www.wtev.com

LA ESPERANZA, Colombia (AP) - Investigators on Sunday hauled away the wreckage of a U.S. plane that crashed on an intelligence-gathering mission in the Colombian jungle, where a frantic search was underway for three Americans who were on board. The Americans apparently were kidnapped by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. A fourth American and a Colombian army sergeant were executed at the crash scene. The U.S. government has not identified the people on the flight or disclosed their mission. A Colombian soldier on a mountain road across the river from the crash scene said the investigators were Americans. The U.S. embassy has said the plane went down in the lush jungle mountains after experiencing engine trouble. National Police Director Gen. Jorge Campo said Sunday the plane was struck by gunfire from the ground, but that did not cause the crash. A suspected rebel captured by authorities was sent to Bogota on Sunday to be interviewed about the case, said Alonso Velasquez, director of the local prosecutor's office. The plane crashed in a cattle pasture carved out of the mountain jungles in the tiny hamlet of Ano Nuevo. The aircraft, seen from across the river, appeared damaged badly, lying near a home perched on the side of the mountain. While the investigators sifted through the charred remains of the single-engine Cessna, half-a-dozen military helicopters circled overhead and some 600 Colombian soldiers protected the site and investigators. A corporal who declined to give his name said peasants in the region refused to talk about what they may have seen. "The people there don't talk," he said. "I asked them what happened and they only told me that they heard an explosion. They're scared." The crash site is near the border of a former rebel safe haven granted to the FARC during three years of failed peace talks. The Colombian government revoked the safe haven last year and sent troops back into the area. Security forces are in the major towns, but the FARC, Colombia's largest rebel group, still controls much of the countryside. A priest in the diocese of Florencia, which includes the tiny hamlet, said many peasants in the region fear the guerrillas. "The countryside is very controlled at the moment," he said. "There are areas where in order to enter or leave, you have to ask for permission from the guerrillas. (The peasants) don't say anything out of fear." The priest, who asked that his name not be used, said he had received death threats from the rebels. He worried about the captured Americans. "I think they're living through the most difficult moments of their lives," he said. "As representatives of the American government, it may be more complicated." The United States has given Colombia almost $2 billion in the past three years, mostly in military aid. The aid initially was restricted to anti-drug operations. The rebels finance their fight through drug trafficking and the priest said much of the region farms coca plants, the base for cocaine. The rebels consider Washington's support for the Colombian government an act of war and have said they would target U.S. citizens and interests. Washington recently lifted the aid restriction to allow Colombian forces to use U.S.-purchased equipment and U.S.-trained troops to battle the rebels directly. Last month, about 70 U.S. Green Berets were sent to an embattled northeastern state to train Colombian counterterrorist troops. Separately, authorities said Sunday the bodies of two missing Colombian soldiers were found buried in Venezuela, near the border with Colombia. The two soldiers disappeared Feb. 1 from the Venezuelan village of El Amparo, across the border from Arauca state, Gen. Carlos Lemus said. Colombian soldiers based in Arauca frequently cross the border in their free time. Authorities believe the two were kidnapped by the National Liberation Army, or ELN, Lemus said. The ELN is Colombia's second-largest rebel group.

www.boston.com By Vanessa Arrington, Associated Press, 2/16/2003 16:44

LA ESPERANZA, Colombia (AP) Investigators on Sunday hauled away the wreckage of a U.S. plane that crashed on an intelligence-gathering mission in the Colombian jungle, where a frantic search was underway for three Americans who were on board.

The Americans apparently were kidnapped by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. A fourth American and a Colombian army sergeant were executed at the crash scene.

The U.S. government has not identified the people on the flight or disclosed their mission.

A Colombian soldier on a mountain road across the river from the crash scene said the investigators were Americans. The U.S. embassy has said the plane went down in the lush jungle mountains after experiencing engine trouble.

National Police Director Gen. Jorge Campo said Sunday the plane was struck by gunfire from the ground, but that did not cause the crash.

A suspected rebel captured by authorities was sent to Bogota on Sunday to be interviewed about the case, said Alonso Velasquez, director of the local prosecutor's office.

