A CARPET OF COCAINE

Colombia's jungles are teeming with rich, armed, drug-dealing rebels. Can
the U.S. really beat them?

As U.S. Antidrug Chief General Barry McCaffery jetted into a Colombian
military base last week, he saw the makings of a nightmare outside his
window. "It was astonishing," the former Army general told TIME. "In some
southern districts of Colombia, about a third of the land is under coca
cultivation." From the air, it seemed that every jungle clearing was inlaid
with coca bushes. The view impressed upon McCaffery that despite the loss of
five U.S. servicemen--whose reconnaissance aircraft slammed into a jungle
mountain hidden by clouds days before his visit--the Clinton
Administration's war against Colombian drug cartels has to be raised another
notch.

McCaffery's mission aimed to do just that. At the Tres Esquinas military
base, the general visited U.S. military instructors who are training a
battalion of Colombian police commandos in antidrug warfare--combat skills
that the Colombians use to battle the rebels across the board. Under U.S.
law the advisers are forbidden to join the Colombian police on raids, but
already their presence has rattled the leftist rebels known as the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). If the U.S. "intervenes
further in Colombia," FARC leaders said last week, "its troops will go home
dead or wounded."

For the U.S., however, crushing the drug cartels means taking on the FARC as
well as guerrillas of the leftist National Liberation Army (ELN) and their
foes, the right-wing paramilitaries. Until five years ago, these rebels were
happy to charge drug producers a protection "tax." But according to
McCaffery, both the rebels and their paramilitary rivals are moving directly
into the trade. Using the profits--and yearly payoffs from the drug lords,
which, according to McCaffery, run anywhere from $250 million to $600
million--the FARC and the ELN rebels have conquered nearly 40% of the
country and inflicted one defeat after another on the Colombian government.
"If we could cut off their drug financing, the activities of these groups
would fall to 1% of what they are now," McCaffery says.

Already the U.S. is passing intelligence about FARC activities to Colombia's
top military officers. And U.S. planes, based in Florida, Colombia, Ecuador
and Honduras, have flown more than 2,000 counter-drug missions. Many of
those were reconnaissance flights similar to the one that crashed southeast
of Bogota on July 21, killing its American crew and two Colombian officers.
The efforts are backed by a $289 million annual aid package. (Colombia is
the third largest recipient of U.S. largesse, behind Israel and Egypt.)

Yet, maddeningly for U.S. officials, Colombia's traffickers seem to be
winning. According to McCaffery, 80% of the cocaine that reaches the U.S.
and an increasing amount of heroin are produced in Colombia. Partly that is
because of the success of U.S. aerial spraying in Bolivia and Peru. The
Colombian traffickers, instead of shutting down their operations, began
paying off farmers in the southeastern part of the country to begin
wide-scale planting of coca and heroin. Data from U.S. satellites indicate
"an explosion" of drug growth inside Colombia over the next couple of years,
McCaffery says, and that means more arms and money for the guerrillas. "What
we're seeing," the general asserts, "is that when the FARC now wants to
ambush a police station, they'll go in with rockets, mortars and 1,000 men."

The sheer firepower and tenacity of the rebels--led by Manuel ("Sureshot")
Marulanda--have pinned down successive governments for 38 years and made
Washington wary of involvement. "We don't want to get into another Vietnam
down there," says a senior Army officer assigned to the Joint Chiefs of
Staff. "Right now, there's no guarantee the Colombian government is going to
win, and we don't want to back the losers--again." After McCaffery's visit,
however, it was still tough to spot the winners.

- --WITH REPORTING BY CATHLEEN FARRELL/BOGOTA, MARK THOMPSON AND JAY
BRANEGAN/WASHINGTON