A New Front in Colombia’s War Against Drugs

A brilliant blue butterfly the size of a wren drifted through the jungle clearing. The Colombian general dropped his voice to a whisper.

“At this moment, we can’t see them or hear them. But they are only 50 meters [55 yards] away from us now,” he said.

Suddenly, with a shout, the area turned into a war zone. The men in the clearing, seemingly busy at work in a cocaine lab, dropped to their knees and began firing. A percussion grenade exploded with a skin-shaking thump. Men in camouflage uniforms with greasepaint on their faces stormed from their hiding places, machine guns rattling.

For 10 minutes, the air was filled with gunfire and grenade explosions. Then, just as suddenly as before, everything went quiet. Smoke hung in clouds. A wounded man screamed out. Bodies lay sprawled in the mud. The general poked one in the ear with a stick. “You’re dead,” he said.

The man just smiled. The drill was over.

There is a real war going on all around this military base in southern Colombia, as the police and armed forces battle leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitary groups and armed narco-traffickers in nearby cocaine fields and jungle hide-outs.

But the soldiers on this sprawling former cattle ranch are waging fake battles under the careful supervision of 47 U.S. Special Forces trainers from Ft. Bragg, N.C.

The Colombian soldiers and their U.S. trainers form the heart of Plan Colombia, a $1.3-billion effort funded by the U.S. to wipe out half the cocaine produced in this nation in two years.

Nearly one-fourth of that money is going to fund three specialized anti-narcotics battalions, comprising about 2,400 men, and the expensive Black Hawk helicopters and other equipment they will use on anti-drug missions.

Already, two of the battalions are in the field. The members of the third are scheduled to graduate at the end of this month. The Colombian government and the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, the capital, invited The Times and other news organizations on Friday to witness one day in the soldiers’ rigorous, 18-week training regime.

One drill took place in a field filled with cows and 23 Huey helicopters.

A squad of 10 soldiers, marching below a hill filled with trainers and media representatives, responded to a surprise attack. As the machine guns and percussion grenades sounded through the jungle, the cows fled in terror.

At the drug lab drill later in the day, in a muddy, humid open space with a small stream, the soldiers practiced not only shooting at those defending the lab but also arresting lab workers and evacuating the wounded in helicopters.

Although the soldiers had rehearsed the exercise the day before the media’s arrival, and there was no way to measure the accuracy of the marksmanship, U.S. military officials pronounced the drills a success.

“They make sure it’s a valid firefight,” one officer said.

As originally conceived, the primary mission of the anti-narcotics battalions was to kill guerrillas and anyone else guarding huge cocaine plantations to make way for the arrival of crop-fumigating planes.

But as Colombia’s rebels and paramilitary groups finance more and more of their activities through narcotics, they have become increasingly involved in the processing of coca leaves into cocaine.

As a result, the battalions have also become increasingly involved in search-and-destroy missions targeting drug labs, which has led them into firefights with those who guard those facilities. Since December, nine soldiers and more than 40 guerrillas or paramilitary troops have been killed during the battalions’ operations.

Brig. Gen. Mario Montoya, who oversees the three battalions, said Colombia’s war against drugs has become nearly indistinguishable from its war against paramilitary groups and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the nation’s largest leftist rebel group.

The guerrillas and the paramilitary groups “are in constant conflict simply to see who will be able to have hegemony over the drug business. This is the permanent battle,” he said.

The U.S. light-infantry instruction given the Colombian’s troops reflects this reality. For instance, one important part of the course, according to the senior U.S. trainer at Larandia, involves “target discrimination.” The training is designed to teach the soldiers to fire only on those guarding the drug labs, rather than the workers inside.

“There’s very strong emphasis on marksmanship and target discrimination to ensure that the soldiers identify targets as belligerent before they engage them,” the trainer said. There are “a large number of noncombatants working in the labs, making target discrimination critical.”

The day’s drills revealed just how difficult the rebels’ ties to the drug trade have made ordinary combat missions. For example, before every attack against a drug lab, Colombian troops by law must yell out their arrival.

Needless to say, this makes surprise attack a bit difficult. During the mock raid Friday, the lab workers were the first to open fire.

“That’s the way it has always been,” one brigade official said with a shrug.

The soldiers also receive human rights training during the entire 18-week course, including one drill in which they act out 12 different scenarios they might encounter in the field, such as a prisoner surrender.

Although it is privately referred to by some as the “Stations of the Cross” drill, Montoya said the human rights training has been effective.

“There has not been a single complaint filed against us,” he said.