Mon, 11 Oct 2004
Source: New York
Times (NY)
CONGRESS APPROVES DOUBLING U.S. TROOPS
IN COLOMBIA TO 800
BOGOTA, Colombia, Oct. 10 - The number of
American military personnel
here will double, to 800, in the coming months,
based on a weekend
vote in the United States Congress.
The action was
welcomed by President A lvaro Uribe's government for
its fight against
Marxist rebels but condemned by human rights
monitors, who warned of a sharp
escalation in Colombia's conflict.
The 2005 United States Defense
Department authorization act, approved
Saturday by Congress, also permits the
Bush administration to increase
the number of American citizens working for
private contractors in
Colombia to 600 from 400.
The soldiers and many
of the contractors will, among other things,
develop and analyze intelligence
on rebel movements, do surveillance
and train Colombian troops in
counterguerrilla operations.
American officials who lobbied Capitol Hill
to lift restrictions said
more American personnel were urgently needed to
help Colombia in its
nine-month offensive in the south that pits 18,000
Colombian soldiers
against the country's most formidable rebel group, the
Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia. "That requires logistical
capabilities,
maintaining supply lines, getting food and fuel to the
front,
providing medical evacuation capabilities," said Adam Isacson,
a
senior analyst at the Center for International Policy, a
Washington
group that tracks Colombia. "They need a lot more American
personnel
to fill those gaps."
Though the United States has
contributed $3.3 billion to Colombia,
most of it in military aid, Mr. Uribe
has lobbied hard for a larger
American role in the 40-year-old, drug-fueled
conflict.
Lifting the Congressionally mandated limits on troops and
contractors,
a little-noticed measure in the 5,000-page Pentagon
authorization
bill, is seen by some political analysts and rights advocates
as a
major step toward even larger American troop commitments. In
the
months before the passage by the United States in 2000 of
Plan
Colombia, a $1.3 billion antidrug initiative, members of
Congress
hotly debated whether involvement in Colombia could lead to
a
Vietnam-like quagmire.
"The main concern is two years from now: what
is going to stop them
from coming back for more, until Colombia becomes one
of our most
serious military commitments," Mr. Isacson said, referring to
American
military planners.
The work Americans and others do in
Colombia's conflict is perilous.
Eleven contractors, American and other
foreign nationals, working for
American companies under Pentagon contracts
have been killed since
1998. Three Americans whose plane crashed in a
surveillance mission
over rebel territory remain in guerrilla hands 17 months
after being
taken hostage.
Under Mr. Uribe's administration, violence
has ebbed in Colombia, the
economy has improved and the security forces have
made gains eroding
rebel forces and destroying vast fields of coca, the crop
used to make
cocaine. But combat remains common, and political assassinations
and
kidnappings occur with staggering frequency.
American involvement
is being ratcheted up as the United States
steadily increases training for
police and military forces in Latin
America.
In 2003, American
soldiers trained 22,831 Latin American troops and
police officers, 52 percent
more than in 2002, said a report released
last week by three Washington-based
policy groups, the Center for
International Policy, the Washington Office on
Latin America and the
Latin America Working Group Education Fund. In
Colombia, nearly 13,000
troops received American training, up from 6,477 in
2002.
Even before the new policy in Colombia was approved,
American
officials and military officers had hinted that support for
Mr.
Uribe's government would be expanded.
"We will stay the course,"
Gen. James Hill, the commander of American
military operations in Latin
America, said last week in Bogota in a
farewell address before he retired. He
said that the United States
would "assist the Colombian people in ways that
are necessary to win
the war."