U.S. COPTERS NOW DEFENDING COLOMBIA COPS

The Heavily Armed And Armored Helicopters Are Owned By The State Department
And Leased To The Colombian Police, Which Uses Them To Protect Fumigation
Planes And Ground Forces Destroying Coca And Opium Poppy Fields.

BOGOTA -- U.S.-owned attack helicopters leased to Colombian police for
counter-narcotics missions can be used to defend security forces from
guerrillas in drug-producing areas, a U.S. official here said.

Indeed, the official, who insisted on anonymity, added that some of the six
UH-60 Black Hawks, all of which are piloted by members of the Colombian
national police force, have already been used to defend besieged police and
army units under rules of engagement that allow their deployment for
"defensive force protection."

The explanation of the rules was provided following a harsh complaint by
U.S. Rep. Benjamin Gilman, R-N.Y., that tight restrictions could prevent
their deployment in firefights and result in needless government casualties.

Although the explanation was intended to allay fears that rules were too
restrictive, critics of the rapidly growing U.S. counter-narcotics aid to
Colombia said just the opposite: that it opens the door to increased U.S.
participation in the country's war against 20,000 guerrillas.

"That's a big leap down the slippery slope because police units are
attacked somewhere in Colombia every day," said Adam Isacson, senior
associate at the Center for International Policy, a Washington, D.C., think
tank.

Gilman, chairman of the House International Relations Committee and a
strong advocate of easing the restrictions, went public after 13 policemen
in the town of Roncesvalles were killed in a guerrilla attack as three
police-piloted Black Hawks sat unused a 20-minute flight away.

While police officials said the aircraft could not have aided the unit
helped in any case -- the attack took place at night -- the incident
sparked a quiet but intense debate over the exact meaning of the rules of
engagement.

"This is a matter of policy catching up to reality," said one Clinton
administration official.

For months, the administration has been reassuring congressional skeptics
that increased aid to Colombia -- including a $1.3 billion package approved
this month -- would not spill over to the country's 35-year-old guerrilla war.

The Black Hawks "are to be used . . . for counter-narcotics law enforcement
activities only, except in times of natural disaster or other emergency to
prevent loss of life or otherwise engage in humanitarian undertakings,"
Assistant Secretary of State Barbara Larkin wrote Gilman last year.

The heavily armed and armored helicopters are owned by the State Department
and leased to the Colombian police, which uses them to protect fumigation
planes and ground forces destroying coca and opium poppy fields.

The U.S. official in Bogota said the aircraft have already been used for
"defensive force protection" on several occasions, but declined to go into
details. "The rules are very strict," he said. "If it's a force-protection
issue involving counter-narcotics units, involved in specific
counter-narcotics activity . . . then our rules say we can support."

He added that "counter-narcotics activity" meant even police merely
stationed in areas where narcotics crops are cultivated. Guerrillas are
concentrated in coca and opium poppy-growing regions.

The official noted that the town of Roncesvalles, 110 miles southwest of
Bogota, lies in the heart of a major poppy-growing area. ``We certainly
have had no complaints [from police] about the use of the Black Hawks so
far,'' he said.

But Roncesvalles "was not a counter-drug operation. That was the
[guerrillas] beating up on police," said James Zackrison, a Colombia
specialist at the Center for Counter Terrorism Studies in Arlington, Va.

"Humanitarian aid is when you evacuate the wounded. If you go in and make
contact with guerrillas attacking a police unit . . . that's combat
support," Zackrison added.

The U.S. official said the rules of engagement are tighter for the 20
aircraft here operated directly by State Department counter-narcotics
programs and piloted by U.S. and Latin American civilians under contract.
They fly fumigation planes, armed aircraft that protect the crop dusters
from ground fire and armed search and rescue helicopters in case a
fumigation pilot crashes or is shot down.

Colombian security forces are known to have occasionally called on the
U.S.-operated helicopters to help rescue downed military and police pilots,
but few details of those incidents have become public.

U.S. units are limited to assisting Colombian units directly involved in
counter-narcotics operations, the official said, declining further comment
on past incidents.

U.S.-operated aircraft are often hit by ground fire, but none has ever been
shot down.