COLOMBIAN ARMY SUFFERS ONE OF WORST DEFEATS IN COMBAT WITH REBELS

FLORENCIA, Colombia -- Low on rations, their radios dead, and pinned down
by 400 guerrillas, members of an elite Colombian army counterinsurgency
battalion were picked off, one by one, during five days of jungle combat
last week.

"There was rifle fire, grenades, mortars. ... The only thing (the
guerrillas) lacked were chemical weapons," a senior army officer said
Saturday, describing one of the Colombian military's worst battlefield
losses in recent years.

As frantic relatives gathered in front of the army base in the provincial
capital of Florencia, 295 miles southwest of Bogota, the search for the
dead and wounded was hampered Saturday by bad weather, clashes with the
rebels, and an army bombing campaign.

"I'm desperate. I have been here for three days and I still don't know if
he is alive or wounded," said a tearful Nidia Ordonez, 18, whose husband is
among the missing. "He always told me that this was a rebel zone and that I
should pray for him."

So far, just nine of the 153 army troops have been rescued, according to
the officer. The rest are thought to be either dead, wounded, missing or in
the hands of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by its
Spanish initials as FARC, which launched a fierce attack Monday near the
hamlet of El Billar in the southern state of Caqueta.

"There is a considerable number of dead on both sides," said Defense
Minister Gilberto Echeverri, at a news conference in Bogota. "We don't have
exact figures, but we will offer a summary once we have total control of
the area."

Noting that the fighting began a week ago, some relatives of missing
soldiers accused military officials of orchestrating a news blackout.
Besides suffering a humiliating defeat, the army is bombing the area to
drive out the FARC, and a number of civilian casualties have been reported.

"The military doesn't want much publicity because they have lost a lot of
credibility," said Albeiro Holguin, a former guerrilla who now runs a
bakery in Florencia.

Members of the International Red Cross were barred from entering the war
zone. However, a Colombian TV news crew that reached the area Friday
broadcast images of several dead soldiers lying face down in the dirt.

Ramiro Rincon, the brother of a missing army corporal, struggled to
maintain his composure as he stood across the street from the military base
in Florencia.

"They told me that, yes, he was in the fighting. They said that I'll just
have to wait and be patient," Rincon said.

In an interview with a group of U.S. reporters, a senior army officer --
who was in radio contact with the troops during the fighting -- said things
went wrong for Battalion 52 from the start.

Part of a highly trained mobile unit formed last year to hunt down the
guerrillas, the battalion had been in the field for days and was running
dangerously short of supplies when they were surrounded and attacked.

Wave after wave of FARC fighters came at them. As the soldiers sought
refuge in the jungle and returned fire, some of their radios went dead.
"Their batteries were dying and they began to lose contact with the
(support) aircraft," the officer said. "The guerrillas have better
communications and a lot of radios. We have just one radio for 10 or 15
soldiers."

Escape was nearly impossible because of the dense rain forest, he said.
"It's thick jungle. Think of Vietnam," he said.

Bad weather kept the army from mounting a rescue operation, and when
helicopters tried to land Tuesday, the FARC opened fire and killed one crew
member.

About 500 reinforcements arrived Wednesday but failed to locate the
battalion. They finally made contact with battalion commander Maj. John
Jairo Aguilar, who was evacuated along with seven wounded soldiers. A ninth
soldier was rescued later.

The officer said Aguilar "was unhurt, but image how you feel when you have
just lost a battalion."

Such dismal performances have put the army under intense scrutiny. Recent
FARC attacks have pitted several hundred rebels against the smaller army
battalions. By the time support arrives, the rebels are usually gone and
army troops are licking their wounds, according to military analysts.

"The FARC has strengthened itself militarily, probably with the help of
former guerrillas from El Salvador," said Eduardo Pizarro, a political
science professor at the National University in Bogota. "It has allowed
them to switch from small military units that carry out ambushes to forming
units of 300 or 400 men. But the army continues to fight the same way it
did ten years ago."

Furthermore, the army is fighting on enemy turf. It suffered huge losses in
these same jungles in a 1981 battle against a now-defunct rebel group
called the M-19. Despite a bombing campaign, dozens of army troops were
killed.

Today, due to a lack of government presence in Caqueta, FARC troops provide
the only authority in some villages. The guerrillas also earn millions of
dollars annually by taxing coca leaf farmers and providing protection for
drug traffickers.

"The reason (for the attack) was obvious. That is the largest center for
the production of coca leaves and coca paste in the world," Echeverri, the
defense minister, said Saturday.

Last month, concerns about the rebel threat prompted the Clinton
administration to lift U.S. economic sanctions against the Colombian
government. The sanctions had been imposed two years ago after the United
States criticized Colombia for its lack of cooperation in the drug war.

Holguin, 34, the former guerrilla who fought with the M-19, said that since
the civil war began 34 years ago, the guerrillas have always outwitted the
army. "The guerrillas have a lot of civilian intelligence and have
infiltrated some of the (army) battalions," he said. "FARC territory is
very well defended."

Copyright 1998 Special to the Chronicle