Frecuencia Latina, a Peruvian television station with close
links to the Peruvian military intelligence service SIN, reported
that McCaffrey privately urged leaders of the four countries
to participate in a multinational military intervention against
the largest Colombian guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC).
WORLD SOCIALIST WEB SITE
Wednesday, 15 September 1999
General McCaffrey's secret talks: US discussed
plans for Colombian intervention
By Margaret Rees
Following Barry McCaffrey's recent visit to South America,
media revelations in Peru and Argentina indicate the US general
advanced American plans to coordinate a military intervention
to pacify Colombia under the guise of an anti-drug crusade.
From August 23, McCaffrey, head of the US National Drug Policy
Control Office, visited Brazil, Bolivia, Peru and Argentina.
On August 30, Frecuencia Latina, a Peruvian television station
with close links to the Peruvian military intelligence service
SIN, reported that McCaffrey privately urged leaders of the four
countries to participate in a multinational military intervention
against the largest Colombian guerrilla group, the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
This is contrary to McCaffrey's public denials of any plans
for direct US intervention in Colombia, echoed strongly by top
US State Department officials.
Frecuencia Latina outlined the following scenario for the
intervention: Colombian President Andres Pastrana would try to
reach an agreement with FARC. If this failed by January 2000,
he would declare a state of internal war in Colombia and call
on regional intervention from Peru, Ecuador and Brazil. This
force would join with five Colombian battalions currently being
trained by US advisors. US warships off Colombia's coasts would
support the intervention with missile attacks and air strikes.
The report noted that McCaffrey held private talks with Peruvian
presidential advisor Vladimiro Montesinos, the head of SIN and
a powerful figure in Alberto Fujimori's regime. Montesinos has
frequently been linked to human rights violations in Peru and
some reports have tied him to narcotics trafficking.
The television station did not report Peruvian president's
attitude toward the US intervention plan. It did add, however,
that Peru had already deployed 5,000 troops to the Colombian
border, as well as four warships with Peruvian Special Forces
and Marine units. This report was in part confirmed by a Lima
newspaper report the same week that 2,000 Peruvian soldiers had
been deployed to the remote Colombian border.
McCaffrey's tour also prompted revelations in the Argentine
media about plans for closer military ties between the two countries.
Argentine President Carlos Menem had already declared in July
that he would send troops: "If Colombia requests it, Argentina
because of solidarity, will be there." Given that elections
take place in Argentina on October 24, McCaffrey met with Peronist
presidential candidate Eduardo Duhalde and Alliance candidate
Fernando de la Rua, as well as Menem.
At a Buenos Aires press conference attended by government
ministers, the heads of three security forces, SIDE secret service
chief Hugo Anzorreguy and local drug czar Eduardo Amadeo, McCaffrey
was interrupted by Interior Minister Carlos Corach. Corach announced
that FARC guerrillas had their own representative in Argentina
named Javier Calderon, who had met in Neuquen province with certain
union leaders and continued to do so.
The annual report of the United States DEA (Drug Enforcement
Agency) released in February stated that Argentina was becoming
a preferred route of transit for drugs from Bolivia, Peru and
Colombia. McCaffrey endorsed this, saying, "Clearly there
is drug smuggling heading out of Buenos Aires to the US and probably
Europe too, all of it hidden among quantities of legal commerce."
In August the El Clarin newspaper carried reports detailing
US involvement in Argentina that could open the way to the installation
of ground bases in the country. The report said that few functionaries
wanted to talk about it, and they reacted nervously as Miguel
Angel Toma, secretary of security, answered: "I discredit
any claim which says there is a [North American] plan to establish
an operative base." But he confirmed the existence of a
combined US-Argentine operation under way in Salta that could
constitute the beginning of such a project.
For over a year, members of the Gendarmeria Nacional police
and the DEA have carried out an operation called"Operativo
Area Frontera Norte," occupying a rented house in Calle
Santiago del Estero in the provincial capital, Salta. About 30
Argentine policemen work there independently of their chain of
command, under US supervision.
At his meeting with Argentine President Menem, McCaffrey talked
about the deployment of a US "army delegation." An
intelligence source said that McCaffrey prefers that term to
"military base" because Argentine law forbids the presence
of foreign troops on national territory.
A source close to the governor of Salta, Juan Carlos Romero,
admitted that he knew about the operation but his opinion was
never requested nor was he officially informed. "The government
of this province does not know about the movements of that group,"
the source declared. Members of the group went to the US to be
trained and have carried out special operations in Bolivia. DEA
agents, just arrived from the US, visit Salta every week to complete
the group's training. The autonomy of the group has generatedtensions
among the local authorities.
El Clarin said McCaffrey's warm reception in Argentina was
bound up with the government's desire to be accepted into the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which has thus far dealt
Menem an embarrassing rejection. Facilitating these installations
would not only demonstrate the seriousness with which the Argentine
government approaches membership in the Western military alliance,
but also its willingness to take concrete actions during the
few remaining months of Menem's government.
An army source explained that there is another reason: "Brazil's
refusal to accept an expansion of the US presence, under a strategic-military
pretext or to reinforce the war against drugs." Brazil not
only has refused to cooperate with an armed multinational intervention
in Colombia, but it sees in the expansion of military facilities
in Colombia a threat that US intelligence would be directed toward
the control of the whole Amazon region.
On September 5, El Clarin reported that the Argentine government
had offered Washington the use of an army training ground in
the Misiones jungle for a training operation by the US Army Green
Berets. The US Army Southern Command is interested in finding
new training grounds to replace the loss of its base in Panama.
The plan is to allow the Green Berets to train commandos in
the Argentine army school in Misiones in exchange for the payment
of the school's costs. Argentine soldiers already train together
with the Green Berets every two or three years, but after this
accord they would train more often.
