U.S. said ready to fight Colombian leftist rebels

BOGOTA, Oct 12 (Reuters) The United States is ready to help fight
Colombia's Marxist rebels, accused of links to the cocaine trade, as part
of a new phase in the drug war, White House drug czar Gen. Barry McCaffrey
said in an interview published on Sunday.

McCaffrey, scheduled to arrive in Bogota for a threeday visit on Oct. 19,
rejected suggestions that Colombia's guerrilla forces were politically
motivated, telling the El Tiempo newspaper that their uprising was fueled
by ``massive resources from criminal drug enterprises.''

``I am going to see how we can back these two institutions (police and
army) who are subject to guerrilla attacks,'' he was quoted as saying.

Any move by the United States to take a role in counterinsurgency
operations in Colombia is likely to generate fierce debate about U.S.
meddling in internal affairs.

But Washington appears to be becoming increasingly worried about the
guerrillas' growing military and political might which the Colombian armed
forces have been powerless to stem.

``It is undeniable that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
and the National Liberation Army (ELN) are funded with millions of dollars
in drug money...I wouldn't characterize that as a civil war. That sounds
too political,'' McCaffrey said.

Until now, the United States has avoided providing Colombia with
counterinsurgency assistance and has channeled most antinarcotics aid
through the National Police rather than to the army, which has one of the
worst human rights records in the hemisphere.

But in recent weeks both McCaffrey, who has longstanding links with
Colombia's top army brass, and U.S. ambassador Myles Frechette have
expressed alarm at the growing ferocity of Colombia's long guerrilla war,
which has claimed more than 35,000 lives in the last 10 years.

``The internal stability of Colombia is something that is of concern to the
whole continent,'' Frechette said in an interview last month with El Tiempo.

President Ernesto Samper has himself conceded that the armed forces are
``neither winning nor losing'' the battle against the guerrillas, who now
number about 15,000 fighters and have de facto control of 40 percent of the
country, according to some Western diplomats.

Colombia's rebel forces deny being involved in the drug trade but concede
that they protect peasant farmers who grow coca leaves the raw material
for cocaine and ``tax'' traffickers who work in their zones of influence.

McCaffrey, who once dubbed Samper ``the accomplice of international
criminals'' after claims that he funded his 1994 election campaign with
drug money, will be the highestranking U.S. official to visit Colombia
since early 1996.

He is due to hold talks with Samper as well as armed forces chief and
Justice Minister Almabeatriz Rengifo. In a speech on Friday, Samper hailed
McCaffrey's visit as a ``wind of change'' in U.S.Colombian relations.

But the U.S. antidrug chief denied there was any change in Washington's
stance and insisted the United States would continue to press Bogota to
stiffen antidrug legislation and in particular to implement a retroactive
extradition treaty to permit Colombian drug traffickers to face trial in
U.S. courts.

Copyright 1997 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.