army to be cut
out of the program and replaced by the less tainted police.