Since January, forces of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, have hijacked a domestic airliner, kidnapped leading political figures and targeted major national electrical and water installations.

Police have charged the FARC with torturing and killing a Colombian senator whose body was found yesterday in a ravine outside Bogota.

Colombia's 40 years of warfare have been characterized by spectacular brutality that has left tens of thousands dead. It is considered the kidnapping capital of the world -- in 1999, a separate leftist group burst into Mass at a Medellin church and marched the congregation into the mountains as hostages.

Right-wing paramilitary forces, sometimes in tacit alliance with the Colombian military, have slain hundreds of innocent rural villagers for alleged guerrilla complicity. Before the guerrillas and the paramilitary force took over much of the country's cocaine and heroin business, drug cartels regularly bombed and slaughtered civilians.

But the timing and scope of the FARC actions, amid the new anti-terrorism focus of U.S. foreign policy, has provoked a strong reaction in Washington. Combined with the guerrillas' unyielding stance during three years of government peace talks Pastrana has now ended, and their increasing dependence on the drug trade, the recent attacks appear to have ended any FARC claim to political legitimacy and changed the label applied to them from "insurgents" to "terrorists."

Although the Bush administration has not seen the need to consult Congress on new anti-terrorism efforts in countries including Georgia and Yemen, military aid to Colombia has a long history of legislative consultation. Congress restricted nearly $2 billion in largely military aid approved for Colombia over the last two years to stopping the production and export of narcotics, and imposed tough human rights restrictions on the military.

But even the leading backers of those limits, including Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that must approve such funding, have indicated that the counter-narcotics policy should now be reviewed.

Leahy and others are insistent that human rights limits must be preserved, and that Colombia must spend more of its own money on defense. If Colombia could "demonstrate it is taking the conditions [on aid] seriously," said a knowledgeable Senate aide, non-narcotics aid would be considered.

In a closed-door briefing by State Department officials last week, sources said that Reps. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) and Nita M. Lowey (D-N.Y.), the chairman and ranking member of the House foreign operations appropriations subcommittee, suggested the administration was likely to find a receptive audience for proposals to help Colombia fight domestic terrorism.

"There is just more support now," said a subcommittee aide, noting that Pastrana is calling the FARC terrorists, after long resistance.

Kolbe, Lowey and others have warned the Bush administration not to look for loopholes in current legislation that restricts aid "solely for counter-narcotics purpose(s)," or to try to evade human rights restrictions. Instead, they advised the administration to make a case for new anti-terrorism authority in light of what many consider a new threat level in Colombia.

Colombia and administration proponents of expanded aid have urged congressional supporters to be more public in their views, with the aim of convincing national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell that it is time to move.

In a Cabinet-level White House meeting last week, Rice and Powell cited possible congressional resistance in opposing a Pentagon plan to make Colombia part of the administration's war against global terrorism, and to issue a new presidential directive citing terrorism rather than narcotics as the justification for aid. They agreed that any major policy change was unadvisable before Colombia's presidential election in May.

But some in Congress may be moving more quickly. Kolbe and others have discussed a resolution supporting anti-terrorism aid for Colombia in the House to push the White House to action.

The administration will have an early opportunity to respond in a request for new anti-terrorism funding it expects to send to Congress March 18. The original proposal considered by the White House last week included as much as $100 million in supplemental assistance for Colombia. Among the proposed items were combat upgrades for Colombia's 12 Black Hawk helicopters.

None of the Colombia proposals call for U.S. ground troops. Instead, Colombia and the Pentagon have joined in asking that counter-narcotics restrictions be lifted on existing U.S. aid, and that new training, equipment and intelligence be provided for the war against the guerrillas.

Note: Bush Officials Seek More Funds for Counterterrorism There.

Source: Washington Post (DC)
Author: Karen DeYoung, Washington Post Staff Writer
Published: Monday, March 4, 2002; Page A16
Copyright: 2002 The Washington Post Company
Contact: letterstoed@washpost.com
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com

Related Articles & Web Site:

Colombia Drug War News
http://freedomtoexhale.com/colombia.htm

Plan Colombia: This Will Be Worse Than Vietnam
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12137.shtml

U.S. To Explore Aid to Colombia, Citing Terrorism
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12136.shtml

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And American troops will die for oil...as the ones in Afghanistan are. Welcome to the New World Order...

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