What's to stop, say, Hekmatyar, now sheltered in Iran, from bombing the
pipelines in a few years in Afghanistan?
http://www.ciponline.org/colombia/
The Center for International Policy offers a comprehensive source of
information and analysis about peaceful efforts to end Colombia's conflict and
the United States' increasing military involvement.
Michael Pugliese
Rebels at oil pipeline: 'It's easy to bomb'
U.S. may train Colombian troops in new tactics against bombings
Karl Penhaul, Chronicle Foreign Service
Sunday, April 21, 2002
©2002 San Francisco Chronicle
URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/ article.cgi?
file=/chronicle/archive/2002/04/21/ MN214028.DTL
Saravena, Colombia -- As he sits outside a pool hall sipping tepid beer in the
sweltering afternoon, there is little in the young man's quiet manner to
suggest he is a foot soldier in an almost-invisible military operation that
looms in the crosshairs of U.S. foreign policy.
But his dark eyes flash as he demonstrates how he sparks two electric cables
together to trigger an explosion.
The bomber is one of a small band of rebel saboteurs for the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the country's largest leftist guerrilla
force. FARC and the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN) routinely bomb
Colombia's second largest oil pipeline as it pumps 110,000 barrels of crude a
day from the nearby Cano Limon field operated by the U.S. multinational
Occidental Petroleum Corp.
The pipeline stretches 500 miles across oil-rich northeast Colombia to the
Caribbean coast. Rebels bombed it a record 170 times last year, up from 99
attacks in 2000, leaving it crippled for more than half the year.
Their mission is to stop what they call the "plunder" of Colombia's natural
resources by foreign interests.
"It's great if the pipeline is pumping at full force. You hit the detonator,
the pipe blows and oil shoots 80 yards into the air," said the rebel, who
introduced himself only as Daniel. "It's easy to bomb. It only takes about 10
kilos (22 pounds) of explosives."
But bombing may suddenly get tougher.
Amid a wider global crusade, President Bush is pressing Congress for an
immediate $27 million emergency aid package to help fight terrorism in
Colombia. About $6 million of that, along with another $98 million in the 2003
budget, would pay for U.S. Special Forces to train Colombian troops in new
tactics to defend the pipeline in Arauca province.
The stated aim is to protect Colombia's oil reserves -- the country's No.1
export -- and ward off rebel attacks against the installations of Los Angeles-
based Occidental, which splits production with the state oil company,
Ecopetrol.
Critics in the U.S. Congress and human rights groups argue that such funding
would mark a sharp shift away from the United States' traditional focus of
bankrolling anti-narcotics operations and could serve as a trigger for wider
U.S. involvement in Colombia's 37-year war between government forces and
leftist guerrillas. That war kills 3,500 people a year.
But the added millions of dollars seem to offer little guarantee of success
against a sabotage campaign that has been going on for 15 years. The rebels use
small bomb teams, difficult to detect by army patrols on the ground or by
spotter aircraft.
Daniel said the bombing raids were normally conducted by eight rebels dressed
in civilian clothes, riding motorcycles and equipped with explosives made from
fertilizer. Three of them stand watch for army patrols while the other five
burrow down with picks to the pipeline, buried about six feet below the
surface, or use an explosive charge to blow a crater.
"Once you reach the pipeline, you wrap the explosives in transparent tape,
strap it to the pipeline and run an electric cord about 100 yards away. Then --
boom!"
The effects of the sabotage -- dark stains throughout the countryside and
blackened palm trees -- were evident during a helicopter ride packed with
troops from the army's 49th Counterguerrilla Battalion, the unit that protects
the pipeline. Maj. Julio Burgos, commander of the 575-man unit, bitterly
explained that he no longer counted the cost of a barrel of oil in dollars but
in the blood of his men.
In the last five years, 62 members of the battalion have died and more than 100
have been wounded in clashes with rebels along the snaking path of the
pipeline. Burgos says he does not have the equipment to do the job and believes
U.S. aid is desperately needed. At present, the battalion has no helicopters,
and its lone bomb- sniffing dog was returned to Bogota after falling ill.
Burgos says his most valuable resource is a 230-foot watchtower in a trench-
ringed military compound in nearby La Esmeralda, which allows sentries to spot
guerrillas about to launch weekly attacks on the base with home-made missiles
built from gas tanks packed with dynamite.
He hopes U.S. aid will buy three Blackhawk helicopter gunships and pay to train
his men to operate in small commando units, equipped with state- of-the- art
weaponry and communications equipment.
"It's going to be difficult to stop attacks completely. For that you would need
a soldier every 200 yards. But by using inventive strategies we can drastically
limit the number of bombings."
>From the start of this year, Burgos has tried to put that philosophy into
practice.
He says he has managed to reduce bombings to just 12 between January and mid-
April, compared to 55 in the same period last year, by analyzing the pattern of
previous attacks and deploying several 100-man companies to simultaneously
patrol the first 60 miles of the pipeline -- the section that bears the brunt
of bombings.
But no matter what military strategy is employed, it will be much harder to
eradicate the deep-seated resentment against the oil industry that lies at the
heart of the attacks.
The second-biggest rebel group, the ELN, earned itself the tag of "petro-
guerrillas" by becoming targeting the pipeline shortly after Occidental's Cano
Limon field came online in 1985. At a clandestine site surrounded by about 100
fighters near the town of Saravena, Commander Pablo, a regional ELN leader,
railed against the U.S. company.
"We are not against the oil industry itself because oil will be exploited under
a socialist or a capitalist system," he said. "But we are opposed to the way
multinationals plunder our natural resources."
