For Decades, Colombia's Shadowy FARC Rebel Group Was Suspected Of Drug-Trade Activity. Now, Though, Colombian And Foreign Authorities Are Arresting Rebels In Trafficking Cases.

BOGOTA - As far as drug busts go, this one was huge: seven tons of cocaine found in a small underground compartment at the rear of a farmhouse in central Venezuela.

But as important as the drugs were the armbands also found at the site last year -- from the 16th Front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

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Despite Sending Army Reinforcements To A Southern Province Where Farc Guerrillas Have Declared An 'Armed Strike,' Colombia's Government Is Having Trouble Regaining Control

ORITO, Colombia -- Red and orange flames engulfed the 80-foot trees and rolled down a hill toward the small stream that passed through a hamlet. A plume of black smoke snaked toward the sky.

Celimo Solano said he ran from the nearby farm where he was working to see if his house had been caught up in the oil fire after leftist guerrillas blew up a 12-inch pipeline. It had not, but the rebels urged the 61-year old Solano and his wife to move away for their own safety.

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The Colombian Air Force Airlifted In Food Amid The FARC Rebels' Blockade In The Strife-Torn State Of Putumayo, Where A Lack Of Supplies Is Growing Critical

PUERTO ASIS, Colombia - No gasoline. No electricity. No running water. For more than a week, residents of this ramshackle city have been living in fear and deprivation since rebels declared the state of Putumayo in southern Colombia a no-drive zone and began blowing up bridges, electrical towers and oil production facilities.

As the crisis deepened, a Colombian Air Force C-130 on Thursday airlifted out 82 stranded civilians from Puerto Asis -- Putumayo's main city -- after ferrying in 12 tons of food.

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Rebels Declare Southern State No-Drive Zone

PUERTO ASIS (AP) -No gasoline. No electricity. No running water. This ramshackle city has been living in fear and deprivation since Colombian rebels declared the southern state of Putumayo a no-drive zone just over a week ago and began blowing up bridges, electrical towers and oil production facilities.

With shortages worsening in the region, a Colombian air force C-130 ferried in 12 tons of food Thursday and then flew out at night carrying 82 civilians who had been stranded in Puerto Asis, the state's main city.

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Coast Guard Cutter Patrols Off Colombia For Cocaine

Aboard the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Gallatin, off the coast of Colombia - -- Deep blue water churns on all sides, its movement as constant and unpredictable as the drug smugglers this ship is here to track.

"I bet they tarp tonight," one crewman said, referring to a technique in which smugglers toss large tarpaulins over their speedboats to prevent detection.

It's been a week since the Coast Guard cutter intercepted a "lancha rapida," known to the crew as a "go-fast boat." That boat's four occupants now are handcuffed to a railing on the Gallatin's lower deck, and the 4,000 pounds of cocaine they were transporting from Colombia to Mexico is locked in a cargo hold.

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BOGOTA, Colombia - Police captured a suspected leader of a drug cartel believed to have trafficked half the cocaine sold in the United States in the 1990s, officials said yesterday.

Commandos acting on a tip seized Jose Aldemar Rendon as he was jogging Thursday outside Medellin, Colombia's second largest city about 250 kilometres northwest of the capital, said police Col. Jaime Gutierrez.

Mr. Rendon, accused of being a leader of the Norte del Valley cartel, was on a list of alleged cocaine kingpins sought by U.S. authorities under a court order handed down in New York. The U.S. government offered up to $5 million reward for his capture.

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The Colombian Rebel Group FARC Has Extended Its Operations Beyond Its Country's Borders And Is Involved In Politics As Well As A Range Of Illegal Activities

BOGOTA - A series of recent arrests around Latin America have revealed that the FARC, Colombia's oldest and largest leftist guerrilla group, is involved in everything from political lobbying to kidnappings and drug and weapons trafficking.

The discovery of links that allegedly are focused in Venezuela but extend from Argentina to Mexico has created new worries in Colombia, its immediate neighbors and other parts of Latin America.

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BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - Leftist rebels killed at least 25 soldiers in separate clashes Saturday in Colombia, the highest number of deaths in a single day for the military since President Alvaro Uribe came to power three years ago on pledges of crushing the guerrillas. Another 18 soldiers were reported missing.

Fighting broke out in southwestern Putumayo state when as many as 300 rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, ambushed an army convoy during an attack targeting several nearby oil wells, said Gen. Carlos Lemus, inspector general of the army.

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White House Says Cocaine Levels Are Down, But Some Analysts Disagree

Estimates on last year's cocaine trade:

South American production* White House drug office: 640 metric tons United Nations: 670 metric tons U.S. task force: 1,390 metric tons

Seizures State Department: 373 metric tons

Consumption White House drug office: 300 metric tons in U.S. alone.

* South America provides virtually the world supply of cocaine. By U.S. and Latin American authorities.

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA - As proof that the U.S.-backed drug war in South America is paying off, the Bush administration says cocaine production has plummeted by nearly 30 percent over the past three years.

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Paramilitaries Desperate To Make Big Bucks Before They Demobilize Are Smuggling Out Much Larger Quantities Of Cocaine -- Leading To More Seizures

BOGOTA - Paramilitary leaders are rushing to sell millions of dollars' worth of cocaine before they demobilize so they can retire wealthy from Colombia's protracted war, a top military commander said Thursday.