The plane crashed in a cattle pasture carved out of the mountain jungles in the tiny hamlet of Ano Nuevo. The aircraft, seen from across the river, appeared damaged badly, lying near a home perched on the side of the mountain.

While the investigators sifted through the charred remains of the single-engine Cessna, half-a-dozen military helicopters circled overhead and some 600 Colombian soldiers protected the site and investigators.

A corporal who declined to give his name said peasants in the region refused to talk about what they may have seen.

''The people there don't talk,'' he said. ''I asked them what happened and they only told me that they heard an explosion. They're scared.''

The crash site is near the border of a former rebel safe haven granted to the FARC during three years of failed peace talks. The Colombian government revoked the safe haven last year and sent troops back into the area. Security forces are in the major towns, but the FARC, Colombia's largest rebel group, still controls much of the countryside.

A priest in the diocese of Florencia, which includes the tiny hamlet, said many peasants in the region fear the guerrillas.

''The countryside is very controlled at the moment,'' he said. ''There are areas where in order to enter or leave, you have to ask for permission from the guerrillas. (The peasants) don't say anything out of fear.''

The priest, who asked that his name not be used, said he had received death threats from the rebels. He worried about the captured Americans.

''I think they're living through the most difficult moments of their lives,'' he said. ''As representatives of the American government, it may be more complicated.''

The United States has given Colombia almost $2 billion in the past three years, mostly in military aid. The aid initially was restricted to anti-drug operations. The rebels finance their fight through drug trafficking and the priest said much of the region farms coca plants, the base for cocaine.

The rebels consider Washington's support for the Colombian government an act of war and have said they would target U.S. citizens and interests.

Washington recently lifted the aid restriction to allow Colombian forces to use U.S.-purchased equipment and U.S.-trained troops to battle the rebels directly. Last month, about 70 U.S. Green Berets were sent to an embattled northeastern state to train Colombian counterterrorist troops.

Separately, authorities said Sunday the bodies of two missing Colombian soldiers were found buried in Venezuela, near the border with Colombia.

The two soldiers disappeared Feb. 1 from the Venezuelan village of El Amparo, across the border from Arauca state, Gen. Carlos Lemus said. Colombian soldiers based in Arauca frequently cross the border in their free time.

Authorities believe the two were kidnapped by the National Liberation Army, or ELN, Lemus said. The ELN is Colombia's second-largest rebel group.

www.cnn.com Sunday, February 16, 2003 Posted: 1:40 PM EST (1840 GMT)

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- The bodies of two missing Colombian soldiers were found buried in Venezuela, near the border with Colombia, authorities said Sunday.

The two soldiers disappeared on February 1 from the Venezuelan village of El Amparo, across the border from Arauca state, Gen. Carlos Lemus said. Colombian soldiers based in Arauca frequently cross the border in their free time.

Authorities believe the two had been kidnapped by the National Liberation Army, or ELN, Lemus said.

Arauca is one of Colombia's hottest war zones. Rebels attacked and damaged an electrical tower Saturday in the Arauca town of Saravena, 350 kilometers (217 miles) northeast of Bogota, leaving much of the state without power, Lemus said.

The United States has deployed some 70 special forces troops to Arauca to train Colombian troops in counterterrorist tactics, as part of Washington's deepening commitment in Colombia.

Three Americans working for the U.S. government were apparently kidnapped earlier this week when their plane crashed in a jungle region swarming with rebels. The fourth American in the plane and a Colombian were executed by the rebels, said Col. Gen. Jorge Mora, chief of the armed forces.

Hundreds of troops continued to scour the mountainous jungles in search of the three men, who have not been identified.

The single-engine Cessna crashed outside the city of Florencia after U.S. Embassy officials say it had engine trouble. National Police Director Gen. Jorge Campo told reporters Sunday that the plane had been shot at and hit, but that the groundfire was not the reason for the crash.

"Yes, it was hit, things that happened when it was already in the process of an emergency landing, which is a completely different thing from talking about shooting it down," he said.

RCN television showed video of the crashed plane in the lush mountains outside of Florencia.

The United States has given Colombia almost $2 billion in the past three years in mostly military aid. Most of that money was aimed at wiping out the drug trade, but Congress recently lifted restrictions on the aid, allowing Colombia to use the U.S.-trained troops and U.S.-provided equipment to directly battle the rebels.

