Killings by Rebels Test Colombia-U.S. Ties

Just when Colombian President Andres Pastrana seemed on the road to keeping two crucial campaign promises--improving relations with the United States and ending Latin America’s longest guerrilla war--those goals appear to be colliding.

With the guerrillas’ admission Wednesday that one of their field officers had killed three Americans, and their subsequent refusal to turn him over to authorities, as the United States has demanded, Pastrana now must step carefully to keep both the faltering peace process and his country’s newly rediscovered friendship with the United States on track.

Failure at either could mire his 7-month-old administration in the political quicksand that sunk his predecessor, Ernesto Samper, and left Colombia drowning in the chaos of crime and violence.

Both U.S. support and cooperation from the guerrillas--who guard fields of coca bushes and opium poppies--are essential if Pastrana is to curb drug production in his country, which supplies 70% of the cocaine and an increasing share of the heroin consumed in the United States.

Ending the decades-long civil war would break the collusion between drug producers and rebels that provides the insurgents with money to buy weapons and the narcotics crops with protection. Peace is expected to be an important blow to drug production because anti-narcotics police officers could then work in drug-producing areas without fear of guerrillas.

“The guerrillas who did this have no concept of international consequences,” military analyst Alfredo Rangel said of the killings. “It leaves the [insurgents] in a weak position, but the effects on the peace process depend heavily on the United States.”

U.S. support for the peace process already was tempered by doubt of the sincerity of the rebels, who have continued to attack police outposts and guard drug crops.

Now the United States is remaining firm in its insistence that the perpetrators be extradited to the United States for trial.

“We continue to hold them responsible for this despicable event, and accepting responsibility and identifying at least one of those responsible for the kidnapping is only one of several steps we believe the [guerrillas] must take,” State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said Thursday.

That leaves Pastrana firmly in the middle of the two opposing forces that destroyed Samper. Both the leftist rebels--who consider Americans to be imperialists--and the U.S. government--which condemns the guerrillas as narco-terrorists--grew alienated from Samper because his 1994 campaign had received $6 million in donations from drug traffickers. Between them, they made him an international pariah and a domestic embarrassment.

Since Pastrana took office last year, peace talks have gotten underway with Colombia’s two main insurgent forces, while earlier this month, for the first time in three years, the United States certified Colombia as a fully cooperating partner in the war on drugs.

Maintaining good relations with the United States while negotiating with the largest guerrilla army, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, has been difficult for Pastrana because of the rebels’ role in guarding drug crops. But with the slayings of the Americans by the FARC, it has become even trickier.

Californian Terence Freitas, 24, Ingrid Washinawatok, 41, and Laheenae Gay, 39, were found last week near a Venezuelan border town a week after they were kidnapped returning from a visit to the U’wa Indians in a remote region of northeastern Colombia.

FARC on Wednesday asked forgiveness for the killings and said the rebels will prosecute, under their system of justice, the field commander responsible. He could face a firing squad.

The only explanation for the deaths was that the three U.S. activists had not received rebel permission to enter the area, which is under FARC control. The FARC gets millions of dollars each year in kidnapping ransoms, and foreigners are favored targets because they are thought to bring higher ransoms.

The State Department’s Rubin said the United States will insist that the rebels cooperate with an investigation by the Colombian government and turn suspects over to the authorities. “Failure on their part to do so would undo any of the expressed sentiment about who was responsible,” he said.

Pastrana’s administration clearly is trying to avoid taking sides. Victor G. Ricardo, the government’s top peace negotiator, tried to find a middle ground during a news conference late Wednesday.

“The outcry condemning this crime should reinforce to the insurgents the need to respect human rights and the lives of foreigners,” he said. Still, he added, “the government once again repeats its intention of finding a political solution to the conflict.”

Darling is a Times staff writer and Lawrence is a special correspondent.