U.S. aid questioned in Colombian battle 

S. American nation's military denies hitting civilian areas 

 08/16/99

 By Tod Robberson / The Dallas Morning News

 PUERTO LLERAS, Colombia - The military described a three-day battle here
last month as one of the greatest victories in the government's 35-year war
against the guerrilla Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

 Reportedly taking advantage of U.S.-supplied aircraft, logistical support
and equipment, the Colombian air force launched a swift and devastating
airborne assault on this southern riverside town as the military attempted
to quell a nationwide offensive by the rebels, known as the FARC. For 72
hours, the aircraft strafed and bombed several hundred guerrillas, forcing
them to retreat from Puerto Lleras and leaving scores of rebels dead.

 But military aircraft also strafed and bombed much of the civilian
population in its quest for victory, killing three residents and wounding
several others, according to several residents. Dozens of buildings,
including houses, a hospital, a church and a convent, were pounded from the
sky.

 Human-rights groups say the attack calls into question the safeguards that
the U.S. government insists it is placing on the use of American military
and counternarcotics aid, including a nearly $300 million package destined
Colombia this year. The United States insists its aid is strictly for use
in counternarcotics operations, although it can be used against insurgents
deemed to be supporting the drug trade.

 Rebels blamed

 Colombian air force Gen. Angel Mario Calle, operational commander of the
Puerto Lleras air assault, denied that military aircraft fired on civilian
areas. He insisted that the damage to civilian areas was inflicted by the
FARC.

 At the time of the airborne assault, hundreds of FARC guerrillas had
surrounded and attacked a police station defended by about 60 police
officers. Guerrillas were reportedly swarming through the streets, firing
weapons and attempting to demolish the fortified police headquarters with
homemade bombs.

 Several blocks away from the scene of that attack, however, there is
widespread physical evidence that the military's airborne assault was
directed at civilian-occupied areas of Puerto Lleras. The evidence backs up
consistent witness accounts provided by local government officials,
residents and rescue workers that aircraft opened fire on residential areas.

 There are conflicting Colombian accounts about any role that U.S.
equipment and military personnel played in the airborne assault.

 The Colombian air force commander, Gen. Edgar Alfonso Lesmes, told
reporters shortly after the attack that U.S. aircraft participated in the
operation, providing logistical and administrative support and helping
transport Colombian ground troops. Gen. Calle later said that at no time
did U.S. personnel participate in the attack, nor was U.S. intelligence
supplied to help guide military aircraft against the guerrillas.

 Flags on aircraft

 Gen. Lesmes said the Colombian aircraft used in the pursuit operation were
U.S.-supplied Black Hawk and UH-1H helicopters, and OV-10 Broncos and
Hercules C-130 transport planes. Witnesses quoted by Colombian newspapers
said they identified American flags on the tail fins of some aircraft.

 The aircraft involved in the assault were stationed at the nearby Apiay
air base, which is where an American de Havilland RC-7 spy plane was based
before it crashed into a mountain July 23, killing five U.S. military
personnel and two Colombians.

 According to Colombian air force officers, about 20 American servicemen
were stationed at Apiay at the time of the Puerto Lleras assault. Earlier
this year, the air base provided support for the U.S. Air Force 204th
Military Intelligence Battalion.

 The U.S. Embassy did not respond to written questions about the assault.

 Lt. Col. John Snyder, a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command, said the
Americans based at Apiay as well as elsewhere in Colombia are strictly
limited to participation in counternarcotics activities.

 "Because that was a purely military operation directed at the FARC, we
would not have had any troops involved. That's not what we're in the
business of doing down there," he said.

 Gen. Calle insisted that his airmen follow strict rules of engagement that
prohibit them from firing on any area where civilians might be present,
even if guerrillas are mixed with the civilians.

 "We do not shoot when there is any risk whatsoever to the civilian
population," Gen. Calle said, suggesting that civilian accounts of the
airborne attack were part of a "misinformation" campaign by guerrilla
sympathizers.

 "This is a war of words. The guerrillas' objective is to make us look like
murderers before the international media," he said.

 Witness accounts

 But according to witnesses here, Colombian airmen strafed a hospital
flying a red-cross flag and whose roof was marked with a large red cross.
About 400 civilians were seeking shelter there at the time. One of them was
hit in the foot by a bullet fired from a helicopter. In all, about a dozen
high-caliber rounds were embedded in walls and floors of the hospital after
entering through the roof.

