OIL A KEY TO U.S. ROLE IN COLOMBIA

Protecting Pipeline Big Part Of Equation

Arauca, Colombia - Snaking beneath Colombia's northern border, the Cano
Limon pipeline would be invisible if it weren't for the soldiers who patrol
it and the glistening oil spills that flank its route - spills wrought by
nearly 1,000 guerrilla attacks on the duct in the past 15 years.

At the front gates of the oil field near here, where giant pumps extract
the black liquid that flows into the pipeline, dogs sniff cars for
explosives as army tanks rumble by. Even a shrine to the Virgin Mary is
barricaded by camouflage oil cans filled with sand.

On paper, the Cano Limon pipeline is a business venture that supplies oil
to the United States. In reality, it's a battle zone. If President George
W. Bush has his way, Cano Limon soon may become much more: the symbol of
the first direct U.S. aid to the Colombian military in this country's
38-year-old civil war.

The State Department wants to spend $98 million to train and equip
Colombian units to defend the pipeline, which was closed for two- thirds of
2001 because of leftist guerrilla attacks. A secure Cano Limon means more
social and economic stability in Colombia and a reduction in U.S.
dependence on oil from the Middle East, administration officials say.

But some observers and U.S. lawmakers fear the project could usher in
longterm U.S. involvement in the bloody civil war involving the Colombian
armed forces, two leftist guerrilla groups and a rightist paramilitary
organization widely accused of committing human-rights abuses with the
military's tacit knowledge. Until now, U.S. aid to Colombia has funded
counter-narcotics programs. Colombia is the primary source of cocaine sold
in the United States.

"It would be a step toward a broader U.S. role - not limited to
counter-narcotics but focused increasingly on fighting the guerrillas,"
said Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat who is chairman of a
subcommittee overseeing U.S. aid to Colombia. "That is something that may
or may not make sense."

The project also has raised questions about whether the United States is
trying to use public funds to protect a private interest, in this case the
Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum, the pipeline's co- owner. Colombia
provides 2.8 percent of oil imports to the United States, much of it from
pipelines other than Cano Limon.

Proponents counter that Occidental receives only 15 percent of the revenues
from Cano Limon, while the rest go to Colombian-owned Ecopetrol. The
Colombian government lost more than $400 million in revenues last year
alone because of guerrilla attacks.

"This has had a very significant impact on Colombian exports, on the
ability of the government of Colombia to generate the funds and resources
it has needed for economic growth and social development," said Curt
Struble, an official with the State Department's Bureau of Western
Hemisphere Affairs.

Colombia also has vast, untapped oil reserves and is in a position to
become one of the top foreign oil suppliers to the United States, according
to Luis Alberto Moreno, Colombia's ambassador to the United States. Without
pipeline security, foreign investors won't come to his country, he said.

For now, Washington does not appear to be planning massive military
assistance in Colombia's war on a par with past involvement in El Salvador
and Nicaragua. Colombian and U.S. officials rule out the use of U.S.
troops, and Bush emphasized last week that the bulk of funding for Colombia
will remain in counter-narcotics. Colombia has received $1.7 billion in
U.S. counter-narcotics aid in the past three years.

However, the pipeline proposal coincides with the Bush administration's
broader counter-terrorism initiatives in such countries as Afghanistan and
the Philippines. Washington has labeled all three Colombian insurgent
groups operating in the pipeline area and throughout the nation - the
leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the leftist National
Liberation Army (ELN) and the rightist paramilitary United Self-Defense
Forces of Colombia (AUC) - as terrorists. Because those three groups also
are accused of involvement in Colombia's burgeoning drug trade, some
critics fear U.S. counter-narcotics aid already may amount to insurgency aid.

Although details are still in the works, the $98 million would pay for U.S.
military officials (or contract employees) to train at least 2,000 troops
and a mobile infantry unit in surveillance and rapid- deployment
techniques. Two-thirds of the funds would buy the troops equipment,
including 10 Huey helicopters, according to Colombian and U.S. sources.

U.S. officials say the mission would be confined to the pipeline and oil
field, at least initially. But Gen. Carlos Lemos, commander of the 18th
Brigade, said he envisioned the small, mobile units playing a "proactive"
role in protecting the Arauca region and its infrastructure, particularly
electric pylons, water supplies, bridges and other favorite guerrilla targets.

"The idea would be to have sufficient troops to protect both the pipeline
and the civilian population," Lemos said.

A recent visit to Arauca underscored the extent of the problems. The
sweltering city and its 80,000 residents were without power because the
FARC, which is responsible for most of the recent attacks on the pipeline
and is the largest Colombian rebel group, had dynamited an electrical
substation. Most businesses were shuttered and public transportation was
halted because the ELN, which the military says had spearheaded attacks on
the pipeline until FARC began muscling in on its turf, had ordered a strike.

ELN called the strike partly to support a group of farmers in a nearby town
who were protesting massacres earlier this year, allegedly by the AUC.

"Everyone is terrified," said one resident who, like everyone interviewed
here about the insurgents, was afraid to reveal his name. "We need help,
and fast."

However the money is distributed, even military officials concede that
protecting the pipeline, which transverses 480 miles of remote, lawless
terrain, will be tough.

"The FARC can act a lot faster than Washington and Bogota," said Michael
Shifter, an expert on Colombia with the Inter-American Dialogue think-tank
in Washington, D.C.

Some of the U.S. aid should go to residents victimized by the pipeline
attacks, which have caused massive oil spills that poison fish and pollute
farmland, Arauca Mayor Jorge Cedeno said. The attacks also have cost
residents oil-related jobs, he said.

"Unless we reduce the gap between rich and poor, we'll never get at the
root of violence in this country," Cedeno said.