Colombian Troops Conquer Rebel Area
Audio/Video
 Colombian Troops Enter Rebel Enclave (Reuters)  


 
By ANDREW SELSKY, Associated Press Writer

SAN VICENTE DEL CAGUAN, Colombia (AP) - Colombian paratroopers and counterinsurgency forces stormed rebel territory Friday, launching an offensive to reconquer an area twice the size of New Jersey after a 3-year-old peace process failed.

Hundreds of soldiers recaptured an old army base outside the main rebel town of San Vicente Del Caguan on the zone's western fringe, raising the Colombian flag and singing the national anthem.

U.S.-made Black Hawk helicopters ferrying the troops came under rebel fire. Three soldiers were wounded and three choppers were hit, Armed Forces chief Gen. Fernando Tapias said.

As many as 5,000 guerrillas were believed to be inside the zone but most of the top rebel commanders have left the area, he said. Colombia mobilized 13,000 troops for the operation.

Elsewhere in Colombia, FARC rebels struck down an electricity tower, attacked a power plant and damaged a natural gas pipeline, officials said Friday.

Toward the east, 1,000 soldiers moved on towns in a bid to re-establish government authority over a swath of southern Colombia given to the rebels in November 1998 to get them to talk peace and end a war now in its 38th year.

President Andres Pastrana canceled the peace talks when guerrillas hijacked a civilian airliner Wednesday and kidnapped a prominent senator. The FARC had insisted it wanted to negotiate a cease-fire but kept dynamiting electrical towers and attacking other targets.

A FARC statement distributed in San Vicente by a messenger Friday said the 16,000-strong rebel group was willing to talk to ``a future government that shows interest in retaking the road to a political solution to the social and armed conflict.''

``I hope that doesn't mean that we are going to go back to the negotiations, but after there are 100,000 more dead,'' military analyst Alfredo Rangel said.

Colombia elects a new president May 26, and Pastrana is barred from seeking a consecutive term.

Pastrana spoke by telephone with Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) on Friday after asking for U.S. military aid for the offensive. The State Department said Friday in Washington that it may increase intelligence sharing with the Colombian military and accelerate deliveries of spare parts for military equipment.

Powell praised Pastrana, saying he should be commended for his patience in dealing with the rebels before calling off the talks.

``He's been rebuffed. He finally felt he could go no further, and he had a responsibility to the people of Colombia to protect them,'' he said Friday. ``We understand the decision he made. We support him.''

Colombia's ambassador to Washington, Luis Moreno, welcomed the U.S. comments on intelligence sharing but said his government wants permission to use U.S. equipment ``to prevent acts of terrorism.''

The capture of the base outside San Vicente followed heavy bombing of rebel targets, including camps, fuel and munitions depots, bridges and roads.

In San Vicente, witnesses said a father and his 2-year-old son were killed in the air force bombing of La Ye. Another half-dozen civilians were wounded, some critically, and a teen-age girl died of her injuries overnight, they said.

Tapias had said earlier Friday that reports of civilian deaths in bombing raids were being investigated. But he also warned that some reports could be rebel propaganda.

Human rights groups urged the government and rebels to avoid civilian casualties. The groups worry that brutal right-wing paramilitaries may enter the zone on the army's heels and begin executing suspected rebel collaborators.

Defense Minister Gustavo Bell said the military is fighting all outlawed groups, including the paramilitary army known as the AUC and a smaller leftist rebel group, the ELN.

After the rebel gunfire on approach, the taking of the base at San Vicente went without incident, military officials said.

Once the area is cleared of guerrillas, National Police soldiers will arrive to patrol the streets of this town of 22,000, said National Police director Gen. Luis Ernesto Gilibert. Next week, troops from a U.S.-trained counternarcotics brigade will begin destroying coca crops and drug laboratories inside the former safe haven.

Armed forces officials said rebels were withdrawing from the townships of Mesetas, La Macarena, Vistahermosa and Uribe, and were heading into the jungle. The government says the FARC holds dozens of hostages in the vast zone, ships cocaine and has made a fortress out of what was supposed to be a safe haven.

To allay residents' fears, Colombia's army commander told the 100,000 civilians in the zone that soldiers had strict instructions to respect their rights. Citing abuses by the FARC and paramilitaries, Gen. Jorge Enrique Mora said in a radio broadcast that ``the country knows perfectly well that you have had to live under this regime of terror.''

Ecuador, however, declared a state of emergency in a province bordering Colombia, bracing for a possible influx of refugees.

In a town meeting in San Vicente's main square, Mayor Nestor Ramirez told hundreds of residents to ``maintain calm and tranquility.''

Many residents welcomed the army.

``There are fears about what might happen in the short term, but this is what the people wanted,'' said Nubia Henao, mayor of Granada, just east of the former haven. ``They were tired of having the zone.''

Others weren't so optimistic, noting the bloody civil conflicts that were precursors to the present war.

``What's going to change anyway? My father died in the violence of the 1940s, my brother in a car bomb in Medellin placed by the drug traffickers,'' said farmer Jhony Garcia as he took his cows out to pasture. ``We came here to escape, but there is no escape in Colombia.''