Navy chief Adm. Mauricio Soto said in an interview with The Associated Press that the paramilitary United Self Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, is shipping an unprecedented amount of stored cocaine from the country ahead of their demobilization, which is under way as part of a peace deal with the government. As a result, cocaine seizures have shot up, as traffickers try to smuggle out more shipments, Soto said.

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Critics See Possibility Of 'Environmental Mischief'

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- A group of Colombian scientists believe they've found a way to wipe out cocaine production: Unleash an army of hungry moth caterpillars. But critics of the proposal say the chance for "ecological mischief" is high.

The plan envisions breeding thousands of beige-coloured Eloria Noyesi moths in laboratories, packing them into boxes and releasing them into steamy coca-growing regions of Colombia, the world's main supplier of the drug. The moths, about twice the size of a fly, are native only to the Andean region of South America.

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BOGOTA,Colombia (AP) -- A group of Colombian scientists believe they've found a way to wipe out cocaine production: unleash an army of hungry moth caterpillars. But critics of the proposal say the chance for "ecological mischief" is high.

The plan envisions breeding thousands of beige-colored Eloria Noyesi moths in laboratories, packing them into boxes and releasing them into steamy coca-growing regions of Colombia, the world's main supplier of the drug. The moths, about twice the size of a fly, are native only to the Andean region of South America.

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Residents Of San Onofre In Northern Colombia Accuse Paramilitary Forces Of Murdering Hundreds And Burying The Bodies On A Farm Outside Their Town. But A Propsed Bill Would Ensure That The Paramilitaries, Even If They Confess, Would Only Receive Mild Priso

SAN ONOFRE, COLOMBIA - Wielding a trowel and crouched inside a 4-foot-long grave, a forensic dentist scraped dirt from the jawbone of an unidentified person believed to have been executed by paramilitaries.

Noting that the foot bones lay next to the skull, the investigator said that 15 of the 16 bodies uncovered on this cattle ranch in recent weeks had been hacked to pieces, a time-saving tactic that allowed the killers to dig smaller graves.

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BOGOTA - After pouring $3 billion into Plan Colombia, the United States is about to be betrayed by one of its closest allies in the fight against drugs and terror. The Colombian government is putting the final touches on a scheme to launder the criminal records of top paramilitary commanders - including some of the country's most powerful drug lords - while allowing them to keep their wealth and maintain their control over much of the country. Should the plan be approved, it will be an enormous setback for U.S. counternarcotics and counterterror efforts, as well as for human rights in Colombia.

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Pins Hopes On New Lightning-Fast Vessel

Midnight Express Chase Boat Of Choice

PLAYA SIETE OLAS, Colombia - The beach known as Siete Olas, or Seven Waves, arches away to the west -- a long and deserted belly of off-white sand girdled by lacy pleats of Caribbean surf and an aquamarine sea.

A broad, green promontory shelters the bay, and the late-morning sun beats down from a powder-blue sky.

This ought to be paradise, and in some ways it is, but it is also Colombia -- and that means drugs.

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Colombia: It All Comes Together In A Country Where Drug Lords Rise From The Dead And Smugglers Never Run Out Of Lucrative Schemes

His name is Wilber Varela, his criminal alias is Jabon -- or "Soap" -- and he has killed more people than you could easily count.

A month ago, he was supposed to be dead.

Now, it seems that Wilber Varela is alive and well and back at his day job, shipping illegal narcotics to foreign markets, mainly in the United States.

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This is the last in a three-part series on Colombia's drug war.

SANTA RITA, Colombia - A sombre, soft-spoken coffee grower named Benito Vargas rests on a small wooden veranda in the shade of a large guayabo tree and denies that there's malfeasance in these green hills.

"I've lived here for 24 years," he says, referring to this small hamlet in the verdant mountains of southern Colombia, "and I've never seen any illicit plants."

By "illicit plants," Vargas means either poppies (the raw material for heroin) or coca (the raw material for cocaine).

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Colombian authorities have seized $US350 million ($460 million) worth of cocaine stashed on a jungle riverbank by far-right paramilitary groups in what police called the biggest cocaine bust in history.

Police and navy personnel confiscated 13.8 tonnes of cocaine hidden on the banks of the River Mira, near the Pacific Ocean port of Tumaco in southern Colombia, in an operation that ended on Friday.

With a street value of about $US25,000 a kilogram in the US, where police think the drugs were headed, the cocaine would sell for a total of about $US350 million.

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The Allegations of Arms Trafficking Are Latest Blow to Relations Between the Two Nations

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA - Colombian police announced Wednesday that two American soldiers have been arrested in a plot to traffic ammunition, the second time in recent weeks that U.S. troops stationed here were detained on smuggling allegations.

The Americans were captured Tuesday in the town of Carmen de Apicala, 56 miles southwest of Bogota, after authorities raided a condominium there and found 32,900 rounds of ammunition of various calibers, according to National Police Chief Jorge Daniel Castro.

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Officials Say the Soldiers Were Found in a House With More Than 30,000 9-Millimeter Rounds.

BOGOTA, Colombia In the second embarrassing incident involving U.S. troops here in a little more than a month, Colombian police have detained two U.S. soldiers on suspicion of arms smuggling near a large military base in this nation's heartland, officials said Wednesday.

The soldiers, whose names, ranks and duties were not disclosed, were arrested Tuesday in a condominium near the town of Carmen de Apicala with a "big quantity" of ammunition, Colombian Police Chief Jorge Daniel Castro told local radio.

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