JCS chief meets Colombia counterpart for first time since late-90s

The commanding officer of Colombia’s military forces made a quiet appearance at the Pentagon on Thursday for talks with Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin E. Dempsey — a rare face-to-face between the highest-level uniformed commanders from the two nations, military officials said.

While Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has met with his civilian counterpart in Colombia multiple times during the past two years, the Pentagon visit by Gen. Juan Pablo Rodriguez Barragán is believed to be the first such high-level meeting in Washington since the late-1990s.

“This is Gen. Dempsey’s first meeting with Gen. Rodriguez since he assumed duties as commander of military forces in February 2014,” said one military official, who verified the meeting to The Washington Times on condition of anonymity because there was no authorization to discuss it publicly.

The official added that the meeting covered a range of topics including the future of Colombia’s military in a post-conflict environment and lessons learned from counterinsurgency campaigns in the South American nation.

For the past five decades, Colombian armed forces have been battling with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, a U.S. designated terrorist group. Colombian military efforts to defeat the FARC have, over more recent years, emulated U.S. counterinsurgency campaigns in Afghanistan.

Military officials say the two countries have traded counterinsurgency tips and that the military-to-military relationship between the two has grown stronger in recent years.

In 2012, the Pentagon announced that it would help Colombian forces in their fight against the FARC by providing five U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopters and five commercial aircraft, according to the Associated Press. The Colombian Army received the first of that equipment in fall 2013.

The official who spoke on condition of anonymity with The Times said that in addition to the Dempsey meeting, Gen. Rodrigues discussed security issues with U.S. Marine Corps Commander Gen. James Amos and with Rebecca Chavez, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Western Hemisphere affairs.