COLOMBIAN ARMY TIED TO ABUSES

Rights Group Faults Links With Militias

The Colombian army, which the Clinton administration proposes to
supply with up to $1 billion in training, equipment and other
assistance over the next two years, maintains close operational ties
to Colombian right-wing paramilitary groups responsible for extensive
human rights abuses and escalating involvement in drug trafficking,
according to a report released yesterday.

Compiled by Human Rights Watch after a yearlong investigation aided by
Colombian government prosecutors, the report comes at a particularly
sensitive time in the administration's effort to gain approval for a
massive aid package it hopes will stem the flood of cocaine and heroin
entering the United States from Colombia.

In recent weeks, the administration has assured skeptical members of
Congress that Colombian President Andres Pastrana has made major
strides in separating the armed forces from the paramilitary groups.
In meetings in Bogota last week, "Pastrana . . . made very clear that
he understood, for the future of Colombia, how important it was to
continue to push ahead in that area," Undersecretary of State Thomas
R. Pickering said Tuesday.

U.S. law prohibits assistance and training to any military units or
individuals implicated in human rights violations, and all troops
involved in U.S. anti-drug assistance programs are individually vetted.

Last night, Colombian Vice President Gustavo Bell issued a sharp
response to the report, saying his government has never denied
residual ties between paramilitary groups and armed forces
individuals, and that it has moved to break those ties and punish
those involved. But the suggestion that there is a "deliberate,
institutional will to help and support these illegal groups is
something the government does not accept, because it is untrue," Bell
said.

The fact that Human Rights Watch received much of its information from
government prosecutors, he said, "indicates clearly and emphatically"
that the government is doing its job in investigating military crimes.
Bell said Colombia is determined to remain open to human rights
scrutiny, but he criticized "the explicit intention" of the report "to
obstruct the legislative procedures" on U.S. aid for Colombia.

Jose Miguel Vivanco, the Latin America director of Human Rights Watch,
said that Colombian federal prosecutors were frustrated by their
inability to apply civilian justice to military officials. Although
Pastrana and U.S. officials frequently note that 15 senior army
officials have lost their jobs because of alleged paramilitary ties,
Vivanco said none of them has been prosecuted. But prosecutors and
human rights officials, he said, live in constant fear for their
lives, and many have fled the country under threat.

While its intentions are good, Vivanco said, the Pastrana government
has been unable to impose its will on the Colombian army.

"Far from moving decisively to sever ties to paramilitaries," the
report says, "our evidence strongly suggests that Colombia's military
high command has yet to take the necessary steps" to accomplish the
government's goals.

Human Rights Watch, located in New York, is the largest U.S.-based
human rights group. Its reports have frequently been used by the
Clinton administration to buttress its human rights assessments of
other countries, including Colombia.

Detailing incidents and evidence it says was collected as recently as
last month, the report documents paramilitary ties with army brigades
headquartered in Colombia's three largest cities, Bogota, Medellin and
Cali. Together with previously issued reports, the report says
"evidence collected so far by Human Rights Watch links half of
Colombia's 18 brigade-level army units . . . to paramilitary activity."

Among the senior military officials the report identifies as having
direct or supervisory involvement with paramilitary units are seven
graduates of the U.S. School of the Americas training center for Latin
American military officers, now located at Fort Benning, Ga.

Colombia's right-wing paramilitary groups were established and funded
during the 1980s by wealthy landowners. Their mission was to help the
military combat two major leftist guerrilla groups, the National
Liberation Army (ELN), and the much larger Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia (FARC), which carry out widespread kidnappings for ransom.

Now joined together as the United Self-Defense Groups of Colombia
under leader Carlos Castano, the paramilitaries' estimated 5,000 to
7,000 troops have been held responsible by both U.S. and Colombian
authorities for more than 70 percent of human rights abuses in
Colombia. These include massacres and dislocation of civilians in the
name of rooting out supposed guerrilla sympathizers.

At the same time, Pickering said Tuesday, "the paramilitaries are now
playing a major role in protecting drug trafficking in southern
Colombia," in effect competing with the FARC.

Among examples of ongoing army-paramilitary collaboration, the report
notes "compelling, detailed information" that the Cali-based Third
Brigade set up its own "paramilitary" group last year using "active
duty, retired and reserve military officers . . . along with hired
paramilitaries" taken from the ranks of Castano forces based in
northern Colombia. Called the Calima Front, it was formed in response
to the ELN kidnapping in May of 140 worshipers in a Cali church--a
group that included some alleged drug traffickers.

According to civilian government investigators, witness accounts and
the government-sworn testimony of a former army intelligence agent,
the front went on a rampage through southwest Colombian villages,
committing targeted assassinations, massacres of peasants and the
forced displacement of hundreds of villagers.

According to the report, the Third Brigade provided the front with
intelligence and logistical support. Working with the army, it says,
local drug traffickers also provided the Calima troops with food,
supplies and local lodging. "The Calima Front and the Third Brigade
are the same thing," the report quotes one government investigator as
saying.

Vivanco said Human Rights Watch is not calling for congressional
rejection of the $1.6 billion, two-year Colombian aid package. Rather,
the report urges that strict new conditions be placed on all U.S.
security assistance to Colombia, including the civilian prosecution of
all military personnel implicated in human rights abuses and
restrictions on intelligence-sharing with Colombian army units. It
also calls for additional funding and civilian staff to aid in
monitoring and investigating alleged abuses.