By Tod Robberson / The Dallas Morning News
PUERTO LLERAS, Colombia - The military described a three-day battle here last month as one of the greatest victories in the government's 35-year war against the guerrilla Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
Reportedly taking advantage of U.S.-supplied aircraft, logistical support and equipment, the Colombian air force launched a swift and devastating airborne assault on this southern riverside town as the military attempted to quell a nationwide offensive by the rebels, known as the FARC. For 72 hours, the aircraft strafed and bombed several hundred guerrillas, forcing them to retreat from Puerto Lleras and leaving scores of rebels dead.
But military aircraft also strafed and bombed much of the civilian population in its quest for victory, killing three residents and wounding several others, according to several residents. Dozens of buildings, including houses, a hospital, a church and a convent, were pounded from the sky.
Human-rights groups say the attack calls into question the safeguards that the U.S. government insists it is placing on the use of American military and counternarcotics aid, including a nearly $300 million package destined Colombia this year. The United States insists its aid is strictly for use in counternarcotics operations, although it can be used against insurgents deemed to be supporting the drug trade.
Colombian air force Gen. Angel Mario Calle, operational commander of the Puerto Lleras air assault, denied that military aircraft fired on civilian areas. He insisted that the damage to civilian areas was inflicted by the FARC.
At the time of the airborne assault, hundreds of FARC guerrillas had surrounded and attacked a police station defended by about 60 police officers. Guerrillas were reportedly swarming through the streets, firing weapons and attempting to demolish the fortified police headquarters with homemade bombs.
Several blocks away from the scene of that attack, however, there is widespread physical evidence that the military's airborne assault was directed at civilian-occupied areas of Puerto Lleras. The evidence backs up consistent witness accounts provided by local government officials, residents and rescue workers that aircraft opened fire on residential areas.
There are conflicting Colombian accounts about any role that U.S. equipment and military personnel played in the airborne assault.
The Colombian air force commander, Gen. Edgar Alfonso Lesmes, told reporters shortly after the attack that U.S. aircraft participated in the operation, providing logistical and administrative support and helping transport Colombian ground troops. Gen. Calle later said that at no time did U.S. personnel participate in the attack, nor was U.S. intelligence supplied to help guide military aircraft against the guerrillas.
Gen. Lesmes said the Colombian aircraft used in the pursuit operation were U.S.-supplied Black Hawk and UH-1H helicopters, and OV-10 Broncos and Hercules C-130 transport planes. Witnesses quoted by Colombian newspapers said they identified American flags on the tail fins of some aircraft.
The aircraft involved in the assault were stationed at the nearby Apiay air base, which is where an American de Havilland RC-7 spy plane was based before it crashed into a mountain July 23, killing five U.S. military personnel and two Colombians.
According to Colombian air force officers, about 20 American servicemen were stationed at Apiay at the time of the Puerto Lleras assault. Earlier this year, the air base provided support for the U.S. Air Force 204th Military Intelligence Battalion.
The U.S. Embassy did not respond to written questions about the assault.
Lt. Col. John Snyder, a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command, said the Americans based at Apiay as well as elsewhere in Colombia are strictly limited to participation in counternarcotics activities.
"Because that was a purely military operation directed at the FARC, we would not have had any troops involved. That's not what we're in the business of doing down there," he said.
Gen. Calle insisted that his airmen follow strict rules of engagement that prohibit them from firing on any area where civilians might be present, even if guerrillas are mixed with the civilians.
"We do not shoot when there is any risk whatsoever to the civilian population," Gen. Calle said, suggesting that civilian accounts of the airborne attack were part of a "misinformation" campaign by guerrilla sympathizers.
"This is a war of words. The guerrillas' objective is to make us look like murderers before the international media," he said.
But according to witnesses here, Colombian airmen strafed a hospital flying a red-cross flag and whose roof was marked with a large red cross. About 400 civilians were seeking shelter there at the time. One of them was hit in the foot by a bullet fired from a helicopter. In all, about a dozen high-caliber rounds were embedded in walls and floors of the hospital after entering through the roof.