The rebels consider Washington's involvement in Colombia an act of war and have threatened to target U.S. citizens and interests.

www.boston.com By Maria Cristina Caballero, 2/16/2003

ON FEB. 7, 12-year-old Camila Garcia was having dinner with her parents, her brother, and her 4-year-old sister at El Nogal, an exclusive club in Bogota. At 8:05 p.m., an explosion from a car bomb abruptly separated them. Sixteen hours later, Camila was rescued from the rubble. Her brother survived, too. But their parents and sister were dead.

Camila became a symbol because all Colombians could identify with the girl's struggle for life. She was mangled in the wreckage, brain injured and bones broken, her leg destroyed, so that doctors had to amputate it. Thirty-two people were killed and 162 injured by the car bomb.

Terrorism. Colombians have seen its tragic faces. This recent bombing, the first that targeted the Colombian business elite, is the country's worst urban terrorist attack in a decade. The Colombian government blamed the FARC, the country's largest guerrilla group; Defense Minister Martha Ramirez stated that it was a sophisticated operation that probably received assistance from foreign terrorists.

This was the latest in a series of bombings launched this year since 70 US Green Berets arrived in Arauca, a Colombian state bordering Venezuela: Five car bombs have terrorized Araucans and killed 14 people there. The US troops arrived to train Colombian troops assigned to protect the Cano Limon oil pipeline, which was bombed by rebels 166 times in 2001 and 34 times last year. The pipeline is partly owned by US-based Occidental Petroleum Co. The Green Berets are barred from participating in Colombian combats. But their captain, Lawrence Ferguson, disagrees with those restrictions. He told Reuters: ''Look at Afghanistan. The reason it was successful is that we worked with local troops, all the way.''

Anne Paterson, US ambassador to Colombia, warned in October: ''Sooner or later, official Americans will be killed in Colombia carrying out their duties; when that happens, it will be big news.'' Indeed, last Thursday, a US government plane carrying four Americans and a Colombian crashed in rebel territory in southern Colombia. Two bodies were found; three men were kidnapped by rebels.

Meanwhile, the battles in Arauca have been intensifying as different factions seek to control this oil-rich region. Colombia is the ninth largest provider of oil to the United States. About 6,500 local soldiers will be trained by the Americans, marking the first time the United States is openly training Colombians to fight rebels rather than for eradicating coca crops.

The Bush administration's 2003 foreign aid request to Congress included the first significant nondrug military aid to Colombia since the Cold War: $98 million to protect the pipeline, including 10 helicopters and weapons. While the 2003 foreign aid bill awaits debate, the Bush administration released $6 million to start the pipeline program. If all the aid is approved, Colombia's security forces will get more than $100 million more in 2003 than they did in 2002, and the pipeline program accounts for most of that increase. Democratic US Representative Gene Taylor of Mississippi said, ''It is insane for this nation to spend $98 million to protect a pipeline that Occidental owns with American lives.'' Newsweek has noted that this might be what liberals call ''corporate welfare.''

As the United States worries about Colombian oil and other ''strategic points,'' there is still the matter of what to do about Colombia's crumbling democracy. Plan Colombia - a $2 billion US package aimed mainly at eradicating coca crops - has not achieved its goal. The overall amount of coca grown in Colombia is about 150,000 hectares: three times as much as it was when the US began large-scale crop-spraying in 1996. And, as Minister Ramirez points out, ''The massive consumption of cocaine in the United States and Europe finances the attacks against innocents by Colombian illegal groups.''

So Colombia's terrorism problem is intertwined with US interests. Oil and drugs are two of the most volatile commodities on the planet, causing endless conflicts. As the United States tries to keep one flowing and stop the flow of the other, more tragedies are certain. It is time to evaluate the US policies toward Colombia, to see how the United States can do more to strengthen all institutions, which ultimately should undermine the growing threat from violent groups. In the meantime, in the new age of warfare, casualties are more likely to be civilians like 12-year-old Camila Garcia, an orphaned child struggling to survive in a world gone mad.

