COLOMBIA SOLDIERS ARE UNDERTRAINED

TUMACO, Colombia (AP) Training is poor. Helicopters are scarce.
Communications are rudimentary. Officers are in short supply. Many recruits
can barely read and write.

And good morale is a rare commodity.

Capt. Eduardo Chavez, a 30-year-old marine company commander, ticks off the
troubling deficiencies of his nation's armed forces after a day of training
with U.S. Army Green Berets.

"Our military has got big problems. We're in pieces," says Chavez, a career
officer so worried about the armed forces' shortcomings he was willing to
put his criticisms on the record.

While Colombia's 120,000-member military fights to maintain political
support for its $3.7 billion budget, the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia has grown rich.

Deprived of outside support after the Soviet bloc's collapse, the rebels
now rake in a half billion dollars a year protecting drug crops and cocaine
laboratories and tens of millions more from kidnappings and extortion, the
government estimates.

The 2,000-man marine battalion based in Tumaco, a jungle fishing port, is
supposed to keep the peace along 3,800 square miles of Colombia's southern
Pacific coast a stretch veined with rivers and thick with mangroves, rife
with gunrunning rebels, drug smugglers and pirates who murder fishermen for
their outboards.

For the past 12 months, the battalion has operated without a single patrol
boat, forced to pursue guerrillas in rented private launches used by the
locals for regular transportation.

Lt. Col. Francisco Chilito, the 2nd Battalion commander, says he could
really use a helicopter, noting it can take his men five hours to get
somewhere by water when a chopper could make it in 20 minutes.

Colombia's armed forces have fewer than 50 helicopters, most of them
dedicated to southeastern regions where combat with guerrillas is most
frequent and fierce.

The former commander of the army's 2nd Mobile Brigade, Gen. Carlos Ospina,
developed a bleeding ulcer from worrying when his troops got pinned down by
rebels and he knew he couldn't fly them out.

"He got tired of listening to them screaming in agony over the radio when
they were getting shot up," said a Green Beret who worked with Ospina in
1996 and spoke on condition he not be further identified.

Colombia's soldiers often have trouble even getting the basics. "These guys
go into combat in rubber boots without socks," the Green Beret said.

While Colombian soldiers rely on radios with a range of just six miles, the
better trained and equipped rebels stay in touch with satellite radios and
even receive e-mail in the bush.

"There are times you go out and you know you're putting yourselves in God's
hands. You're completely out of touch," said Chavez, the company commander.

{APWire:International-1205.109} 12/05/98