COLOMBIAN DRUGS FORCE RAISES FEAR OF US ROLE

Flanked by top military commanders, President Andres Pastrana yesterday
unveiled Colombia's latest weapon in the war on drugs: a specialised army
battalion designed to confront the traffickers in the vast narcotics
plantations of the south.

But observers warned that the US-trained and funded battalion marked a
dangerous shift towards direct US involvement in Colombia's guerrilla war.

US officials insist that military aid can be used only for anti-narcotics
efforts. But with leftwing rebels increasingly implicated in drug
production, the line between anti-narcotics and counter-insurgency
operations has been blurred.

The 1,000-strong battalion will start operations in December, concentrating
on the remote southern states, a rebel stronghold where the dense Amazon
jungle is patchworked with illegal drug plantations.

"The theatre of operations is the southern part of the country - it's
clearly focusing on direct combat with the rebels," said Winifred Tate, who
monitors Colombia for the Washington Office on Latin America, a US
think-tank.

Yesterday's launch came during wave of political violence triggered by the
foundering peace process, and many Colombians fear that Washington hawks are
advocating a military solution to the country's 38-year civil conflict.

"What the US is doing will end up fuelling the conflict, with tremendously
destabilising consequences in Colombia and the whole region," Ms Tate said.

Peace talks with the largest rebel group, the 15,000-strong Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), began in January but were suspended
indefinitely over disagreements on international participation in the
negotiations.

With the talks in deadlock, sporadic fighting continues throughout the
country.

US officials recently revealed that they now regularly share sensitive
intelligence on rebel movements for use in counter-narcotics operations, but
they admit that they have no system to ensure that the information is not
used for counter-insurgency operations.

When helicopter gunships killed scores of guerrillas retreating after a July
offensive, many suspected US had helped to track the rebels.

Colombia is already the third-largest recipient of US military aid,
receiving about $300m (pounds 190m) for anti-narcotics operations. The
support is focused on the Colombian police, in the form of training,
ammunition and helicopters to protect crop-dusting planes which spray
illegal crops with defoliant. At any time there are about 300 US military
advisers in the country.

But US officials fear that drug production could rise by a further 50% in
the next two years, owing partly to the protection provided by the 20,000
leftwing guerrillas in the country.

According to the Whitehouse anti-drugs chief, Barry McCaffrey, many units of
the Farc and the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN) are directly
involved in the drugs trade. General McCaffrey has already proposed an extra
$600m for the Colombian war on drugs.

In the past 10 years the rebels have tripled in number and filled their war
chests by protecting drug processing plants and crops of coca, the raw
material of cocaine.

Although the dispirited and poorly equipped Colombian army has been hard
pressed to confront the rebels, in some regions the guerrillas have been
badly hit by rightwing paramilitary groups.

Observers say that as the military's human rights record has improved, the
paramilitaries have taken over the "dirty war".

According to human rights groups, many local army commanders tolerate or
even cooperate with the death squads, which regularly attack civilians whom
they accuse of collaborating with the guerrillas.

Direct US military aid to the army was suspended in the 80s in response to
human rights abuses, and although President Pastrana has made efforts to
clean up the military, a recent US government report said that only three of
the six army brigades operating in the main drug trafficking areas had
passed a human rights screening process making them eligible for aid.

"Many commanders still think that the subject of human rights was invented
to impede their operations," said Andres Davila, a military analyst.

Last month two army officers were convicted of murdering a leftwing senator
in 1994. They were given a public reprimand and remain on active service.