COLOMBIAN ARMY FIGHTING LEGACY OF ABUSES

MITU, Colombia--As the United States steps up support for the Colombian
military, now locked in a bloody stalemate with Marxist guerrillas,
officials in both countries say the Bogota government cannot prevail
without radical reform of its battered and demoralized army.

Despite a well-documented history of human rights abuses by the army, the
Clinton administration is increasing military aid to Colombia as part of
its strategy to counter the drug trade, citing the guerrillas' role in
protecting producers and distributors of heroin and cocaine. This year, the
United States will provide the army with training and intelligence and
logistical support worth about $40 million -- an amount that will rise as
plans for an elite 900-member anti-drug battalion move forward.

The aid will help offset the material advantages enjoyed by Colombia's main
guerrilla movement, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC),
whose members often have better equipment than their government
counterparts because of the guerrillas' earnings from the drug trade.

A bigger question, though, is whether the Colombian army can be repaired.
In addition to its dismal human rights record, it is burdened by a legacy
of corruption and ineptitude, especially among its officers, some of whom
are better known for judging beauty pageants than leading troops. After
more than three decades of warfare, the Revolutionary Armed Forces and a
smaller rebel movement, the National Liberation Army, control nearly half
of this Andean nation of 36 million people, although the government retains
control of major cities.

"It will take at least a generation to really turn the armed forces
around," one U.S. intelligence analyst said. "How can you have an
institution engaged in a conflict for 40 years and still be in the shape
they are? How can you repeatedly fail to detect the movements of hundreds
of enemy troops in areas where there is almost no population? It is a
mystery to us."

Time and again as the rebels have gained strength in recent years, the army
demonstrated its incompetence on the battlefield. U.S. military analysts
counted 80 instances in which the FARC massed at least 300 men to attack
army contingents and defeated the government troops every time.

Last March, for example, an elite army unit lost 70 percent of its 154 men
in a two-day battle with FARC guerrillas at El Billar, a remote jungle area
near Colombia's border with Ecuador. A scathing internal investigation, a
copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, blamed the debacle on
poor leadership and discipline, citing the penchant of some troops for
public drunkenness and beating up prostitutes. Many of the unit's members
had taken short training courses from U.S. Special Forces troops sent to
Colombia for that purpose.

The army's dismal performance is one reason that President Andres Pastrana,
who took office last year, has launched preliminary talks with the
guerrillas to try to find a solution to the conflict, which has killed tens
of thousands of people and displaced up to a million.

Largely because of the army's human rights record, the United States until
recently had limited its involvement with the military, steering the bulk
of its drug-fighting assistance to Colombia's anti-drug police agency,
which this year will receive $249 million in U.S. aid.

But the Clinton administration has begun to rethink that strategy in light
of the rebels' growing strength -- the number of combatants in the main
rebel force has swelled from 9,000 to about 16,000 in the last two years --
and involvement in the drug trade. Colombia currently provides about 80
percent of the cocaine and two-thirds of the heroin consumed in the United
States; U.S. officials fear the rebels could create a drug-financed state
in the southern half of the country or even topple the Bogota government.

While acknowledging the army's shortcomings, Clinton administration
officials assert that a new crop of military leaders installed by Pastrana
is improving the army's performance and human rights record. Pastrana named
Rodrigo Lloreda, a widely respected former foreign minister, as minister of
defense and Gen. Fernando Tapias as commander of the armed forces, skipping
over several senior generals. Tapias has a reputation for honesty and
competence and enjoys the confidence of the United States.

But U.S. and Colombian experts say Tapias has little support within the
army for his reform efforts and that he must move quickly if he is to have
a lasting impact, something Tapias himself has acknowledged.

"Our first reforms don't cost any money," Tapias said. "My first order was
to suspend [officers' participation in] beauty pageants [and] to stop using
our aircraft for public relations and useless trips. We are in a war, and
all our resources must be dedicated to operations."

"The blows the FARC has struck give the impression the war is lost," Tapias
said. "It isn't, but I have a year, and if within that year we don't show
improved results, people will be willing to give the FARC whatever they ask
for at the negotiating table."

Faced with the growing rebel threat, the United States and Colombia are
struggling to find a formula that would allow U.S. aid to remain focused on
fighting the drug trade while helping address the army's most glaring
weaknesses. "Without reducing aid to the police, we are trying to give the
military the components of a counter-drug force," a U.S. official said.
"The police are not big enough to do the job alone."

