http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/americas/07/24/colombia.usa.reut/index.html Colombia says U.S. aid can target rebels July 24, 2000 Web posted at: 7:52 PM EDT (2352 GMT) BOGOTA, July 24 (Reuters) -- Any restrictions placed on U.S. military aid for the war on drugs in Colombia do not prevent it from using American helicopters and guns to fight Marxist rebels, the country's police chief said on Monday. National Police commander Gen. Luis Ernesto Gilibert was referring to a claim, in a newsletter circulated by a powerful U.S. congressman last week, that the U.S. embassy had prevented an operation in which sophisticated U.S.-made Black Hawk helicopters might have been used to rescue 13 policemen pinned down in a guerrilla attack. Witnesses in the small town of Roncesvalles in Colombia's southwest Andes mountains said the 13 were shot and killed at point-blank range after running out of ammunition during a prolonged firefight, and surrendering to Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels. "They (the helicopters) could have laid down a protective field of fire, protecting the 13 police officers while they were resupplied," Representative Benjamin Gilman, the New York Republican who heads the House International Relations Committee, said in a newsletter. "Since the embassy maintains the absurd fiction that U.S. aid can only be used for counternarcotics purposes, the Black Hawks weren't called in," he said. But Gilibert told reporters no helicopters were dispatched to Roncesvalles during the overnight attack on July 14 because Colombian pilots lacked night vision equipment, not because of any orders from the U.S. embassy. "These elements should be used in the fight against drug trafficking," Gilibert said, referring to helicopters and other equipment that will be supplied as part of the $1.3 billion package of mostly military aid for Colombia, approved by the U.S. Congress last month. "But it is clear that when we need to use them for humanitarian purposes, we won't have any doubts about doing so," he said. "At no time has the ambassador of the United States been opposed to our using helicopters and other means put at our disposal for the fight against drugs to help our men." Gilibert did not elaborate, saying only that U.S. choppers should not be used in "frontal" attacks against rebel strongholds. But Colombian and U.S. officials have insisted repeatedly that aid to beef up the anti-drug fight in Colombia would be used strictly for counternarcotics operations, not to escalate a conflict that has taken 35,000 lives since 1990. Critics say the line between counternarcotics and counterinsurgency is blurred and that Washington is getting sucked into an open-ended commitment of aid and even troops to fight the insurgents who control up to 40 percent of Latin America's oldest democracy. Most of Colombia's cocaine, whose raw material is coca leaf, is grown on illegal plantations and processed in clandestine drug laboratories in areas dominated by the FARC or paramilitary forces on the extreme right. And the FARC and paramilitaries reputedly reap a huge fortune from the drug trade, using it to bankroll their increasingly bloody war effort. "It's not hard to differentiate," Gilibert told reporters, when asked how to distinguish between future anti-drug operations and government offensives against rebels. "All that's needed is good judgment and good criteria," he said. The United States donated six Black Hawks to Colombia last year, for use by the anti-narcotics police. The bulk of the U.S. aid approved last month will pay for an additional 18 Black Hawks and 42 Huey helicopters to ferry troops into drug producing regions. The aid also includes military training and intelligence activities. Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. --------------------------------------------------------------------<e|- <FONT COLOR="#000099">Life's too short to send boring email. Let SuperSig come to the rescue. </FONT><A HREF="http://click.egroups.com/1/6809/6/_/475667/_/964639654/"><B>Click Here!</B></A> --------------------------------------------------------------------|e>-
