PANAMA POLICE DEFY COLOMBIAN PARAMILITARY THREAT

PANAMA CITY, Panama -- The head of Panama's security forces promised
on Monday to maintain security on the border with Colombia despite
threats by Colombian paramilitary groups to attack Panamanian police.

Right-wing paramilitaries and leftist guerrillas from Colombia's civil
war have spilled across the border in recent months into Panama's
Darien Gap, an isolated forest region linking Central and South America.

``The government's highest priority ... is to maintain peace on the
frontier,'' Police Chief Carlos Bares told reporters. ``But this is a
Colombian problem which they should resolve.''

On Sunday, the right-wing Colombian Defence Forces (AUC) told
international news agencies in Bogota that Panamanian police were a
military objective because they had collaborated with the left-wing
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) inside the Panamanian
border.

Bares dismissed AUC charges that Panamanian security forces were
involved in running arms and drugs with the FARC, saying that the
national police had ``no relations with any Colombian paramilitary or
guerrilla groups.''

Panamanian police would continue to guarantee the security of
Panamanians living in the Darien Gap, Bares said, adding that he hoped
the Colombian authorities would take steps to ensure the AUC would not
pose a greater threat.

The possibility that Colombia's civil war might spill over into Panama
has worried some U.S. politicians, concerned with Panama Canal
security after the strategic waterway is handed back to Panamanian
control at year's end.

In June, the head of U.S. Southern Command, Gen. Charles Wilhelm, told
a U.S. Senate hearing that Panamanian forces were insufficiently
staffed, trained or armed to contend with Colombian guerrilla
incursions into Panama after the withdrawal of U.S. bases.

Panama's standing army, the Panamanian Defence Force, was scrapped by
the civilian government in the wake of the 1989 U.S. invasion to
overthrow military strongman Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, leaving
frontier security in the hands of the national police.

Interior Minister Winston Spadafora told Reuters last week that Panama
would like to close the frontier with Colombia, but was limited by the
``meager forces deployed in Darien.''