REBEL LEADER FAULTS US PLAN TO AID COLOMBIAN ARMY

BOGOTA - The Bush administration's plan to help Colombia protect an oil
pipeline from guerrilla attacks proves that Washington wants to intervene
militarily in this country's civil war, a rebel leader said yesterday.

''The mask has been taken off,'' rebel commander Simon Trinidad said in a
telephone interview from a southern stronghold of the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia, known as FARC.

Bush administration officials, who ended a three-day visit to Colombia
yesterday, announced plans Tuesday to train and arm Colombian troops to
protect a key oil pipeline that has been a frequent target of guerrilla
attacks.

The plans, which face debate in the US Congress, depart from a policy that
had previously limited military aid to Colombia to wiping out drug crops
controlled by the rebels and their paramilitary foes.

The FARC has long opposed Washington's aid, which has provided for the
training of counternarcotics troops by US special forces, dozens of combat
helicopters, and fumigation planes. The aid is part of an initiative to
halt the drug trade, called Plan Colombia.

''From the beginning, we said that Plan Colombia was a counterinsurgency
plan,'' Trinidad said. ''No one believed the story that it was a plan
against drug trafficking. Now the mask has been taken off.''

He said that rather than increasing aid to Bogota's military, the United
States should withdraw its military personnel from Colombia.

''They are here to pursue a war against our own people, and they have
taught the military the doctrine of ... state terrorism,'' he said in a
telephone interview from Los Pozos, inside a safe haven that President
Andres Pastrana granted to the rebels three years ago.

The plan outlined Tuesday calls for Washington to provide $98 million to
train and equip Colombian troops to protect the 480-mile Cano-Limon oil
pipeline, which carries oil to the Caribbean coast for Occidental Petroleum
and other companies.

Ecopetrol, Colombia's state oil company, said rebel sabotage of oil
operations cost 24 million barrels in lost production last year. Colombia
is the 10th-biggest supplier of oil to the United States.

The leader of the US delegation, Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman,
said Tuesday: ''We are committed to help Colombians create a Colombia that
is a peaceful, prosperous, drug-free, and terror-free democracy.''

Under restrictions set by Congress, up to 300 US military personnel can be
stationed in Colombia. Troops have been deployed as part of Washington's
attempt to undercut rebel drug profits and stem the flow of cocaine and
heroin to the United States, US officials say.

However, the proposal to expand US aid further links Washington to a
military with a weak human rights record.