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April 14, 2003 Escalating U.S. Casualties in Colombia More than 3,000 Colombian troops, being advised by U.S. personnel, have been deployed and are searching the jungles of Caquetá in southern Colombia in hopes of rescuing three U.S. Defense Department contractors who survived the downing of their small plane on February 13. The "search and rescue mission" intended to locate the three men who were captured by leftist guerrillas shortly after the crash has so far shown no results. Two weeks ago, the U.S. Embassy ran Colombian newspaper and radio advertisements offering a U.S. visa, a new life in the United States and $345,000 to anyone who provides information leading to the rescue of the contractors. As usual in this nation burdened with unemployment and war, information is being bought with a hefty monetary reward. Not only have Washington and Bogotá failed to free the three captured U.S. contractors, but four more U.S. contractors have been killed since February 13.
Over the past few weeks, two more U.S. planes have gone down in southern Colombia bringing the total of U.S. contractor deaths to five. One of those planes was participating in the search and rescue mission and also crashed in the jungles of Caquetá, killing three U.S. contractors on board. The fifth U.S. death occurred when a drug-spraying plane went down in the southern department of Nariño last week, possibly as a result of rebel ground fire. In March, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman and U.S. Army General James T. Hill, commander of U.S. military operations in Latin America, met with President Alvaro Uribe in Bogotá. Grossman said he would not rule out the possibility of U.S. troops engaging in combat during any possible rescue mission, but cautiously added, "It's still too early to determine this." Meanwhile, FARC leader Raul Reyes issued a statement that was broadcast by the Colombian media saying that the U.S. captives ran the risk of being killed in a crossfire if any attempt to rescue them was made. The possibility of U.S. troops directly engaging in combat in Colombia combined with the capture of U.S. Defense Department contractors has opened a Pandora's box that may be difficult to close once this rescue mission ends—if it ends. In late February, when 49 U.S. Army Special Forces troops landed in Colombia to aid with the "search and rescue mission," a FARC commander came down from the mountains to grant a rare interview. The commander of the FARC's Magdalena Medio Block, known as El Pastor Alape, or the Shepherd, sat on a plastic lounge chair in the middle of the jungle night clad in camouflage fatigues. While swatting at mosquitoes with his cotton scarf, he pointed out, "The U.S. government must have considered the consequences before entering into some manner of direct intervention in Colombia." The consequences Pastor Alape refers to are the first U.S. government employed personnel to be killed by the rebel group and the capture of the three U.S. contractors. "The order we have is that we should fire at any plane that flies within shooting distance of our weapons," said Pastor Alape, who commands 1,500 combatants in northern Colombia far from the crash site. "I can only say that the military personnel in that plane were on an intelligence mission. We captured arms and intelligence documents that are proof. They weren't on a vacation." In their first communiqué dated Feb 21, the FARC announced the capture of the three U.S. contractors they claimed were conducting "a counter-guerrilla spy mission," and stating that their safety depended on the suspension of military operations in the area. In their second communiqué, the FARC pronounced the three captives to be prisoners of war, conditioning their release to that of imprisoned rebels in a humanitarian exchange with the Colombian government. Currently the FARC are holding 23 prominent politicians and 40 Colombian soldiers and police they want to exchange for nearly 3,000 imprisoned guerrillas. The United States has said any prisoner exchange is the Colombian government's decision, but swiftly responded by announcing the deployment of 150 U.S. Special Forces troops for a "search and rescue mission." The FARC said it would not negotiate with the United States for the release of the hostages and Washington said it has no interest in negotiating with the rebels.
In 2002, the Bush administration's emergency "counterterrorism" bill allowed for the use of all U.S. military aid to Colombia for counterinsurgency operations. And in November of that same year, President Bush signed National Security Directive 18, which expanded intelligence sharing with Colombia. To avoid the danger of an escalating military intervention in Colombia, Congress set an in-country limit of 400 U.S. troops and 400 defense contractors. The latest deployment of 49 U.S. troops has pushed the total to 411. "If it's 49 just for this, that means that when the plane hit the ground there were already 362 U.S. troops in Colombia, which is more than ever reported to us before," said Isacson, who monitors Congress's reports on Colombia. "About a hundred higher than the Bush administration had ever reported." However, Senator Patrick Leahy's foreign affairs aide Tim Rieser said that the troop cap is not the issue because it does not apply to a search and rescue mission. "There are risks that other Americans may be kidnapped or killed; people know that. Whether this plane incident signifies an expanding U.S. role there, we don't see that because these flights are not new. But there is no question that the U.S. is becoming more deeply involved in Colombia's war." Many others agree. Colombia's difficult terrain and the fact that the FARC is a military force to be reckoned with are two reasons many are saying the escalating U.S. mission represents the beginning of a Vietnamization of Colombia. In a column in Colombia's national daily El Tiempo, military analyst Alfredo Rangel asserted that an increased presence of U.S. troops that engage in direct combat with the FARC could be like Vietnam, or more likely, he wrote, like the Philippines. Vice-President Francisco Santos has countered that the increased presence of U.S. advisors on Colombian soil is nothing like Vietnam because it is not an invasion. Arelene Pickner, a professor of International Relations at the National University of Los Andes and a U.S. citizen who has lived in Colombia for nearly 20 years, said the kidnapping and rescue mission does mark an important turning point in the level and extent of U.S. involvement in the Colombian armed conflict. "This new stage opens the door for direct involvement for U.S. troops in combat. If U.S. troops become directly involved in combat, quite obviously there are going to be more casualties." Since 1999, the United States has been spending nearly $2 million a day in aid to the Colombian military and police. According to the Center for International Policy, U.S. aid to Colombia during the past five years totals $2.69 billion, 81 percent of which has been allotted to the military and police. FARC leader Pastor Alape said that the political consequences for the United States will be harsh if U.S. military involvement in Colombia continues to escalate. "When I speak of the consequences I'm not speaking of U.S. civilians. No, I'm talking about the pain it will cause the United States when other acts of war are undertaken in this country," he said. "I'm speaking of the American youth who will come to these jungles for the confrontation; these are the consequences." Nicole Alana Karsin is an independent journalist currently working in Colombia. This article originally appeared in Colombia Report, an online journal that was published by the Information Network of the Americas (INOTA).
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It
is presumed that combat ensued between Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas and the five crewmen after their Cessna
crash-landed. Two of the passengers—a U.S. contractor and a
Colombian army sergeant—were shot near the crash site. The
four U.S. citizens were employees of the private military company
California Microwave Systems, a division of Northrop Grumman, contracted
by the Defense Department to work in Colombia.
Adam
Isacson, an expert on U.S. military involvement in Colombia and
Senior Associate for the Washington-based Center for International
Policy, said that although the kidnapping was an isolated event,
"it was inevitable and something we've been fearing for a long
time." Isacson was also surprised at the number of U.S. troops
currently based in Colombia. The arrival of 49 U.S. soldiers in
support of the search and rescue mission tops off an almost 50 percent
increase over the last six months in the amount of U.S. military
personnel based in Colombia. In January, 70 U.S. Special Forces
soldiers were deployed to eastern Colombia to provide counterinsurgency
training to Colombian troops responsible for protecting the Caño
Limón oil pipeline (see,