RATCHETING UP A JUNGLE WAR IN COCA FIELDS

LARANDIA ARMY BASE, Colombia, Dec. 8 - A giant cannon blast marked the start
of the ceremony at this sprawling military base deep in the jungles of
southern Colombia.

As 14 helicopters buzzed overhead, soldiers in camouflage face paint and
black berets marched through a cloud of yellow, blue and red smoke - the
colors of the Colombian flag - toward the generals at the reviewing stand. A
Catholic priest in a white smock then trudged across the water-logged field
toward the formation, uttered a prayer and sprinkled holy water.

With that, Colombia graduated the second of three vaunted army battalions to
be trained in the art of counternarcotics warfare by United States Army
Special Forces instructors. The training, and hundreds of millions of
dollars in American aid for troop helicopters and other military hardware,
form the centerpiece of President Andres Pastrana's ambitious plan to root
out the coca cultivation that has fueled Colombia's brutal civil conflict.

"A great responsibility rests on your shoulders," Colombian Defense Minister
Luis Fernando Ramirez told the graduating soldiers as high- ranking American
and Colombian military officials listened. "The hour has arrived, as we've
predicted, for this brigade to become the principal headache for a small
group of Colombians who have declared war on 40 million Colombians."

The battalion, numbering more than 600 soldiers, received training under a
$1.3 billion American aid package designed to stem drug production in
Colombia and, in the process, cut leftist rebels off from their main source
of financing. When a third battalion completes training in April, Colombia
will have a 3,000- man antinarcotics brigade to use at will in Colombia's
coca heartland, the southern jungle provinces of Putumayo and Caqueta.

For the soldiers who form Battalion No. 2, all of whom were screened to make
sure no one had committed human rights abuses, the graduation was a proud
day. It was a much-anticipated finale after four rigorous months of
all-purpose military and antinarcotics training, in addition to instructions
on how to avoid entanglements involving noncombatants.

Sgt. Mauricio Garcia, an 11-year veteran who marveled at how much better a
soldier he has become with American instruction, said he was eager to swing
into action against coca laboratories and drug traffickers.

"We want to finish off the coca and hit them hard," Sergeant Garcia said.
"It's so important because this problem is finishing off our society. Little
by little they are doing away with us. So we are the ones who are going to
defend the people."

The events at Larandia, a base built on a giant farm once owned by a rancher
named Oliverio Lara, had a festive air. Proud relatives in spiffy clothes
beamed as young soldiers received certificates and congratulatory handshakes
from the military brass. The graduates then playfully posed for pictures
with General Fernando Tapias, commander of the Colombian armed forces, and
General Jorge Mora, chief of the army.

But both soldiers and high-ranking Colombian and American officials were
under no illusions.

The soldiers of the counternarcotics brigade are expected to meet stiff
resistance in the field, either from drug traffickers or rebels of the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The rebel group, with an
estimated 17,000 fighters nationwide, is accused of making millions of
dollars by taxing traffickers and running the coca-processing labs scattered
throughout the jungle.

"When you start operations there will be battles," said Gen. Peter Pace,
commander of American forces in Latin America and a guest at the graduation
ceremonies. "From a peace standpoint this is not good, but from a long-term
perspective, you've got to do what the government of Colombia is trying to
do."

Colombian and American officials have emphasized that the new battalions
would only engage in counternarcotics operations, not counterinsurgency
campaigns against the rebels. At one point today, General Mario Montoya,
commander of Colombian forces in the country's south, spotted a group of new
graduates speaking with reporters and promptly cautioned them about "a
question they want to ask you."

The answer they should provide, the general advised, is that the brigade is
"not attacking the guerrillas. We are attacking the narco-traffickers, or
whatever they want to call themselves."

But military officials on both sides acknowledged that distinguishing
between the two would not be easy, especially if rebel fighters opt to
defend drug labs and coca fields.

"If a person, male or female, is trafficking in drugs, regardless of what
ideology they have, they're drug traffickers," said General Pace. "It's
clearly true that many of the guerrillas, if not all of them, traffic in
drugs, and so trying to define that line is very difficult."

Indeed, the first battalion, made up of 900 men who graduated from training
in late 1999, has lost three soldiers this year in two encounters, the last
one on Nov. 18 with rebel fighters, according to a government history of the
antinarcotics battalions. General Mora, the Colombian army chief, said the
battalion's soldiers have faced rebel defenders in operations against coca
labs in the area surrounding the isolated Tres Esquinas military base in
Caqueta.

"They've had confrontations, at the entryway of the labs," said Colonel
Roberto Trujillo, commander of the counternarcotics brigade. "For us, the
enemy is the narco-traffickers, in whatever form they come."

The training of the second battalion came as chaos has reigned in Putumayo,
where about half of Colombia's coca crops are cultivated. The rebel group,
long established in the province, had been challenged by its nemesis, the
United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, a right-wing paramilitary group that
human rights organizations say has had ties to the Colombian military. The
rebels responded by blocking roads throughout Putumayo from late September
until just this past week, when rebel leaders told a United Nations envoy
they would lift their travel bans.

The recent events in the Vermont-sized province have worried experts and
government officials, both in Colombia and the United States, who have
questioned how effective the brigade will be.

"They could very well be engaged with paramilitary forces, as well as FARC
forces," said Representative Bill Delahunt, a Massachusetts Democrat who is
on the International Relations Committee. "So it further complicates the
picture. It adds an additional burden to their mission, and I think it
creates a more dangerous mission because of the increasing presence of the
paramilitaries."

As it is, the first battalion has not become fully operational because not
all the support helicopters in the American aid package have arrived in
Colombia. So far, the Colombians are relying on 18 UH-1N helicopters and are
expecting 15 more by January. By the middle of next year, 16 Black Hawk
helicopters will begin to arrive, two of them for the Colombian National
Police. After that, several Super Hueys - fast, powerful and well-armed
choppers - will be delivered.