TERROR FOCUS ON COLOMBIA

There Are Growing Signs The US May Widen The Scope Of Its Military Aid To
Bogota In A Stalemate Against Rebels

In January 1999, when Colombia's newly-elected President Andres Pastrana
launched peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC), there was great initial optimism of a realistic chance of ending
the conflict with the country's largest rebel force, which has been
conducting an increasingly bloody insurgency since the mid-1960s.

However, peace negotiations have moved slowly and have increasingly lost
credibility. Despite three years of talks, critics say that virtually no
tangible results have been achieved and that the FARC is not committed to
negotiating an end to the conflict.

The guerrillas are also widely accused of systematic abuses of a vast
'demilitarised zone' south of Bogota that was ceded to them at the end of
1998 to get the talks started. The FARC demanded that the new government
pull out troops from the 42,000km2 stretch of jungle and savannah as a
precondition to opening negotiations.

The local environment surrounding the talks has shifted dramatically since
1999.

While local and international attention has focused on the carrot that
Pastrana has been offering at the negotiating table, his government was
simultaneously taking critical steps to alter the military situation which
made the talks, even on FARC's terms, appear an urgent necessity before
Pastrana's election.

Over the past three years, the balance of forces has been radically,
although not decisively, shifted. Colombia's armed forces have undergone a
far-reaching process of restructuring and modernisation, with the number of
professional soldiers increasing considerably. Moreover, Pastrana has
cemented relations with Washington to a degree that was unimaginable under
the previous government, which had been 'blacklisted' for ties to a
powerful drug cartel.

Pastrana's new diplomatic axis with Washington led to a sharp increase in
military and logistical aid under the $1.3 billion Plan Colombia, designed
to attack drug production and trafficking in the Andean country. A fleet of
more than 70 helicopters, including 16 new UH-60L Black Hawks, has
constituted the bulk of the package along with the training and equipping
of three special army battalions to spearhead the offensive in
drug-producing zones. The USA has also been involved in upgrading Colombian
Air Force aircraft and building radar and intelligence-gathering
capabilities to better control the country's airspace and key
drug-trafficking routes.

Plan Colombia is a reflection of Washington's growing concern about the
deteriorating situation in the country, which had become the world's
largest supplier of coca, the raw material used to manufacture cocaine.
Over the past two decades, leftist guerrillas, primarily the FARC and the
smaller National Liberation Army (ELN), along with right-wing paramilitary
groups, had consolidated control over vast swathes of the Colombian
countryside, benefiting financially from the explosion in cocaine and opium
production. Official sources say that armed groups in Colombia derive
hundreds of millions of dollars each year from their links to drug
cultivation and trafficking.

Not only has local opinion shifted against FARC after three years of
fruitless peace efforts, the new international environment that is still
emerging after 11 September is also destined to have an impact in
Colombia's remote jungles and inaccessible mountainous zones. It is
becoming increasingly evident that Washington will not endlessly tolerate
rebel attacks on Colombia's civilian population and sabotage of the
country's key energy and economic infrastructure. Washington is also said
to be interested in the extradition of key FARC leaders for their alleged
role in the kidnapping and murder of US citizens in Colombia.

While it may be true that the FARC and the ELN were not particularly
concerned that they appeared on Washington's list of foreign terrorist
organisations that threaten US interests, that may no longer be the case
with a distinctly new mood consolidating within the USA's foreign policy
community.

The new reality has not gone unrecognised in Colombia, where senior
military officials are now openly comparing the FARC to the Taliban and
Al-Qaeda.

"FARC have killed many times the number of people that bin Laden has killed
and they have also carried out many more attacks," said Colombian Army
commander Gen Jorge Enrique Mora. Colombian military commanders had long
ago adopted Washington's terminology when referring to the rebels.

The FARC have become increasingly perturbed about the new attitude,
requesting that Pastrana clarify his position as to whether or not he
regards them as a 'terrorist' organisation. The group is regarded as
particularly vulnerable owing to its classification as a 'narco-terrorist'
organisation, with alleged links to foreign terrorist groups such as the
Irish Republican Army and the Basque separatist group ETA.

The rebels acknowledge that they levy a 'tax' on the production of coca
leaf in their regions of influence but they deny that they are involved in
the processing or transport of narcotics. Although Pastrana publicly says
that he does not consider FARC to be 'narco-terrorists', this is widely
seen as a convenient smokescreen for him to allow the negotiations to
continue. Pastrana himself has said that he would not negotiate with the
rebels if he considered them to be implicated in drug-trafficking.

Washington has always insisted that it would not become entwined in
Colombia's quagmire. All military assistance has been subject to strict
limitations by a US Congress concerned about the dangerous prospect of
'mission creep'. The number of US military advisers and contractors in
Colombia is also strictly limited by Congressional decree. US-donated
equipment, along with the three counter-narcotics battalions, can only be
deployed in anti-drug operations not counter-insurgency missions. In
reality, this division has always been widely seen as artificial, owing to
the situation on the ground, with armed groups having a strong presence in
the drug-producing zones.

However, the new climate in Washington has apparently generated a greater
willingness to consider broadening the scope of military aid. Although the
Bush administration is not likely to consider any direct intervention,
reports suggest that Washington may be willing to do away with current
restrictions, permitting Colombia to use the military aid directly against
the FARC, ELN and other rebels. With peace talks on the brink of collapse,
it is increasingly likely that the USA will redefine its role in the country.

Although US drug czar John Walters, during a visit to Bogota, refrained
from commenting on the reports, Colombian officials confirmed that
Washington is considering the request to step up military assistance,
including helping to create a new battalion to protect the country's energy
infrastructure, which is a favourite target particularly of the ELN. The
attacks have caused hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage and
lost petroleum exports.

There is also a growing willingness inside Colombia to aggressively pursue
more US military aid.