Pubdate: Sun, 11 Oct 1998 Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA) Contact: http://www.sjmercury.com/ Author: Diana Jean Schemo New York Times WAR CLOSING IN ON DRUG JUNCTION Military, insurgent pressures paralyze town in Colombia CALAMAR, Colombia -- The bloody struggle over the future of Colombia, raging between shadowy groups of men and women with masks and false names, is closing in on Calamar, a main transit point in the coca trade scratched out of the jungle 20 years ago by the refugees of earlier conflicts in this stricken country. Many residents have not left the town, less than a square mile, in a year. The only road out is controlled by paramilitaries who have established a checkpoint a few miles from the nearest military base and charge coca growers and food suppliers simply to get their products in and out of town. Residents here fear that checkpoint. They fear dying for simply coming from Calamar, which the paramilitaries label a rebel support base. In the last year, residents say, more than 100 local people have been executed by the paramilitaries. Isolated by violence ``We're calm, but we're all very tense,'' said Amparo Gomez, 43, whose family owns a bakery and billiard hall. ``We're surrounded.'' Patrolling the streets a few hours each day and controlling the surrounding forests are rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, Latin America's oldest and most powerful insurgency. The rebels have battered government military bases over the past two years, and the newly inaugurated government of President Andres Pastrana has pledged to open peace talks with them by early November. This region produces 65 percent of Colombia's coca. The people of Calamar do not grow coca, but their economy depends on it. Trucks laden with gasoline to process coca leaves into paste rumble through. Peasants come to sell coca paste. Pilots stop to rest and load up for the next flight out from a clandestine airstrip. ``We're not the authors of the conflict, but we are its victims,'' said Luiz Eduardo Betancourt, the local official responsible for denouncing human rights violations by government employees. Terror began a year ago, after hundreds of paramilitaries, led by Carlos Castano, invaded the town of Mapiripan, 80 miles northeast of here, killing at least 14 people during a five-day siege, according to the Colombian Commission of Jurists, a human rights organization. Panic spreads In May, Castano's men massacred 14 peasants in Puerto Alvira, east of Mapiripan. Two months ago they appeared just north of Calamar. Rumor spread that uniformed army and police officers were among the paramilitaries. Panic spread. Now, any helicopter that passes overhead drives residents to the streets with radios, madly tuning to the helicopter's radio frequency to see if troops are flying in. Others dash for the forest. Newcomers, seen as possible informers for the paramilitaries, are allowed to move here only if a local resident vouches for them. In conversation, people avoid blaming one side or the other for the terror that circumscribes their lives. Though heavily armed, the rebels appear respectful, paying for purchases and chatting with locals over soda. In a town that has long suffered from government neglect, the rebels impose a harsh order. They banned commercial fishing in the Guaviare River to replenish fish stock, persuaded residents to plant trees in the park and cracked down on unruliness. Men no longer get away with killing, beating or throwing out their wives, women in the town said. Calamar has never been easy. Gomez arrived 25 years ago, when there were no roads and only a tractor could get through the rain forest. To sell produce, the entire family would trek 30 miles to the state capital, San Jose del Guaviare. Relative success Gomez and her husband, Carlos, who had come here after nearly starving elsewhere in Colombia, started out planting yucca, corn, rice and other subsistence crops. Six years ago, they had enough money to open the bakery and buy a few pool tables. ``Do we leave it all now?'' Gomez said. Some residents say they feel safer with the insurgents nearby to fend off any paramilitary raid. For all its hardships, Calamar has a feeling of community that is hard-won in Colombia, and not easily abandoned. Tatiana Rubio, a 20-year-old waitress and single mother, arrived a year ago. ``People here watch out for each other,'' she said. ``It's not like that everywhere.'' Few trust the military to protect them. The central government says it has tried to crack down on military connivance with death squads, but most residents here believe the paramilitaries include active or retired security officers. ``How else is it that you'll have a military checkpoint on one road, and a few hundred meters away have a paramilitary roadblock?'' Gomez said. ``Why doesn't the military shut them down?'' - --- Checked-by: Mike Gogulski