Paramilitary supply operations in Panama uncovered, Colombia's political and military situation deteriorates

by Eric Jackson, mostly based on reports in other media

On June 16 Panamanian police arrested Luis Alberto Bernal Seiza, a top commander in the right wing AUC Colombian paramilitary group, as he attempted to cross into Costa Rica at Paso Canoa. Bernal was deported to Colombia on June 21, where he was detained by authorities pursuant to a warrant related to a 1991 massacre of 21 farmers. Meanwhile in Panama, police and prosecutors raided a series of businesses, apartments and farms used in an arms and people smuggling operation that the AUC ran from here.

Most noteworthy among the seizures was a purported aviation and skydiving school, the Asociacion Panameña de Aviacion, that operated out of the Chame airstrip, flying weapons into Colombia, and paramilitary leaders in and out of Panama. According to many accounts, recently resigned AUC leader Carlos Castaño came to Panama City a number of times, staying at apartments in Paitilla and San Francisco that were maintained by the AUC network that Bernal ran. The AUC flights, which went on for at least one year, surely would have been picked up on US and Colombian military radar. However, the Bush administration only recently put the AUC on the US government's official list of international terrorist groups - a dubious honor that the left wing FARC and ELN guerrillas have enjoyed for many years - and the Bernal arrest and subsequent police raids may be a sign of changing American policy.

In addition to eight planes, three, businesses, two Panama City apartments and a farm near San Francisco, Veraguas that were sequesteredd by Panamanian police, six other Colombian citizens were arrested in the raids that followed Bernal's arrest. The investigation into Bernal's background also indicated that he had come to the AUC paramilitary by way of the cocaine cartels, for whom he had been the personal pilot for the late drug kingpin Gonzalo Rodriquez Gacha.

Meanwhile in Colombia, the military and political situation has been sliding into an ever-worsening crisis. For examples:

On June 22 at Puerto Leguizamo, which is on the Putumayo River across from Ecuador, FARC rebels overran a Colombian military base, killing 30 soldiers and taking a number of prisoners. The base had been used to train Colombia's new special anti-narcotics units, which, however, were not there during the battle. Though American DynCorp civilian contractors were known to have been stationed there to conduct military training and operations, the US Southern Command did not answer The Panama News's questions about whether such personnel were at the base when the fighting took place. The attack was an unusual escalation by the FARC, which also reportedly took 26 losses of its own, and represented the government's heaviest losses in a single battle since its Plan Colombia offensive began.

On June 27 FARC kidnapped the vice-president of the Colombian Football Federation, Hernan Mejia Campuzano, in front of one of the stadiums where the Copa America tournament was to take place starting on July 11. Though Mejia was released a few days later, his kidnapping led to the tournament's postponement, then its resumption without one of the main contenders, the team from Argentina. The display of FARC's prowess in the end turned out to be a major political defeat for the guerrillas.

Far right presidential candidate Alvaro Uribe, who organized paramilitary units when he was governor of Antioquia in the mid-90s and enjoys at least the AUC's tacit support, has been creeping up in the polls, to the extent that in next May's elections he may displace President Pastrana's Conservative party as the main opposition to the front-running Liberals. At the same time, polls show that a solid majority of Colombians now oppose further concessions to the rebels, which Pastrana must make if the peace process that he began is to continue.

Though drug crop spraying in southern Colombia has proceeded ahead of schedule, many of the fields have been replanted as the Plan Colombia offensive moves north, toward the Panamanian border.

Despite US and Colombian actions against the AUC, Human Rights Watch reports that the alliance between the paramilitary and the Colombian Army remains strong. Meanwhile, rumors of a plot to put a right wing military-civilian junta in charge of the government in Bogota circulate in the press, and the Colombian congress has passed legislation that would establish something close to martial law in about 40 percent of the nation's territory.

also in this section The Bush administration's policy in our region The Andean Regional Initiative and Panama Uncle Sam's mercenary contract Preservationists target Fort Randolph News Briefs
©2001 The Panama News