 Military aircraft also fired on a clearly marked ambulance carrying
wounded civilians for evacuation, a hospital nurse said, asking not to be
identified.

 Next door to the hospital, a rocket slammed into the roof of a Catholic
convent, blowing apart two rooms. Aircraft raked a church roof with
bullets, along with a nearby park. They fired .50-caliber rounds through
the roof of the local government building, according to a report by the
federal ombudsman's office.

 Farther down the street, aircraft strafed houses and stores. Inside one,
baker Jose Alberto Moreno and three family members were hiding in a
bathroom, taking advantage of a 5-inch-thick concrete ceiling to shield
them from the bullets raining from the sky, family members said. The thin
corrugated roofing that covered the rest of their bakery already had been
riddled with bullets fired from passing aircraft, they said.

 As the Morenos huddled in the bathroom, an aircraft fired down again,
hitting a gas canister near the bathroom. The gas ignited, burning the
clothes off the occupants and sending the Morenos running naked into the
street, screaming for help. Three of the four died a few days later. The
survivor, Angelica Ladino, 19, is recuperating in Bogota. She declined to
comment.

 Mr. Moreno's daughter, Elvia Velgara, 25, who was not in Puerto Lleras
during the attack, said she gathered accounts from her wounded family
members shortly before they died at a hospital in the city of Villavicencio.

 She quoted her brother, Jose Alberto Moreno Jr., as saying that he had
been accused by soldiers in Puerto Lleras of being a guerrilla and that
they had threatened to kill him. When he arrived in Villavicencio, soldiers
blocked his entry into a hospital, again accusing him of being a guerrilla,
Ms. Velgara said. He died a day later, after being admitted.

 Firing by planes

 Around the corner from the Morenos' bakery, Pericles Duran Bautista and
his family were huddling inside their house on the morning of July 10 when
military aircraft swooped down, opening fire.

 "Maybe they thought the boys [guerrillas] were occupying the house. I
don't know," the 53-year-old truck driver said.

 Bullets riddled his roof, with one hitting his truck and setting it on
fire. In one room, a bullet pierced the roof and and embedded itself 4 to 5
inches in a solid concrete slab.

 "The government acts like we are all with the guerrillas just because they
occupied our town," Mr. Duran said. "We are civilians, not combatants. Why
are we being punished?"

 Hector Manuel Beltran, a local judge, said it was apparent that most of
the damage to residential areas away from the police station was inflicted
by military aircraft.

 "It is what you would expect. They spent two or three days attacking by
air. In battle, one cannot be sure who will be hit," he said.

 President Andres Pastrana visited Puerto Lleras shortly after the attack
and pledged up to $5,000 in reparations for families who lost their houses
and stores.

 If the government values the 3,000 to 5,000 civilians living in Puerto
Lleras, it is not apparent today on the town's streets. Rubble from the
battle still covers several blocks. The military and police have withdrawn
entirely from Puerto Lleras. The mayor and most local government officials
have fled. Only a lone civilian police inspector remains.

 Two weeks ago, FARC rebels briefly returned to Puerto Lleras but have not
returned since. Many townspeople say they fear that right-wing paramilitary
groups, which visited the town Saturday, will exact revenge on civilians
they accuse of helping the guerrillas. Two people were reportedly killed
execution-style over the weekend.

 Other allegations

 This is not the first time such allegations against the air force have
arisen. The military is investigating allegations that 17 civilians in the
northern town of Narino, in Antioquia province, were killed in an airborne
military assault aimed at dislodging FARC guerrillas who occupied the town
in early August. In December at the town of Santo Domingo, 200 miles
northeast of Bogota, 18 civilians were killed when a U.S.-supplied OV-10
attack plane and assault helicopters fired on the town in a
counternarcotics operation.

 Human-rights groups say the incidents underscore the dangers posed by a
U.S. policy of sharing intelligence, weaponry, expertise, aircraft and war
materiel with a Colombian military whose record on human rights is checkered.

 "We are deeply concerned," said Carlos Salinas, who monitors Colombia for
the human-rights group Amnesty International.

 "One of the hallmarks of the conflict in Colombia is the tendency of all
sides - including the armed forces - to attack the civilian population
without remorse," Mr. Salinas said. "This would not be the first time the
civilian population has been grouped as being with the enemy merely for
having lived close to the scene of an attack."

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