COLOMBIA HOPELESS AGAINST REBELS

Officials Call Army Incapable of Ending War Against Rebels

Bogota -- The stunning defeat inflicted on the Colombian army by guerrilla
forces this week is prompting soul-searching throughout the country, as top
government officials acknowledge that the military appears to be incapable
of ending a threedecades old insurrection.

President Ernesto Samper admitted yesterday that Marxist rebels of the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC] dealt the army "a hard blow"
in battles that have raged continuously since Monday in the jungle-covered
southern region of Caqueta along the banks of the Caguan River.

Only eight of the 140 elite koops attacked by the rebels are known to be
alive, and the armed forces have lost radio contact with them. Still, army
officials held out hope that the majority have survived.

Local authorities said that the army strafed a wide area yesterday, killing
28 civilians in an attempt to drive the rebels out and allow a search for
the missing soldiers.

The Colombian army, which hasn't won a major battle against the rebels
since 1981, is renowned for its poor strategic decisions.

A typical debacle occurred last fall, when an army offensive code-named
"Destroyer II" was designed to hit the rebel command post in the eastern
plains like a mailed fist.

The military dropped 326 bombs, launched 35 rockets and fired 84,000
bullets. But the guerrillas escaped, and the only things destroyed were
farm houses, corn crops and cows. The sole trophy was one captured rebel.

Even off the battlefield, the army is taking hits. It is fiercely
criticized by human rights groups for tacitly supporting brutal
paramilitary squads, which also fight the rebels but have a primary agenda
of committing massacres intended to drive peasants off the land for the
benefit of large landowners and drug traffickers.

"There is a defeatist attitude in the army, a sense of impotence," said
Eduardo Pizarro, a political science professor at Bogota's National
University.

"The ministers of defense are improvised," he added. "The government names
a businessman as minister who doesn't know anything about military affairs.

'There is a total divorce between civilian leadership and military
leadership, so there is an absolute inertia and absolute bureaucratization
in the management of the armed conflict."

That gulf is rooted in Colombia's tradition of keeping the military out of
politics as much as possible. In exchange, civilian governments have
granted officers vast privileges and virtual autonomy.

In the 1950s and '60s, as guerrilla groups sprang up around land issues,
the army's dirty-war tactics alienated much of the population. During that
time, U.S. advisers became a key influence, providing hardware, training
and anti-communist ideology.

And in the post Wold-War era, the lack of a strong sense of purpose makes
victory even harder to attain.

"You need a political vision, not just a military strategy," said Francisco
Leal, a former army officer and dean of sociology at the University of the
Andes.

"But the army's only point of reference is the dirty war and anticommunism.
lt has become very backward and today it lacks the capacity to confront the
guerrillas."

Part of the problem is Colombia's geography.

The 120,000 troops are spread over 744,000 square miles, and most are tied
up guarding roads, oil pipelines and power plants. That leaves just 30,000
soldiers and 40 helicopters to fight between 10,000 and 15,000 rebels.

By comparison, the United States fought with 600,000 troops and 2,000
helicopters in Vietnam, a country one-fifth the size of Colombia, according
to Armed Forces chief General Manuel Jose Bonnet.

"Our lack of (territorial) coverage is why the guerrillas, the drug
traffickers and the paramilitaries move in," Bonett said in an interview.

"We need to increase our fighting capacity, but there is no money (in the
national budget).... Everyone demands that we win the war, but they don't
back us up."

Samper's own shaky standing, stemming from accusations that he accepted
$6.6 million in drug money for his 1994 campaign, prevents him from being
much help. A poll released yesterday in Bogota's El Espectador newspaper
showed that 28 percent of those polled regard him as the leading cause of
Colombia's troubles, compared with just 16 percent who blame the guerrillas.

The FARC and the second major rebel group, the National Liberation Army, or
ELN, are now present in half of Colombia's 1,071 municipalities.

They finance their war by collaborating with drug traffickers, kidnapping
and extorting money from foreign companies. They rarely engage the army in
conventional battles, relying instead on hit-and-run attacks.

"It's called 'flea-jumping' because they move all over the place, biting
here, biting there, and that spreads the army across the country and
weakens it," said Gonzalo de Francisco, a commentator at the Bogota station
Radionet.

A largely peasant army, the guerrilla foot soldiers earn more than army
conscripts, are better trained and have more patience.

"The concept of time is different for peasants. The FARC and ELN have an
absolute Maoist conviction in the prolonged 'people's war.' They never
despair," said Teofilo Vasquez, a sociologist with the Center for
Investigation and Popular Education in Bogota.

I Against more sophisticated foes, the army has fared better.

I In the 1980s, it crippled the rebel group M-l9, in part because that
insurgency was made up of university intellectuals in urban cells that
while clandestine were easier to locate.

"The M-l9 fought directly against the army," Bonett said, whereas the FARC
and ELN "hit and then hide in the mountains.... They never show their
faces."

But Leal says the army's problem is one of quality, not quantity. He said
the officer corps is topheavy with "chairborne" generals who have little
contact with the troops-most of whom are raw recruits earning just $50 a
month.

Leal suggests abolishing the draft and forming a professional army of about
60,000 counterinsurgency specialists.

For now, however, several thousand paramilitary fighters have moved into
the vacuum and have dealt major blows to the guerrillas. Their tactics
include terrorizing communities and killing civilians thought to be rebel
supporters.

Investigators say that in some cases the military has provided the
paramilitaries with intelligence and logistical support-accusations that
have sullied the army's reputation at home and abroad.