COLOMBIA'S PARAMILITARY TIES CRITICIZED

Report Faults Army As Aid Package Looms

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 rebels. 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.

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 them. 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. While
Colombia is determined to remain open to human rights scrutiny, Bell said,
he rejected "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
yesterday 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. Prosecutors and human rights officials,
he said, live in constant fear for their lives, and many have fled the
country under threat.

Although 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.

New York-based Human Rights Watch is the largest U.S.-based human rights
group. Its reports have been frequently 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 identified in the report 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 assist the
military in combating the country's 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 all 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, eyewitness 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 together 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 total $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.