Pubdate: Wed, 20 Sep 2000
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2000 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  1150 15th Street Northwest, Washington, DC 20071
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Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Author: Steven Dudley, Special to The Washington Post

BATTLE BREWS OVER PLAN COLOMBIA

PUERTO ASIS, Colombia - Violence is not new to Puerto Asis, a town of 
45,000 where rightist paramilitary groups and left-wing guerrillas fight 
for control of the surrounding drug-growing area. But fear and uncertainty 
grip the city these days as the Colombian government, with $1.3 billion in 
U.S. funding, prepares an offensive to reestablish government control and 
wipe out the drug-producing plantations here in province of Putumayo.

As part of the government's $7.5 billion Plan Colombia, the United States 
is sending intelligence equipment and 60 helicopters to security forces 
here and is training troops to retake this forgotten region 350 miles 
southwest of Bogota and eradicate an estimated 120,000 acres of coca, the 
raw material of cocaine.

President Andres Pastrana's government has portrayed Plan Colombia as a 
strategy for peace that will include social and economic programs for small 
farmers so they can turn away from growing coca. But in Puerto Asis, people 
have heard only of plans to beef up the military, and they expect police to 
start spraying chemicals on their fields, their livestock and on them, too.

"When they take this coca away from us, the war is really going to start," 
said one elderly farmer as he walked through the acre of coca that he says 
supports his five children. "I may be a little bit older, but I'll grab my 
rifle and defend myself and even kill if I have to."

At the behest of the country's largest guerrilla group--the Revolutionary 
Armed Forces of Colombia, known by its acronym in Spanish as the 
FARC--thousands of coca farmers in Putumayo and other southern states 
marched in protest of the previous government's plan to eradicate coca with 
herbicides in 1996. The protests turned violent, and several peasants were 
killed in clashes with the army. Many of the protest leaders subsequently 
joined the guerrillas.

Local government officials, unions and human rights organizations from four 
southern Colombian states and 50 delegates from neighboring Ecuador held a 
conference here last week to protest the policy of spraying the fields. The 
two-day event, called "The South Responds," culminated in a rally under the 
searing midday heat in the central square of Puerto Asis, where U.S. 
Embassy and U.N. officials listened to people complain that they do not 
want to be caught up in a war over drugs.

"We're not fighting here or making the war worse," Mayor Manuel Alzate told 
a crowd of villagers and farmers, many of whom carried anti-Plan Colombia 
banners. "We want peace and a Putumayo without coca."

Alzate said 43 villages in the area are ready to participate in a plan to 
eradicate coca manually, instead of using chemicals, and to replace it with 
other cash crops and industries. But any progress toward the mayor's goal 
of eliminating the coca from his municipality in three years hinges on the 
FARC's willingness to allow the project to move forward.

The guerrillas have said they oppose Plan Colombia, and last month they 
allegedly killed a community leader and a member of the CMDR, the 
government's rural development organization, who was trying to implement 
Alzate's project.

"The CMDR has ceased to exist here," said Eder Sanchez, the organization's 
leader, who added that some people have been threatened with death by the 
rebels unless they renounce their association with the mayor.

But the FARC does not seem to have a uniform approach. Local developer 
Dagoberto Martinez said he has gotten the rebels' temporary blessing to use 
government money to implement a fish-farming project involving 102 
families. Still, Martinez is worried.

"It is one thing to talk to them and another thing to get them to honor 
their word," Martinez said while launching fish feed into one of 10 
man-made ponds on the outskirts of town.

About 10 miles from the fish farm, locals say the FARC is preparing them 
for the hand-to-hand combat that they expect to start once the U.S.-backed 
military offensive against them begins. Farmers say they have been forced 
to attend eight-day self-defense courses, build trenches around their homes 
and obtain rifles--sometimes on credit from the guerrillas.

"They say we need to get guns in case of a paramilitary attack," said one 
farmer, who was afraid to give his name. "But really this is just a 
psychological attack on the people so that they follow the FARC's ideas or 
join them."

This same farmer said he was risking his life coming to the city since the 
paramilitaries that control the urban part of Puerto Asis would identify 
him as a guerrilla supporter because he lives under rebel domain. At about 
6 p.m. every evening, police stop patrolling the town, and militiamen begin 
circling the streets on off-road motorcycles looking for any sign of 
guerrilla activity.

Once pulsating with nightlife, many of the city's bars and brothels are now 
largely empty. Since cleansing the area of much of its rebel influence, 
locals say, the paramilitaries have begun a morality campaign that includes 
parading unfaithful husbands and drug addicts naked around town.

Both the mayor and district attorney of Puerto Asis have demanded that 
police and military do more to combat the right-wing groups, while human 
rights advocates have questioned U.S. involvement in a region where the 
militiamen operate without interference from the armed forces.

U.S. officials are said to be investigating these accusations and have 
temporarily suspended aid to the local army battalion.
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