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.