US troops in Colombia to train local army

news.ft.com By James Wilson in Bogotá Published: January 29 2003 22:01 | Last Updated: January 29 2003 22:01

This month's arrival in Colombia of US special forces on a training mission has taken Washington's involvement in Latin America's most enduring guerrilla conflict to a new level.

Around 70 of the elite troops are cloistered in military bases in Arauca, one of Colombia's most violent areas, to train the soldiers of a local army brigade. The aim is to create a rapid reaction force that can prevent rebel attacks on a pipeline for crude oil.

The trainers' arrival is also part of a raising of the stakes by all sides in Colombia's long conflict. Arauca is at the centre of a struggle to test whether gains can be made through stepped-up military action. Two rebel groups, the US and President Alvaro Uribe's government are all playing a role.

Significantly, for the first time the US is preparing Colombian troops to fight rebels it classes as terrorists, rather than for missions in support of drug eradication, which for many years was the declared aim of US financial support to Colombia.

By committing more troops and introducing special legal curbs, Mr Uribe is trying to tame Arauca and prove that his government is developing the capacity to battle the rebels successfully. The rebels are just as keen to show that he will fail, unleashing an unprecedented barrage of bombings in Arauca, such as one last weekend that killed six Colombian soldiers.

Last week's kidnapping of two foreign journalists by rebels also highlighted rising tension there. "It must be taken into account that Arauca is a declared war zone," said the National Liberation Army (ELN) as it admitted holding Ruth Morris, an FT contributor, and Scott Dalton.

The Cuban-inspired guerrilla group has made oil-rich Arauca one of its bastions, feeding parasitically off royalties accruing to the province from an oilfield operated by California-based Occidental Petroleum. But the ELN and the stronger Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), which Washington labels as terrorist groups, have also led bombing campaigns against Occidental's pipeline.

Some 170 attacks shut down the oilfield for weeks at a time in 2001, although government forces claimed to have cut the number of attacks to 40 last year.

US military training aims to help Colombia curb those attacks, protecting revenues for Mr Uribe's government and for Occidental. Colombia is one of the US's 10 biggest sources of imported crude and maintaining supplies has taken on fresh importance because of Venezuela's oil strike and uncertainty over Gulf supplies in the event of war. A US official said this month the US trainers would coach Colombian troops not only to react to attacks but also to "sniff out" rebels.

Until last year Washington had shied away from giving aid that would be directly targeted at the rebels. Under Plan Colombia, a $1.3bn aid programme begun in 2000, equipment and training was provided only to help wipe out thousands of hectares of illicit drug crops. The US later argued that drug eradication would remain difficult unless rebels and rival paramilitaries were also curbed.

A shift of approach was made easier after September 11. With President George W. Bush's declaration of global war on terrorism, Colombia's guerrilla and paramilitary groups became legitimate targets, and Plan Colombia resources may now be used against the insurgents.

The special forces in Arauca are being kept out of combat; the US remains adamant that it will not commit fighting forces to Colombia. Congress has also capped the number of trainers that can be deployed.

Continuance of the US-led training also depends on belated approval of this year's US budget. As well as about $640m in continued regional anti-drugs aid, it would also include some $88m for pipeline protection in Arauca, including extra helicopters. Critics of Washington's policy in Colombia argue that not enough attention is being paid to this new phase of US involvement.

"The Bush administration is doing two contradictory things at the same time," says the Center for International Policy, a Washington research centre. "Decision-makers are expanding the US security commitment to Colombia, even while they lower the country's rank on their list of foreign policy priorities."