Clad in the ELN's trademark red and black ski mask and an olive green uniform
bearing an insignia with the slogan "Victory or Death," Pablo condemned U.S.
plans to finance a new army battalion to protect energy infrastructure.
"This is another attempt by the gringos to subjugate the world to their own
policies. But we will not surrender to U.S. imperialism. We have declared a war
to the death on capitalism and the U.S. empire," he said.
Peasants and even leaders of Saravena's Chamber of Commerce regularly complain
about corrupt local officials siphoning off oil royalties instead of investing
in roads, schools and hospitals.
Burgos, the military commander, conceded the rebels' stance has broad
grassroots support. He said town inhabitants and outlying villages aid
guerrillas by hiding bomber units and helping transport and store explosives.
An hour's drive south of Saravena, a tour through Santo Domingo, a poor village
of wooden huts housing 170 people, offers clear lessons on the risk of wider
U.S. involvement in protecting infrastructure.
In 1998, the community was bombed by Colombian air force helicopter gunships in
hot pursuit of a combined column of ELN and FARC fighters. A white marble
monument, yards from where a U.S.-supplied cluster bomb exploded, bears
testimony to the 18 civilians killed and 23 others wounded.
Investigations into the attack are still under way, but a military tribunal has
gathered evidence from Colombian military pilots, which were shown to The
Chronicle last year, that three U.S. pilots marked targets and called in the
air strikes.
The airmen, civilian contractors, were not supposed to be coordinating
counterinsurgency operations but simply providing aerial surveillance for
Occidental facilities and the pipeline.
Amalio Neite, a 24-year-old dirt farmer who supports his wife and three
children $5.50 a day, has still not received compensation for the shrapnel
wounds he received. He lost his father, a cousin and his sister-in- law in the
bombing.
"I would tell the United States no more," he said. "We don't want any more war
we want to live peacefully. I would ask the United States, 'Why do you want to
train more people to kill peasants?' "
©2002 San Francisco Chronicle Page A - 16
U.S. officials says no U.S. combat role, increase in personnel in Colombia
CAROLYN SKORNECK, Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, April 24, 2002
Breaking News Sections
(04-24) 16:02 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) --
A State Department official assured senators Wednesday that U.S. soldiers will
not be fighting Colombian rebels even if Congress lets Colombia use anti-drug
helicopters and other equipment to battle the insurgents.
"Not one of us here is talking about U.S. troops in a combat role," said Marc
Grossman, undersecretary of state for political affairs. "The Colombians need
to take the brunt of this, but we need to be there to help them."
The Bush administration has no intention of exceeding the limits of 400 U.S.
military trainers and 400 civilian contractors that were set to join in
Colombian President Andres Pastrana's anti- drug Plan Colombia, Grossman told
the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere.
Also, the administration "will not stop our human rights vetting of Colombian
military units receiving U.S. assistance,"
Separately, other U.S. officials told a House panel they have no evidence tying
the Irish Republican Army to international drug trafficking or Colombian
terrorists, even as a congressional report accused the IRA of training rebels
in explosives technology.
Sen. Chris Dodd, the Senate subcommittee chairman, said the United States must
fulfill its pledge to aid Colombia in its "hour of crisis -- a crisis that has
profound implications for institutions of democracy in Colombia and throughout
the hemisphere."
Still, Dodd, D-Conn., asked for a better explanation of what the administration
hopes to accomplish by loosening restrictions on U.S. assistance.
"What we seek is flexibility that would enable Colombia to use U.S.-provided
helicopters and the counter-drug brigade from Plan Colombia to fight terrorism
some of the time as needed," Grossman said.
That unit, trained by U.S. officers, has shown "impressive results" in fighting
drugs, said Army Maj. Gen. Gary Speer, acting commander in chief of the
Southern Command. He noted that the brigade has not been accused of human
rights abuses.
Colombia's three main rebel groups -- the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia, FARC; the National Liberation Army of Colombia, ELN; and the United
Self-Defense Group of Colombia, AUC -- are on the State Department's list of
foreign terrorist organizations. All three are self-financed through drug
trafficking, Speer said.
The AUC, a right-wing paramilitary group, aims to destroy the FARC and the ELN,
both leftist guerrilla armies.
Dodd said the FARC recently had an estimated 17,000 members, while AUC had
11,000. But support for the AUC has increased as FARC- sponsored violence grew,
he said.
"When people are frightened, they will grasp onto whatever offers some
security," Dodd said.
Colombia's military now views the AUC as a greater threat than the FARC or the
ELN, Speer said. "The people in Colombia look at the AUC as doing something."
Said Dodd: "I have an eerie feeling you're going to be back here at this table
next year telling me it's not getting better, it's getting worse," with the AUC
growing to 18,000 people.
A report Wednesday from the House International Relations Committee's
Republican majority contends the IRA and the FARC have had well-established
links since at least 1998.
Since up to 15 IRA members, among them senior weapons experts and technicians,
have visited the rebel-held part of Colombia, the FARC has begun employing IRA-
style car bombs and mortars with devastating effect, the committee report said.
But Drug Enforcement Administration chief Asa Hutchinson and Mark F. Wong, the
State Department's acting coordinator for counterterrorism, said there was no
evidence tying the IRA to drug trafficking or Colombian terrorists.
They could not say if three IRA suspects arrested in Colombia last August while
traveling on phony passports were acting on their own or at the direction of
IRA superiors.
Gen. Fernando Tapias, chairman of the joint chiefs of Colombia's armed forces,
said Wednesday he had "no formal knowledge linking these individuals to the
high command of the IRA."
