USA WARNS OF COLOMBIAN INSURGENCY SPREADING

Washington DC - Military intelligence reports have raised alarms in
the USA that the expanding reach of paramilitary groups and
technological advances by illegal drug cartels in Colombia will result
in instability spreading into neighbouring states.

Senior US officials warn that they may be facing a regional problem of
potentially immense proportions.

The rising stakes in the Andean Ridge of South America - a region one
US official described as the "backyard Balkans" - could adversely
affect not only the democratically-elected governments but also the
USA's "source zone strategy" of eradicating and interdicting illegal
narcotics at their source, according to officials.

Intelligence information made public last week says that Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels controlling nearly 40% of the
country, the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN) and right-wing
paramilitary groups are increasingly operating outside of Columbia's
borders, threatening other nascent democracies in the region.

"Regionally, the governments of Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru and Panama
have become increasingly concerned about the possible spill-over of
violence from Columbia into their respective sovereign territories,"
says Barry McCaffrey, director of the office of national drug control
policy and the former four-star army general who commanded the US
Southern Command (SOUTHCOM).

"For example, guerrilla units have found sanctuary in Panama's Darien
Province and cross the Colombia-Panama border nearly at will,"
McCaffrey told the Senate Armed Services Committee's emerging threats
panel. "These countries have responded by substantially strengthening
the military law-enforcement presence on their common borders with
Colombia. This set of circumstances may have extended implications for
the continued growth of democratic institutions in the region. A
situation that once was an internal Colombian problem may be growing
into a long-term regional challenge."

Meanwhile, US civilian and military authorities also revealed that
Colombia's drug cartels, which have a close relationship with the
insurgency and have doubled their production of cocaine between 1995
and 1998, now have at their disposal new technologies and techniques
that make US and other nations' counter-narcotics efforts more difficult.

"For example, unclassified intelligence reports suggest that 'super
go-fast boats' are now being manufactured on the west coast of
Columbia for use in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific," McCaffrey
reported. These boats have greater speed and cargo capacity than the
latest-model Eduardono boats and can out-run US vessels. Other
intelligence indicates the drug cartels are also capitalizing on
expanding global information networks to support their activities.

These new developments come as the US Department of Defense's $1
billion annual counter-narcotics effort is at a crossroads with the
planned military withdrawal from Panama by the end of the year. The
USA has successfully negotiated agreements with Ecuador and the
Netherlands to construct forward operating locations (FOLs) on the
islands of Curacao and Aruba in the Caribbean and at Manta, Ecuador,
to help replicate its anti-drug air activities that had been housed at
Howard Air Force Base in Panama. Negotiations are under way for an
additional FOL, officials said.

Other steps taken include moving other military elements to the USA
and merging Joint Interagency Task Force (JIATF) South with JIATF East
in Key West, Florida.

"This has been a tedious and occasionally contentious undertaking,"
said US Marine Corps Gen Charles Wilhelm, SOUTHCOM chief. "It has
consumed much of the time and attention that we normally devote to
day-to-day counter-drug operations. Now that the architecture is in
place we have refocused our attention on the operational side of our
mission and are working vigorously on a campaign plan, to be completed
by 31 May, that will chart a course for efficient, well coordinated
and fully integrated [counter-drug] operations from our new operating
locations."

At the same time, SOUTHCOM has undertaken some new counter-drug
activities, according to Gen Wilhelm, including: the training of
riverine units in Peru; meetings with the Colombian Army's new
counter-narcotics battalion; and the commencement of Operation 'Caper'
to intercept traffickers in the long uncontested eastern Pacific corridor.

The DoD's counter-drug funding request for Fiscal Year 2000 totals
$954.6 million, including $92.4 million for the restructuring of
SOUTHCOM's counter-drug structure.