TERROR FIGHT MAY ALTER COLOMBIA RELATIONS

Pastrana To Meet With Leaders In America Over New Focus.

President Andres Pastrana and top U.S. officials this week will review
U.S.-Colombia relations through the new prism of the war on terrorism,
which could alter the direction of Colombia's internal conflict and the
nature of U.S. counternarcotics strategy here.

After meetings in Washington with Secretary of State Colin Powell and
congressional leaders, Pastrana will meet on Sunday with President Bush in
New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.

Home to three of the 28 groups labeled terrorist organizations by the
United States, Colombia has long suffered bombing campaigns, mass
kidnappings and large-scale massacres by two leftist guerrilla groups and
their right-wing paramilitary rivals, fighting a bloody 37-year-old
internal war.

Despite the terrorist label applied to the rebels by Washington, the United
States had supported the government's efforts at peace negotiations while
at the same time giving more than $1 billion to fight the drug trade that
finances the guerrillas.

Additional funding -- up to $300 million -- for the drug fight will go to
conference committee in Congress as part of the broader Andean Regional
Initiative.

The aid comes with conditions prohibiting the use of U.S. monies to fight
the rebels directly, in a nod to those who fear Washington could become
involved in a Vietnam-style quagmire here.

Distinctions Blur

At this point, however, those distinctions have all but disappeared,
analysts said.

"Even before Sept. 11, the lack of concrete results in the peace process
was forcing policymakers to question the separation of counternarcotics and
counterinsurgency," said Arlene Tickner, an expert on Colombia-U.S.
relations and head of the Center for International Studies at Bogota's
University of the Andes.

After the terrorist attacks on the United States, it is easier to sell the
idea of combining anti-drug strategy with counterinsurgency in the name of
fighting terrorism, she said.

U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson announced the United States would train and
equip elite anti-kidnapping and bomb squads, help Colombian security forces
in explosives detection and guard oil pipelines, a favorite rebel target
for sabotage.

"There's no question we are now focusing more on terrorism in Colombia"
after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, Patterson said to
the press.

It does not mean, however, that the United States will sound the retreat on
its billion-dollar Plan Colombia, which included funds to train and equip
anti-narcotics battalions, supply helicopters and finance intense aerial
spraying of drug crops.

Rather, counternarcotics efforts are likely to be seen now as an important
antiterrorism tool, predicted Daniel Garcia-Pena, a former Colombian peace
commissioner and scholar on relations between the United States and
Colombia relations.

"Drug trafficking will be fought under the banner of fighting terrorist
financing," he said. "We may see less aerial fumigation [of drug crops] and
more tracking of money-laundering."

Said Patterson: "Plan Colombia continues to be the most effective
counterterrorism strategy we could design."

While the leftist National Liberation Army and the right-wing United Self
Defense Forces of Colombia are also on the State Department's terrorist
list, U.S. officials have made it clear that counterterrorism efforts in
Colombia would focus on the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC),
the nation's most powerful insurgency.

In a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Oct. 25,
Powell acknowledged there might be some "gray areas" in the war on
terrorism, separating terrorists from freedom fighters.

Foreign Minister Guillermo Fernandez de Soto said it was up to Colombia's
armed groups "to decide how they want to be treated," adding that their
behavior will define whether they are "to be confronted only as terrorists."

The Colombian military, less concerned with the politics of labels, was
quick to pick up on the new buzzword to change their classification of the
FARC.

While officers once favored calling the rebels "bandits" or
"narco-guerrillas," since the Sept. 11 attacks the military has made it a
point to call the FARC "narco-terrorists" or simply "terrorists."

That sort of rhetoric is "strengthening the hand of those who don't want to
see a negotiated settlement" to Colombia's conflict, said Tickner.

Although Washington has clearly indicated its frustration over the halting
peace talks with the FARC, it is unlikely to pull its support completely
from the process for the remainder of Pastrana's term, which ends in August.

For his successor, who will be elected next spring, however, "the space
available for a negotiated settlement will be reduced dramatically,"
according to Tickner.

All the leading candidates have said they would continue peace talks with
the FARC, although hard-liner Alvaro Uribe said he would do so only if the
rebels agree to an immediate cease-fire.

In the meantime, Washington is turning up the heat on the FARC and
Colombia's other armed groups.

In a recent speech at a conference on money-laundering, Ambassador
Patterson made explicit the U.S. intention to seek the extradition of FARC,
ELN and AUC members involved in the drug trade, a move Colombian officials
said would make any peace deal with the FARC nearly impossible.