The main focus of U.S. and Colombian counter-drug efforts is the
southeastern half of the country, where the cultivation of coca -- the raw
material for cocaine -- is expanding rapidly and where the guerrillas
operate freely in dense jungle. Tapias recently named Brig. Gen. Carlos
Ospina, a seasoned combat leader and U.S. favorite, as commander of the
vast area.

In January, the U.S. military inaugurated a $20 million radar base at San
Jose del Guaviare -- its third in the area -- to detect drug transportation
flights. About 130 miles to the southwest, in the town of Tres Esquinas,
the United States is installing a new CIA-financed intelligence center and
electronic listening post, manned by both the Colombian police and army.
Colombian and U.S. military officials said Tres Esquinas is also the likely
base for the counter-drug battalion, whose members will begin 90-day
training sessions with U.S. Special Forces teams later this month.

But the Clinton administration's strategy makes some human right groups and
congressional leaders uneasy. "What we are really seeing is a ratcheting up
of a counterinsurgency policy masquerading as a counter-drug policy," said
Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), the ranking minority member of the
Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations. "We risk becoming deeply
enmeshed in a jungle war that has already claimed thousands of innocent
lives."

The sorry state of military readiness was evident recently among troops of
the army's 3rd Mobile Brigade at this isolated outpost near the Brazilian
border, 400 miles southeast of Bogota. Sodliers had holes in their boots,
many of which were held together with string or wire. Their uniforms were
nearly worn through.

The government is hamstrung, moreover, by a law that exempts high school
graduates -- a relatively privileged class in Colombia -- from serving in
combat; about 30,000 of Colombia's 121,000 soldiers fall into the exempt
category. The officer corps has been described by U.S. officials as a
social club whose members are promoted largely on the basis of whom they
know, while the ratio of officers to enlistees is roughly three times that
of the U.S. armed forces. The army also routinely hires out soldiers to
guard the estates of wealthy landowners and others willing to pay for the
extra protection from guerrilla raids.

The military's shortcomings were evident last March at El Billar, where the
52nd Battalion of the 3rd Brigade lost 107 of its 154 men -- 62 killed, 43
captured and two missing. Among other embarrassing details, the army's
after-action report noted that the troops could not call in air support
because their radio batteries were dead and that several of the prostitutes
frequented by unit members were in fact FARC guerrillas on
intelligence-gathering missions. In contrast, the army had no intelligence
information on the massing of about 800 guerrillas for the attack.

For all the weaknesses exposed by the report, U.S. officials say they count
it a sign of progress that the Colombian military was willing to
investigate the incident. "Instead of heaping praise on itself, as it
usually does after a defeat, the high command actually got rid of people,"
one U.S. official said. "They are trying to figure out what's wrong."

Following the investigation, the 52nd Battalion was rebuilt from the ground
up, with new officers and enlisted men and an intensive round of training.
On Nov. 1, the reconstituted unit faced its first serious test after up to
1,000 guerrillas overran this isolated jungle town, which is accessible
only by air and river craft. Although the town of 5,000 people is of little
strategic value, it was the first provincial capital ever captured by the
guerrillas, who killed 70 police officers and captured 45 in the assault.

Unable to fly in reinforcements because rebels controlled the airfield,
Pastrana received permission from Brazil to land troops and a refueling
depot on the Brazilian side of the border, about 20 miles from here. From
there, the 52nd Battalion was ferried to within a few miles of Mitu and
fought an 18-hour battle with the guerrillas.

Ultimately, the guerrillas melted back into the surrounding jungle, taking
scores of their dead and wounded with them. The battalion suffered 23
fatalities and scores of wounded, but it did retake the town. Later this
month, about 80 members of the unit will begin a new round of training with
the U.S. Special Forces.

Colombia's Armed Forces:

ARMY: 121,000 (including 63,000 conscripts)

NAVY: 18,000

AIR FORCE: 7,300

TOTAL (1997): 146,300

TOTAL (1985): 66,000

Defense budget in millions

1996 $16

1997 $33

1998 $67

Defense spending as proportion of gross national product

1985 1.6%

1995 2.6%

SOURCES: The Military Balance, World Bank