Military aircraft also fired on a clearly marked ambulance carrying wounded civilians for evacuation, a hospital nurse said, asking not to be identified.
Next door to the hospital, a rocket slammed into the roof of a Catholic convent, blowing apart two rooms. Aircraft raked a church roof with bullets, along with a nearby park. They fired .50-caliber rounds through the roof of the local government building, according to a report by the federal ombudsman's office.
Farther down the street, aircraft strafed houses and stores. Inside one, baker Jose Alberto Moreno and three family members were hiding in a bathroom, taking advantage of a 5-inch-thick concrete ceiling to shield them from the bullets raining from the sky, family members said. The thin corrugated roofing that covered the rest of their bakery already had been riddled with bullets fired from passing aircraft, they said.
As the Morenos huddled in the bathroom, an aircraft fired down again, hitting a gas canister near the bathroom. The gas ignited, burning the clothes off the occupants and sending the Morenos running naked into the street, screaming for help. Three of the four died a few days later. The survivor, Angelica Ladino, 19, is recuperating in Bogota. She declined to comment.
Mr. Moreno's daughter, Elvia Velgara, 25, who was not in Puerto Lleras during the attack, said she gathered accounts from her wounded family members shortly before they died at a hospital in the city of Villavicencio.
She quoted her brother, Jose Alberto Moreno Jr., as saying that he had been accused by soldiers in Puerto Lleras of being a guerrilla and that they had threatened to kill him. When he arrived in Villavicencio, soldiers blocked his entry into a hospital, again accusing him of being a guerrilla, Ms. Velgara said. He died a day later, after being admitted.
Around the corner from the Morenos' bakery, Pericles Duran Bautista and his family were huddling inside their house on the morning of July 10 when military aircraft swooped down, opening fire.
"Maybe they thought the boys [guerrillas] were occupying the house. I don't know," the 53-year-old truck driver said.
Bullets riddled his roof, with one hitting his truck and setting it on fire. In one room, a bullet pierced the roof and and embedded itself 4 to 5 inches in a solid concrete slab.
"The government acts like we are all with the guerrillas just because they occupied our town," Mr. Duran said. "We are civilians, not combatants. Why are we being punished?"
Hector Manuel Beltran, a local judge, said it was apparent that most of the damage to residential areas away from the police station was inflicted by military aircraft.
"It is what you would expect. They spent two or three days attacking by air. In battle, one cannot be sure who will be hit," he said.
President Andres Pastrana visited Puerto Lleras shortly after the attack and pledged up to $5,000 in reparations for families who lost their houses and stores.
If the government values the 3,000 to 5,000 civilians living in Puerto Lleras, it is not apparent today on the town's streets. Rubble from the battle still covers several blocks. The military and police have withdrawn entirely from Puerto Lleras. The mayor and most local government officials have fled. Only a lone civilian police inspector remains.
Two weeks ago, FARC rebels briefly returned to Puerto Lleras but have not returned since. Many townspeople say they fear that right-wing paramilitary groups, which visited the town Saturday, will exact revenge on civilians they accuse of helping the guerrillas. Two people were reportedly killed execution-style over the weekend.
This is not the first time such allegations against the air force have arisen. The military is investigating allegations that 17 civilians in the northern town of Narino, in Antioquia province, were killed in an airborne military assault aimed at dislodging FARC guerrillas who occupied the town in early August. In December at the town of Santo Domingo, 200 miles northeast of Bogota, 18 civilians were killed when a U.S.-supplied OV-10 attack plane and assault helicopters fired on the town in a counternarcotics operation.
Human-rights groups say the incidents underscore the dangers posed by a U.S. policy of sharing intelligence, weaponry, expertise, aircraft and war materiel with a Colombian military whose record on human rights is checkered.
"We are deeply concerned," said Carlos Salinas, who monitors Colombia for the human-rights group Amnesty International.
"One of the hallmarks of the conflict in Colombia is the tendency of all sides - including the armed forces - to attack the civilian population without remorse," Mr. Salinas said. "This would not be the first time the civilian population has been grouped as being with the enemy merely for having lived close to the scene of an attack."
©1999 The Dallas Morning News