Maria Cristina Caballero is a Colombian journalist and a fellow at the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

This story ran on page E11 of the Boston Globe on 2/16/2003.

www.boston.com By Maria Cristina Caballero, 2/16/2003

ON FEB. 7, 12-year-old Camila Garcia was having dinner with her parents, her brother, and her 4-year-old sister at El Nogal, an exclusive club in Bogota. At 8:05 p.m., an explosion from a car bomb abruptly separated them. Sixteen hours later, Camila was rescued from the rubble. Her brother survived, too. But their parents and sister were dead.

Camila became a symbol because all Colombians could identify with the girl's struggle for life. She was mangled in the wreckage, brain injured and bones broken, her leg destroyed, so that doctors had to amputate it. Thirty-two people were killed and 162 injured by the car bomb.

Terrorism. Colombians have seen its tragic faces. This recent bombing, the first that targeted the Colombian business elite, is the country's worst urban terrorist attack in a decade. The Colombian government blamed the FARC, the country's largest guerrilla group; Defense Minister Martha Ramirez stated that it was a sophisticated operation that probably received assistance from foreign terrorists.

This was the latest in a series of bombings launched this year since 70 US Green Berets arrived in Arauca, a Colombian state bordering Venezuela: Five car bombs have terrorized Araucans and killed 14 people there. The US troops arrived to train Colombian troops assigned to protect the Cano Limon oil pipeline, which was bombed by rebels 166 times in 2001 and 34 times last year. The pipeline is partly owned by US-based Occidental Petroleum Co. The Green Berets are barred from participating in Colombian combats. But their captain, Lawrence Ferguson, disagrees with those restrictions. He told Reuters: ''Look at Afghanistan. The reason it was successful is that we worked with local troops, all the way.''

Anne Paterson, US ambassador to Colombia, warned in October: ''Sooner or later, official Americans will be killed in Colombia carrying out their duties; when that happens, it will be big news.'' Indeed, last Thursday, a US government plane carrying four Americans and a Colombian crashed in rebel territory in southern Colombia. Two bodies were found; three men were kidnapped by rebels.

Meanwhile, the battles in Arauca have been intensifying as different factions seek to control this oil-rich region. Colombia is the ninth largest provider of oil to the United States. About 6,500 local soldiers will be trained by the Americans, marking the first time the United States is openly training Colombians to fight rebels rather than for eradicating coca crops.

The Bush administration's 2003 foreign aid request to Congress included the first significant nondrug military aid to Colombia since the Cold War: $98 million to protect the pipeline, including 10 helicopters and weapons. While the 2003 foreign aid bill awaits debate, the Bush administration released $6 million to start the pipeline program. If all the aid is approved, Colombia's security forces will get more than $100 million more in 2003 than they did in 2002, and the pipeline program accounts for most of that increase. Democratic US Representative Gene Taylor of Mississippi said, ''It is insane for this nation to spend $98 million to protect a pipeline that Occidental owns with American lives.'' Newsweek has noted that this might be what liberals call ''corporate welfare.''

As the United States worries about Colombian oil and other ''strategic points,'' there is still the matter of what to do about Colombia's crumbling democracy. Plan Colombia - a $2 billion US package aimed mainly at eradicating coca crops - has not achieved its goal. The overall amount of coca grown in Colombia is about 150,000 hectares: three times as much as it was when the US began large-scale crop-spraying in 1996. And, as Minister Ramirez points out, ''The massive consumption of cocaine in the United States and Europe finances the attacks against innocents by Colombian illegal groups.''

So Colombia's terrorism problem is intertwined with US interests. Oil and drugs are two of the most volatile commodities on the planet, causing endless conflicts. As the United States tries to keep one flowing and stop the flow of the other, more tragedies are certain. It is time to evaluate the US policies toward Colombia, to see how the United States can do more to strengthen all institutions, which ultimately should undermine the growing threat from violent groups. In the meantime, in the new age of warfare, casualties are more likely to be civilians like 12-year-old Camila Garcia, an orphaned child struggling to survive in a world gone mad.

Maria Cristina Caballero is a Colombian journalist and a fellow at the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

This story ran on page E11 of the Boston Globe on 2/16/2003.