U.S. STRENGTHENS TIES WITH COLOMBIAN ARMY

WASHINGTON -- Despite the roles of Colombia's military in human-rights
abuses and the nation's drug corruption, the United States is stepping up
its involvement with the Colombian armed forces because it fears that they
are losing a war to Marxist rebels who derive much of their income from drug
trafficking.

Washington is acting despite concerns about the army's dismal human rights
record as well as drug-related corruption that has long reached into the
highest ranks of the officer corps.

The American aid package will provide training and partial funding for a
1,000-man army counter-narcotics brigade as well as a CIA-sponsored
intelligence center and listening post deep in Colombia's Amazon jungle,
according to U.S. and Colombian officials.

The aid comes on top of training that has been provided to the Colombian
military on a smaller scale by U.S. Special Forces for several years under a
program of joint exercises by the U.S. military and its counterparts around
the world.

The decision to "cautiously re-engage" the Colombian military, in the words
of one senior U.S. official, marks a significant shift in American policy
toward Colombia, a violence-wracked Andean nation of 37 million that
supplies roughly 80 percent of the cocaine and 60 percent of the heroin sold
in the United States.

After working closely with the Colombian military in the late 1980s and
early '90s, the United States largely cut off direct aid, citing human
rights abuses. While the Special Forces training has continued, the bulk of
U.S. money to fight drug trafficking has been steered to the country's
national police force.

Human rights organizations charge that the United States, in returning to a
posture of greater cooperation with the Colombian military, is rewarding an
army with one of the worst human rights records in Latin America while
risking entanglement in the country's long-running civil war.

But U.S. officials say they have little choice given the growing involvement
in drug trafficking of Colombia's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia, known by its Spanish initials FARC. In seeking to
establish a Marxist state, FARC relies on drug revenues to finance its
increasingly sophisticated arsenal of weapons and its intelligence-gathering
and communications gear.

"We are committed to maintaining the line between counter-insurgency and
counter-drugs, because we are not in the counter-insurgency business," said
one U.S. official. "But to the degree counter-drug efforts bring us into
conflict with the guerrillas, so be it. That is the price we pay for (giving
this aid) and the price the guerrillas pay for being involved with drug
trafficking."

Adding urgency to the U.S. effort is a startling series of defeats suffered
by the Colombian army. In one battle last summer, FARC rebels killed or
captured 125 of the 152 members of an elite counter-insurgency unit and made
off with hundreds of automatic rifles, night-vision gear and tens of
thousands of rounds of ammunition, according to U.S. and Colombian sources.

Of the trickle of aid that the United States has provided to the Colombian
military in recent years, almost all has gone to the air force and navy,
rather than the army, which has been linked to right-wing paramilitary death
squads. The United States has channeled most of its counter-drug assistance
to the National Police, which, under the leadership of Gen. Jose Serrano,
has improved its human rights record and is now considered one of the
world's premier counter-narcotics forces.

In fiscal 1998 the United States gave the police $289 million, up from $180
million the year before, making Colombia one of the largest recipients of
U.S. aid. In contrast, the military received $40 million, of which $30
million was used to maintain two radar bases to monitor suspicious flights
from Peru and Bolivia.

Checked-by: Rolf Ernst