America From Abroad : U.S. Soldiers Mustering Controversy : * Colombian president’s handling of the humanitarian mission raises doubts about his leadership.

American soldiers have come to Colombia before.

They helped install the radar directed at planes used by narcotics traffickers. They lent a hand in supplying bases along this country’s remote jungle rivers and built the first airstrips on the Colombian island of San Andres.

So it caught officials off-guard when the arrival early this year of about 150 U.S. Army engineers and Navy Seabees on an ostensibly humanitarian mission triggered a storm of protest and, ultimately, a frenzy of anti-American sentiment.

President Cesar Gaviria has been called before Colombia’s highest administrative body to explain why he allowed the troops to enter national territory.

Editorials in newspapers are filled with debate over the American presence.

Several American symbols, including a Coca-Cola plant and two Mormon churches, were attacked with dynamite last month, and graffiti demanding “Yankees--Get Out!” has popped up on buildings in the capital of Bogota and here in Cali, a major city near the engineers’ base.

And it is the proximity to Cali, home of the organization that dominates the world cocaine trade, that made many Colombians wonder about the true motives of the troops.

Many Colombians are sure that the arrival was timed as a show of force just as the Colombian government entered into negotiations with Cali cartel leaders over their possible surrender.

Both Colombian and U.S. spokesmen deny such motives, and Gaviria suggested that the traffickers themselves are responsible for the protest.

Officially, the troops are stationed at the Pacific seaport of Juanchaco, on Malaga Bay, as part of a two-month mission to build a clinic, a school and about seven miles of highway.

There is no evidence that the soldiers are doing anything more than that.

But the clumsy handling of the matter by Colombian and U.S. officials aroused suspicions, fed the controversy and raised questions about Gaviria’s ability to defuse a potentially explosive crisis.

“A wasteful, exhausting polemic would have been avoided with a more transparent and less careless handling of the case,” wrote Enrique Santos Calderon, a columnist for the leading daily El Tiempo.

“The ambiguous presentation and somewhat giddy handling of this matter by the government fueled the most overwrought conjectures. . . . It is as if Gaviria (with barely eight months left in office) were releasing the reins of government prematurely, which is not at all advisable in a country so explosive and unpredictable as ours.”

The controversy began in mid-December, when the U.S. Embassy first announced the impending arrival of the American soldiers, who press reports say are primarily members of the U.S. Corps of Engineers and U.S. Navy Seabees.

That the announcement should come from the embassy, and not the Colombian government, posed something of an affront to a Colombian public highly sensitive to American influence here.

Further raising suspicions, the announcement came just days after U.S. Ambassador Morris Busby congratulated the Colombian government for tracking down and killing drug baron Pablo Escobar on Dec. 2--and also urging authorities to go after the Cali traffickers.

“Pablo Escobar’s death and the dismantling of the Medellin cartel is a big success for Colombia,” Busby told a news conference. “But now they should continue with the Cali cartel.”

The subsequent arrival of the engineers and Seabees took on an enhanced symbolism, prompting some local newspapers to label it a “Gringo Invasion.”

The troops were frequently referred to, incorrectly, as Marines.

Contradictory and confusing statements from Gaviria and from the Colombian Defense Ministry fanned the flames.

The tons of equipment seen unloaded at Malaga Bay appeared disproportionate to the limited task of erecting a small school and clinic. (Only later was it explained that a highway was also being paved.) Authorities restricted journalists’ access to the area, creating another shroud of suspicion.

At one point, Gaviria, responding to reporters’ questions, said the residents of Juanchaco should monitor the American troops to make sure they stuck to their humanitarian mission and did not conduct military operations. The statement left many wondering how 2,000 peasants and fishermen who live in the small port were supposed to control the U.S. Army.

As rumors and speculation filled the pages of Colombian newspapers and the airwaves of Colombian radio stations, the government was finally forced to clarify that the U.S. mission came under the auspices of a 40-year-old treaty and had been authorized long before Escobar was killed and the drug-war focus shifted to Cali.

But the government’s attempts at damage control came only after the damage was done and did little to quiet the passions of nationalism stirred in a mistrustful population.

A poll conducted by the newspaper El Espectador showed that 66% of those responding regarded the American military presence as “damaging” or “very damaging.”

Diplomatic sources privately blame a spate of anti-American attacks on the controversy: The kidnaping last month of two American missionaries by left-wing guerrillas was attributed to the arrival of the troops; Mormon churches in Medellin and Bucaramanga were bombed and U.S. flags were reportedly burned.

At the Mormon Church in Medellin, gunmen entered the building and asked if any foreigners were present before setting off 30 pounds of dynamite, the diplomatic sources said.

This is also an election year in Colombia. Citizens will choose members of Congress in March and a new president in May.

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Violent, acrimonious campaigns are already under way, and it came as no surprise that the U.S. troops would be an electoral issue.

Opposition members of the Senate are calling for an investigation, and opposition presidential candidates are trying to drum up concerns over national sovereignty.

“I like the gringos when they come as tourists, in Bermuda shorts with dollars in their pockets,” Antonio Navarro Wolff, a former leftist guerrilla now running for president, said during a campaign swing. “But we do not want soldiers in our territory.”

Added leftist Sen. Bernardo Gutierrez: “Our people remember very closely the experience of Panama.”

Gaviria blamed the controversy on the Cali drug traffickers, whom he accused of orchestrating a disinformation campaign against the troops. The narcos, or traffickers, he said, were using politicians to manipulate public opinion and blow the U.S. mission out of proportion.

Still, political analysts in Colombia say Gaviria, who has launched a personal quest to become the next secretary general of the Organization of American States, must share the blame.

As Gaviria campaigned for the post, these sources argue, he allowed issues such as the troop deployment to snowball.

“President Gaviria can say public opinion was manipulated, but there were sectors of the population who simply wanted to understand what was going on, which is totally logical and justifiable,” said Juan Gabriel Tokatlian, head of the International Studies Center at the University of the Andes in Bogota.

“He has gone from being a president who explains his decisions to one who informs on his decisions. He believes what he is doing is fine, and does not like criticisms. His handling of this was awful.”