World 5:32 AM GMT+8, Monday August 30

US proposes Latin military intervention in Colombia

LIMA, Aug 29 (AFP) - US anti-drug czar Barry McCaffrey has informally urged Latin leaders to organize a military intervention force to pacify Colombia, a Peruvian TV newscast reported Sunday. McCaffrey reportedly made the statements in off-the-record personal talks with the presidents of Brazil, Bolivia, Peru and Argentina, according to Frecuencia Latina - Channel 2. Frecuencia Latina -- a station that has close ties with the Peruvian military intelligence service, SIN -- reports that the multinational force would intervene in early 2000 acting on a request by Colombian President Andres Pastrana.

At every stop of his recent Latin tour McCaffrey publicly denied plans for any direct US intervention in Colombia. Top US State Department officials have also forcefully denied plans for a US military intervention in Colombia.

According to Frecuencia Latina the scenario would develop in the following manner:

• Pastrana would try to reach an agreement with the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country's leading rebel group.
• If peace is not reached by January, Pastrana would declare a state of internal war in Colombia and call on regional aid to help pacify his country.
• An intervention force of Peruvian, Ecuadoran and Brazilian soldiers would join forces with five Colombian army batallions currently being trained by US advisers to fight the rebels. -- US warships off Colombia's Caribbean and Pacific coasts would support the allied intervention with missile attacks and air strikes. -- The station reported that Peru has already deployed 5,000 soldiers -- all veterans of the war with Peruvian leftist rebels -- on the border with Colombia, as well as four warships with Peruvian Special Forces and Marine units. A Lima newspaper report earlier in the week that 2,000 Peruvian soldiers had been depoloyed to the remote Colombian border. -- The station said that McCaffrey held an off-the-record interview with presidential adviser Vladimiro Montesinos, the controversial head of the SIN widely seen as the second most powerful person in Peru. It did not report Fujimori's stance on the plan.

In 1997 Frecuencia Latina aired several controversial reports of torture carried out by SIN members.

By mid-year Fujimori stripped Israeli-born station owner Baruch Ivcher of his nationality, and Fujimori supporters took over the station.